Transmission from the Trickster

Chapter 57

Gabriel is nearly silent for the remainder of the car ride. Sam tries every now and then to get him to talk, but he only gets one- or two-word answers. Needless to say, the ride back is not very fun, but Sam can't complain; he set out to find Gabriel and that's exactly what he did. He wasn't expecting it to be all fun and games, so he shouldn't be upset that it's not.

Sam parks the car in the garage, and as soon as he takes the key out of the ignition, Gabriel is standing on the other side of the door. Freaking angels, man. It's like they've never heard of a door handle.

They're silent as they head to the bunker. Sam has long since given up trying to get him to talk, but he's admittedly a bit wary to see how everyone else reacts to having him back. He's sure Gabriel is going to be bombarded by questions, and he doesn't want to put him through that. He just doesn't know what else to do.

Unsurprisingly, the war room is already full when Sam and Gabriel return. He'd been gone for hours; he would have been shocked if even Dean had managed to sleep in this long.

"You're back!" Jack says with a grin, beaming at the archangel.

"That I am," Gabriel replies, and Sam has to do a doubletake. He just sounds so... normal? The mourning and the brooding he'd been doing all morning is just gone. If Sam hadn't spent the last few hours with him, he wouldn't have known anything was wrong at all.

"And where have you two been?" Dean asks, cocking an eyebrow.

Before Sam can answer, Gabriel says a sarcastic, "Disney World."

Dean snorts. "Right, 'course."

Gabriel slides into an empty chair across and looks around. "So, what'd I miss?"

"A lot, actually," Mary says. "You don't have to worry about Asmodeus anymore. Jack took care of him."

Gabriel freezes at the sound of his name, only for a brief moment but enough that Sam notices. Regaining his composure, he grins and holds his hand out to the nephilim for a high-five. "Nicely done, kid."

Jack high-fives him, beaming, and Sam's not sure if it's because he's proud of killing Asmodeus or that he's proud that he understood the cue for a high-five.

"And, just for clarification," Gabriel says, "by 'took care of,' you mean he's dead, right?"

"He's very dead," Jack assures him. "I made sure of it."

"And this is why you're my favorite," Gabriel tells him.

Jack's smile grows impossibly bigger. "I'm just really glad everything worked out. Asmodeus is dead, Lucifer is dead, and no one's trying to take over or destroy the world."

Dean snorts. "Well, nothing supernatural is, but some of those politicians..." He lets out a low whistle.

Sam does pay attention to politics, even if he's legally dead and can't vote, so ordinarily that would have gotten at least a chuckle from him. This time, he's a little too focused on Gabriel to pay that quip any mind. He's putting on a good show of being fine, but Sam saw him freeze at the sound of Asmodeus's name; he saw his face falter at the mention of Lucifer's death. He's not okay. He made that abundantly clear when it was just the two of them, and even now, his charade can only hold so well.

No one else seems to notice, though, and Sam doesn't want to mention it in front of everyone else. Hell, he's not sure he wants to say anything to him at all. Sam is no stranger to pretending to be okay when he's not, so he knows first-hand what it's like to not want to talk. At the same time, though, he knows that sometimes talking does help, and he also knows that Gabriel really doesn't have anyone else to talk to.

"You know," Gabriel remarks, "if you got any specific politicians you don't like, I could..." He swipes a thumb across his throat, miming a decapitation.

"You are not killing any politicians," Castiel says firmly.

"Well..." Dean says, and he almost sounds like he's going to give Gabriel permission to go after one or two of them until Castiel death-glares him into submission and he shuts up.

"It's nice to see that politics haven't changed in the last few decades," Mary remarks.

"Politics won't change 'til everyone's dead," Gabriel says. "That's the beauty of it. It's just a constant supply of dicks to trick."

"You're not tricking anyone," Castiel says.

Gabriel clicks his tongue. "And that, my fine barely-feathered friend, is where you're wrong. I may be on hiatus from killing people for the time being, but no one said I couldn't still trick people."

Sam can see that Castiel is about to tell him off, but as far as Sam is concerned, if it makes Gabriel happy, he can do as he pleases. The poor guy needs something to cheer him up and this seems like the obvious answer, so Sam says, "You know what? If you're not hurting anyone, go for it. Give 'em their just desserts."

Gabriel snorts. "Just 'cause I'm not gonna kill anyone doesn't mean no one's getting hurt." With a smirk, he whispers, "Trust me, they're gonna get hurt a lot."

"Okay, so I'm gonna pull the plug on that, then," Sam says.

Gabriel pouts. "You never let me have any fun."