Chapter 128

"No Lucifer again?" Jack observes that night.

"Thank god," Gabriel mutters. Maybe Sam was right; maybe Lucifer really going to leave them alone. He definitely won't complain about that.

"Yeah, I guess it's for the best," Jack says, though he sounds rather reluctant to say so. "I guess we don't need three people here."

With how often the author likes to make people overhear things, you're probably expecting Lucifer to be right around the corner and to get very upset at this. Fortunately, as the author was rereading this book (both as people were commenting and as she was trying to figure out wtf was happening), she realized that she uses that trope way too often and literally nothing ever comes of it, so that does happen this time. You're welcome.

"Well, where do we want to start?" Gabriel asks. "You seem to be getting the hang of telekinesis." He picked it up really fast after he had that break yesterday; they might get out of here sooner than he thought at this rate.

"I know, right?" Jack says, beaming. "Hey, do you have a piece of paper?"

Gabriel cocks an eyebrow. "Um, I guess?" He poofs a notebook into existence, a pencil in the spine just in case, and hands it over.

"You to teach me how to do that next," Jack tells him as he takes the notebook. He levitates the pencil out with his mind and places the tip on the paper.

Gabriel has to admit, for all the weird tricks he's pulled, he's never tried one like this. He's not sure how well he expects Jack to manage it, especially on his first try, but he's excited to see it. The pencil levitates back and forth, up and down, and though Gabriel can't see the notebook, he can tell Jack is writing something.

"Is it working?" Gabriel asks.

"Yeah, it is, actually!" Jack says with a smile. "I mean, it's not , but it's working."

Gabriel just watches him, waiting to see where this is going. It takes a minute or two, but finally, Jack picks up the pencil in his hand and flips the notebook around to show the archangel.

"Look!" he says, beaming. "It's a guinea pig!"

Gabriel cocks an eyebrow. "Yeah, that... that sure is a guinea pig." Maybe if he turns his head the right way and squints... nope, it's not a guinea pig.

"I like him," Jack says. "I'm gonna name him Sherman."

Gabriel just stares at him. Well, at least he knows they won't have to worry about the kid turning evil if he gets too powerful. It can't be possible to corrupt someone so idiotically nice.

They keep working for a while, eventually graduating from telekinesis and moving on to teleportation. It doesn't necessarily start off well, but by the end of the night, he can teleport across the bunker at will. There are occasionally a few minor mishaps -- he accidentally teleports into John and Mary's room once, but fortunately makes it out without either of them waking up -- but otherwise, it goes pretty well.

They do have to take a break towards the end of the night for Jack to get a couple hours of sleep -- apparently he'd been sleeping in hallways before he and Gabriel had started spending the night together; the angel was more than happy to poof a bed into existence for him when he found out -- which leaves Gabriel alone while he waits.

He tries flying around the bunker for a few minutes in a vain attempt to find his brother, but he doesn't want to check room in case there's some kinky shit going on so he ends up passing a few rooms up. He's moving so quickly that he almost misses the shape walking towards him in the hallway, and he has to double back. It appears the shape didn't miss him, though, because when he returns, Sam is still standing in the exact same place and staring at the spot that used to hold Gabriel -- and now holds him again -- and looking very perplexed.

"What are you doing up?" Gabriel asks, confused. Even Jack had to go to bed by now, so there's no reason a human should still be awake.

"I wish I knew," Sam says with a tired chuckle.

"Ah, one of those 'the human body works in mysterious ways' moments, then?" Gabriel surmises.

Sam runs a hand through his hair, brushing it out of his face. "What are doing here? I thought you were with Jack."

"Oh, no, he's asleep," Gabriel says. "The kid gets less shut-eye than you do."

Sam stares at him. "The nephilim needs to "

Gabriel shrugs. "Yeah, I thought it was weird too, but hey, everything about this is weird."

Sam chuckles. "I guess you have a point there."

Gabriel can tell they're about to lapse into an awkward silence, not because awkward but just because it's late (early?) and what is there to talk about this late/early after spending most of the day chatting?

Before the awkward silence can really start, though, Sam asks, "Has you-know-who come back yet?"

Gabriel shakes his head. "I was actually just looking for him." Noticing the look he gets for that, he adds, "He hasn't shown his face in, like, 36 hours, and I'm willing to bet it goes beyond his desire to avoid you and-slash-or me. If Chuck stepped in, I wanna know."

"Are you sure you wanna know?" Sam asks. "Isn't living in blissful ignorance more fun?"

"Not when we're currently plotting Chuck's downfall," Gabriel deadpans.

"Oh, right, that's fair," Sam agrees.

This time, they actually do lapse into that awkward silence. Gabriel wracks his brain for something to say, but it's a little difficult when he's not sure what message he wants to get across. Does he want another topic of conversation? An excuse to leave? Which one would Sam want?

Ultimately, he settles on, "If you want to go back to bed, I can knock you out." He used to do it for the hunter all the time when they were together. It can't hurt to offer it now.

"Oh, thanks," Sam says. "I'd appreciate that."

They head towards Sam's room, and the conversation picks up again.

"What are you gonna do for the rest of the night?" Sam asks. "You can't look for Lucifer for hours."

"There's not much else do," Gabriel says with a shrug. "It's either that or stare at a wall all night." He could obviously make things to entertain himself with, but in all honesty, he wouldn't know where to begin. He's not exactly interested in hookers and monsters with chainsaws at the moment.

"Do you..." Sam rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. "Do you want to hang out with me? In my dream, I mean?"

Gabriel feels a small smile creep up on his face. "I wouldn't say no to that."

"Okay, cool." Sam smiles, too. "See you in Dreamworld, then."