The rest of the day passed by in a blur. Sam told himself he didn't believe two words that had come out of Gabriel's mouth. He wouldn't. But the thought was there and as hard as he tried to just erase the entire memory, it kept nagging at him.

He spent most of his time with Lucifer, as usual, but they both knew his mind was elsewhere. After he'd zoned out once again during their final break, Lucifer apparently decided he'd had enough of it and Sam was awoken from his state of mind by the snapping of Lucifer's fingers.

The Winchester boy looked up in surprise. "Sorry... what?"

"Okay, Sammy, what's going on?" Lucifer asked with a frown. "You've been distracted all day. Did something happen?"

Sam opened his mouth... and closed it. Part of him wanted to tell Lucifer, just so his boyfriend could tell him exactly why it was all bullshit. That Gabriel was on Michael's side and didn't give a shit about Sam's feelings or Lucifer's, and that the Trickster just wanted attention. But then there was the other part. The teeny, tiny part that was scared that at least something Gabriel had said was right.

"Nothing, just... I don't know, tired I guess. Don't worry about it."

Lucifer gave him a suspicious look but dropped it nevertheless. "Wanna come over after school?"

"Sorry," Sam told him with a small apologetic smile. "Got some stuff to do."

Technically, he wasn't lying. He did have some stuff to do. Like asking Dean why the hell he'd been talking to Gabriel, for instance.

"Oh, alright," Lucifer said before throwing him that "innocent" smile of his. "We'll call it a rain check." Sam had a feeling he knew all too well what Lucifer meant by "rain check".

Either way, he just smiled and made sure to keep his head in the game for the rest of the conversation.

The remaining hours at school passed by like that, one hour fading into the next, until he eventually found himself waiting by Charlie's car. She'd driven them to school that morning. She and Dean joined him a couple minutes later and the three of them got in.

"So, guess what I found in my locker today?" Dean said with a grin while opening up his bag. If Sam hadn't been so upset with the whole Gabriel situation, he would've probably been happy to see his brother smile again.

To his surprise, Dean pulled out his leather jacket and shirt, both nicely cleaned as if nothing had ever happened. Sam's eyebrows shot up. He never would have taken Gabriel for the apologizing kind.

"Doesn't mean they aren't still gonna pay for what they did to Baby though," Dean continued. "Gonna make sure they'll never forget about that again."

Sam just remained silent. Charlie was almost like a sister to them but what Sam had to say he wanted to say in private.

They finally pulled up in front of their home and the Winchesters got out of the car. After a quick thanks and goodbye, they went inside and dropped their stuff in the living room.

"What do you want for dinner?" Dean asked. "Don't really feel like cooking to be honest. We can order take-out. Or go to the Roadhouse, say hi. Wait," he interrupted himself. "Never mind, we can't because of that asshole of a Trickster..."

"Yeah, about that," Sam commented. "When were you gonna tell me you've been talking to him about me?"

Dean frowned. "What? Me talking to the Trickster, what are you talking about?"

"Oh, right," Sam huffed. Yes, he was being salty but he'd be damned if he didn't deserve to be. "You probably know him as Gabriel."

He had to admit it gave him a strange sense of satisfaction to see Dean's eyes practically pop out of his head.

"Wha- That's not-," Dean stumbled. "You're shitting me, right?"

His younger brother shrugged. "I figured out who he was when he was pranking me, so I went to talk to him this morning. He actually had some very interesting stuff to say."

Dean let out a curse and ran a hand through his short light brown hair. "Sammy, listen, it's not what you think..."

"Isn't it?" Sam snapped at him. He hadn't realized he was this pissed, hell, maybe he wasn't even this pissed with Dean, but the ball of frustration in his stomach had apparently chosen to come out at this very moment. "'Cause he was being pretty damn clear when he said you two concocted a way to get me to break up with Lucifer. You even gave him permission to mess with you!"

Dean shook his head. "No no no no, hey, that's not how it happened, alright? He wanted to talk to you and I didn't see a reason to stop him. I didn't even know he was the Trickster!" Then he stopped himself.

"Let's just say I got some things... arranged. You don't have to do much, just agree with the plan, let it happen, don't get in the way..."

"Oh, that son of a bitch," Dean sighed. He'd known this was a bad idea... Well, not that Gabriel would personally ruin his car but still. "Listen, I tried to get out of it, okay? I really did but that jerkface didn't give me a chance to. I knew I shouldn't have interfered but the guy actually seemed to mean well and he sounded like he had something important to say. If I'd known what he was gonna do, I never would've let that piece of shit near you!" As he went to drop down on the couch, he grumbled something to himself along the lines of, "Can't believe I fell for that stupid trick..."

"Right," Sam said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Because your idea backfired. On your car."

His brother looked at him offendedly. "You honestly think I'd let a psychopath like that talk to you?"

Sam wanted to be angry at him, he did, but now that he'd said his piece, he honestly just felt empty. He didn't want to fight, he was just sick of everything in his life going wrong. So instead, he just mumbled, "Whatever," and took a seat next to Dean.

A couple of seconds passed in silence and then the older Winchester carefully asked, "So... did he have anything important to say?"

"I don't wanna talk about it."

Dean nodded. "Okay. That's cool."

They were quiet again, Dean not knowing what to say and Sam not in the mood to say anything at all. Dean could tell that much and he was willing to give Sammy all the space he needed but he was also a big brother. And his duty as a big brother was to make his little brother happy again.

"So, I've been thinking," he eventually started. "And you know, with the whole Lucifer and you thing, I thought we could maybe, if you want to, finally do some... well, introducing, you know."

Sam suddenly turned to him with wide eyes. "You want to meet Lucifer?"

"Shut up," Dean grumbled and started to the kitchen, where he got two beers from the fridge.

When he came back, Sam was looking at him with a genuinely happy smile and Dean had to suppress one of his own. Lucifer was gonna have a long way to go to get into his good books but for his brother he was willing to try. He handed Sam one beer and sat down as he opened his.

"Seriously though, you actually want to meet him?" the younger one asked. He was having trouble believing it.

"Just..." Dean made some vague hand gesture. Ugh, how he hated conversations like this. "All I'm saying is if you want to, you can... bring him over to our table during lunch or, I don't know, maybe invite him over for dinner or something."

Sam was doing his very best to control the enormous grin that was trying to push its way through. Of course he'd been hoping Dean would come around but he hadn't been expecting it to happen this soon.

"Thanks, Dean," he softly said, and then, because he knew how much his brother hated chick flick moments, "You promise not to shoot him?"

Dean burst out in laughter and if that wasn't exactly what Sam had been aiming for.

"Can't promise that," Dean grinned and took a sip from his beer. "You're my little brother. Gotta make sure the guy's got his priorities straight."

Sam rolled his eyes but smiled all the same. They just sat next to each other in silence for a while until Dean suggested they'd order pizza.

"Seriously?" Sam commented. "We're starting to basically have pizza every week."

"So?" Dean huffed.

"So variety is the spice of life."

He let out a dramatic sigh. "Fine, then what do you want to have?"

Sam shrugged. "Thai?"

His brother pouted his lips and gave it a thought. "Yeah alright, I can live with that."

~~~

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