It's around eight thirty when Gabriel finally gets home. Castiel debates going out to greet him, but decides against it. It's not like he'll never see his brother again; they're literally sleeping in the same room for the next week. Instead, Castiel focuses on the song he's attempting to write, but he's feeling rather uninspired at the moment. He strums the guitar aimlessly as he thinks, hoping the lyrics will come to him. They don't.

Gabriel flings the bedroom door open carelessly, then seems to remember that this isn't just his room. He apologizes halfheartedly before walking up to the younger boy, tilting his head awkwardly to see what Castiel is working on. Immediately, he shuts his song notebook so his elder brother can't see what he has written.

"How's the writing going?" Gabriel asks.

"Fine," Castiel lies.

He's pretty sure this is what writer's block feels like. It's a new experience for him, and one that's been stretching on for probably about a month, though he doesn't know the exact date it started. As someone whose career depends on him writing music, this probably isn't a good thing.

"Do you number your song notebooks?" Gabriel asks, eyeing the big 12 written on the front of his five subject notebook.

Castiel nods, sticking his notebook under the bed. "Yeah. I like to keep them organized, so I can look at the progression of my writing." Castiel stands up to lean his guitar against the wall.

"Stop being such an overachiever," Gabriel complains. "And I can't believe you're on your twelfth notebook. It took you, like, four years to fill up your first one. Now it only takes, like, six months."

"Not quite," Castiel replies. "I think my second on took me a year, and my eleventh took me just under three months. There's a bit of a range here. But now that my life is literally just about music, I write a lot more than I did as a sixth grader who did it on the side."

"Ah, true," he agrees. "Welp, I'm tired. Jet lag sucks ass, man."

"It's literally, like, three hours," Castiel reminds him. "It's not a big deal. Plus, isn't it earlier in California?"
Gabriel thinks about this for a moment. "Yeah, probably. But I'm tired anyway, so... goodnight."

~~

"Castiel. Hey, Castiel. Wake up."

Castiel sits up with a start when he feels a hand on his arm, nearly whacking the top bunk with his head. He's panting softly from some nightmare that disappeared with his wake up call.

"What time is it?" Castiel asks groggily.

"Like, three," Gabriel whispers.

"In the morning?"

"No, in the afternoon," Gabriel says sarcastically. "Yes, in the morning."

Castiel frowns. So, that's probably, like, two hours of sleep. That's not too bad, seeing as he can go back to sleep now.

"Are you okay?" Gabriel asks softly. "Sounded like you were having a nightmare."

"I'm fine," Castiel assures him. "Thanks. Sorry to wake you up."

"It's fine," Gabriel replies. "I'm going back to bed. 'Night."

"'Night," Castiel whispers back before lying down again. Now for the fun part. Falling back asleep again.

~~ (A/N Thanks to Winchester_At_Heart for inspiring this next part. If you haven't checked out the second additional chapter she wrote of this book on her own profile, you should do that.)

Castiel wakes up to see that it's already bright outside; the sunshine seeps through the blinds of his bedroom windows, creating lines of light on the wall. How late is it right now?

Castiel rolls out of bed, not bothering to fix up his hair or straighten his AC/DC t-shirt. He debates getting dressed, then decides to stay how he is because who doesn't love sweatpants? He rubs the sleep from his eyes and walks out into the kitchen, where he sees Gabriel reading something from a notebook with apparent interest. He sighs and snatches it from the boy.

"I forgot you did that," he mutters.

"It's literally two in the afternoon," Gabriel tells him. "I didn't know how late you were gonna sleep. It's not like I could've asked you if I could read it."

"Doesn't matter," Castiel replies. "You know I would've said no."

"So?"

Castiel rolls his eyes. "I'm gonna go put this away where you can't find it."

"Why?" Gabriel whines. "It's not like your songs are top secret anymore. I hear them on the radio all the time. Millions of people know every word, and I can't even read them once?"

"I've got twelve of these," Castiel reminds him. "I don't have twelve notebooks worth of songs released. Some of these are more personal than others."

"But you text Lucifer new song lyrics all the time!" Gabriel complains.

"Because I want someone to check them over and tell me if they suck and we both know Lucifer doesn't do anything with his life so I can always count on him to be there."

"True," Gabriel agrees. "But still. I don't feel included in the process."

"That's because you're not," Castiel tells him.

"And here you see a wild Castiel in his natural habitat," Lucifer says as if narrating a nature documentary.

Castiel glances over at him, doing a double take when he realizes the boy has his phone. He cocks his head in confusion. "What are you even doing? Videoing this?"

"Live streaming," Lucifer replies. "Hey, word of advice; when you don't want someone on your phone with the fingerprint reader, either don't hang your hand off the edge of the bed or don't leave your phone in plain sight."

"It wasn't in plain sight; it was in my backpack," Castiel mutters.

"Which was right next to an outlet," Lucifer adds. "That's pretty obvious. You need to up your hiding standards."

Castiel rolls his eyes. "Yeah, sure." He yawns, covering his mouth with his free hand while holding the song notebook in the other. "Have you just been waiting since you woke up to live stream me?"

Lucifer nods. "Yeah, pretty much."

"He recited the entire Bee Movie script three times," Gabriel adds. "I swear, I'm going to have the whole thing memorized by the time I leave here."

"Let's see!" Lucifer suggests. "Say it with me. According to all known laws of aviation..."

Gabriel rolls his eyes but joins in anyway. "A bee should not be able to fly."

"It's wings are too small to lift its fat little body off the ground," Castiel joins as well. "The bee, of course, flies anyway, because bees don't care what humans think is impossible."

Without his brothers, who have reached the end of what they know, Lucifer continues, "Yellow, black, yellow, black, yellow, black, yellow black. Ooh, black and yellow."

"Let's shake it up a little," Samandriel adds, walking into the room.

"Barry, time for breakfast!" Anna calls from somewhere else in the house.

"Coming!" Lucifer calls back. "Hold on a second!"

No one speaks for a moment. Lucifer gestures to Samandriel to continue. He cocks his head in confusion — Lucifer usually does all the parts himself, so no one really knows who says what.

"Barry?" Samandriel says uncertainly; he isn't as confident about this part.

"Adam?" Lucifer replies, then continues, "is your soulmate. I don't care that he moved away for college and that you were 'just friends' for, like, four years."

Samandriel rolls his eyes but doesn't dignify that with a response.

Castiel looks at the phone Lucifer's still live streaming from. "I'm so sorry you had to listen to that."

"If anyone is still watching, they want to hear Bee Movie," Gabriel tells him. "When I said he recited Bee Movie three times, I mean he live streamed himself doing it three times, full out, from memory, imitating each character's voice. I kid you not."

Castiel just raises an eyebrow. He's given up on questioning his brother. "So, I'm just gonna take my phone back," Castiel announces. "Sorry to anyone who suffered through this thinking something fun was going to happen. It's really just Lucifer being Lucifer. Alright, bye."

Castiel snatches the phone back from his brother and ends the live stream. Lucifer pouts, but he didn't put up a fight so Castiel guesses he didn't want it that bad. Then again, Lucifer doesn't really want anything but to have a little fun, and how can you not love that about him?