Chapter Text
Chapter 3
Sam woke up to the sound of a stack of books slamming against the desk, which sounded eerily like gunfire when you were unceremoniously jolted awake. His first reaction was to come up swinging, missing his unseen target. It resulted in him losing his balance knocking over his chair and falling into a boneless heap.
“You weren’t joking about the whole bookworm thing, huh?” Gabriel asked, extending a very displeased Sam his hand.
Sam ignored him, a deep scowl set in his features as he gathered himself and stood.
“Asshole,” he groused.
He no longer felt so bad about being surly unless he’d been awake for at least an hour. Steadily, he’d been deprived of sleep and become increasingly reliant on caffeine to get him through the day.
Besides, in the month they’d been at school, Gabriel had become unaffected to such comments and frequently dished them out himself. Other than sharing two classes with Gabriel- one of which was regrettably chemistry, which provided him with the chance to freely cycle between cracking horrible pick-up lines and coming dangerously close to burning his face off, he was the best friend Sam'd had in years. It certainly ranked among his longest lasting.
“What time is it?” Sam grumbled, running a hand through his unruly hair.
Dean would probably think he needed a haircut. It had gotten fairly scraggly already, but without anyone to chase him down with a pair of scissors, it might as well have been a lost cause.
“Half past eleven. How long you been asleep, kiddo?”
“I dunno. Got kicked out middle of the night. Maybe since four.”
“Again?”
“Yeah. I mean, I know people have low standards in college, but now it’s just getting unbelievable. Even my brother never got laid that much.”
“I have a hard time believing that. Especially if he’s even half as attractive as you are,” Gabriel retorted, shooting him a wink.
It was too early in the morning for Sam to factor flirting into his day yet. His mind currently had two settings: bitchy and hungry. Both them were activated.
“How drunk does someone need to get for that to seem like a good decision?”
Obviously pretty drunk if none had noticed the less than inconspicuous rash his roommate had developed, courtesy of an unhappy archangel. Gabriel needed to step up his game- and clearly plenty of the students on campus needed to take another health class. Maybe he should just resolve the issue altogether.
Sam was struggling enough as it was trying to adjust to being on his own. Anyone could see it in the way his face always lit with hope when his phone chimed or whenever he heard the sound of an old car revving up. And actually caring about your classes and future had to be stressful enough.
Yeah, Gabriel was going to solve it with his personally patented pagan plan. Sam's life was shitty enough as it was.
“Of course they’d pair with up with the biggest future douche of America,” the taller of the two continued to grumble, gathering his stuff.
“It could be worse.”
“I fell asleep in two classes yesterday and when I opened my laptop in Psych, my screen was frozen on porn. Worst part was that the speakers weren’t,” Sam bitterly remarked. “And now I can’t get the goddamned thing to work. There’s something like a hundred viruses downloaded onto it.”
Gabriel raised his brows. And the kid had also broken Sam's laptop with porn. He might've found that kind of funny at a different time.
“I don’t know. I’m not picky. I just want a roommate that’s half-decent. Sober. Courteous. I could deal with anyone half as obnoxious as him.”
“Someone will take care of him.”
“My guardian angel's permanently on holiday. I've probably maxed out your tolerance for complaining. Got time for a coffee or something?”
“Always. And maybe we can get you a comb for that hair too, Rapunzel.”
Sam glowered at him.
“Looks like a bird just nested in yours.”
The incredulous look of insult on Gabriel’s face was enough to make Sam crack the first smile of the weekend.
It was followed by many more. Gabriel never ceased to be interesting, rarely letting a moment of silence pass between them. He filled the silences with mindless chatter, sometimes commenting on the people they passed in a less than politically correct way that Sam couldn’t help but to laugh at.
Before he’d even realized it, they were sipping coffee, situated side-by-side in barstools in a bookstore. It felt mystically empty with them as the only occupants- the barista had retreated into the back.
“So, Sunday. Any other plans?”
“Nothing interesting, really. Figuring out whether or not my group partner actually exists, since I’ve never even seen him show up to class, I guess. Homework. Oh, and I have a job interview tonight.”
“Where?”
“Some sports bar. It’d just be part-time. Weeknights, mostly.”
“You’ll get it,” Gabriel confidently assured him before his face fell with mock disappointment. “So guess that’ll mark the end of your modeling career?”
“God, I hope so. I’m never doing that again. I don’t need money that badly.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. Although if he’d ever legitimately enrolled in any of these classes to begin with, that news would be something his grades would’ve thanked him for. After all, he'd been too distracted to actually paint anything. Really, he’d only stuck around so that he could see the look on the professor’s face when he handed in a blank canvas with a bright grin and then sauntered out of class.
“And what about you?” Sam questioned to break the silence.
“Working, mostly. A true hero’s never done, huh?”
“Does getting a job mean I have to start paying taxes?” Sam asked, a frown suddenly creasing his brow as the thought hit him.
Clearly he was going to make a fantastic lawyer.
“Taxes are beneath me.”
“I know, but-,"
“Quit trying to be more responsible than I am," the archangel flippantly retorted.
Sam groaned. He was not ready to tackle this whole adulting thing, especially not alone. He was probably going to live at the Financial Aid office or whatever government site was supposed to explain all this bullshit. That was granted that he didn't get arrested for forgetting to pay bills. Wait. Did he have to pay bills? Shit, he was going to spend the rest of his free time praying that he wasn’t inadvertently screwing something important up, wasn’t he?
“Didn’t take you for a churchgoer.”
Oh. He hadn’t realized he’d been said that out loud. Sam looked up with something that fell short of a smile, but yet his eyes still held hope despite all they’d been witness to.
“I think someone’s listening,” he carefully replied. “What about you?”
His smile was anything but happy, his eyes shadowed as he glanced down into the steam rising from his mug.
“Not a fan of that particular scene.”
Gabriel hid his scowl in his mug.
Faith wouldn’t do anything for Sam but disappoint. Hope hadn’t been what kept him alive so long. It was almost ironic that he’d pray to a God that in the end, no matter how indirectly, would be the cause of his demise. There was something cruelly poetic to it, a thought that he was forced to keep to himself.
Gabriel needed a distraction. Fortunately, as it turned out, he already had his favorite distraction at his own disposal- flirtation and food.
He moved to his plate, vehemently slicing off a chunk of a cinnamon roll and jamming it into his mouth. His eyes rolled back into his head as he chewed. He let out an overdramatic moan of delight, licking the flaky crust and white frosting from his lips. Certainly, no one needed to vocalize their enjoyment that much.
“So good,” he breathily declared, taking another bite and sucking every crumb off his fork for far longer than necessary.
Obviously both of them fulfilled the desired effect.
Sam only realized he was staring when Gabriel’s inquiring eyes flickered to his.
“There something on my face?” he asked, quirking a brow.
“Uh,” Sam answered, extending the syllable for far longer than necessary before ducking his head away and chugging down the painfully hot java in his hands. He winced, replying in a tight voice. “No. You’re good.”
Gabriel eyed him a moment longer with a ghost of a smirk settling on his lips before he launched into a story about... Whatever it was didn't really matter, seeing as Sam zoned out the moment he started talking. He could’ve been talking about tax rates for all Sam knew and cared.
It took the hunter two more minutes to deduce that Gabriel was seductively eating his cinnamon roll on purpose and by then, the archangel had been long aware of his attentions.
Well, there was a sentence he could’ve gone without thinking.
It took him something like three more minutes to realize Gabriel had stopped talking and just started reciting the same word in different languages.
“What?” he asked, face scrunching with confusion as Gabriel rattled off a Latin word that sounded eerily similar to the word for dick.
“Oh, nothing. Anyways, where was I?”
Sam blinked. After a prolonged pause, he lamely replied with-
“I forgot.”
“Oh. Then it probably wasn’t all that great of a story,” Gabriel shrugged, stretching as he stood. “Now, let’s browse through some fine literature. You look like you're about to fall asleep if you stay still any longer. Y'know, you can tell a lot about someone based on their tastes."
Sam’s tastes included anything that he could download from a PDF file online. Last time he’d even held a legitimate book, assuming that lore written in dead languages and torn textbooks didn’t count, was probably sometime around the end of senior year in high school.
Before he’d even thought to mention that, his friend had already ducked somewhere out of sight. So Sam freely wandered and leafed through books, reading through the notes penned in the margins ranging from fascinatingly insightful to plain raunchy.
“Hey, Chewbacca. Come look at this,” came the amused voice from several shelves over after some time had passed.
Gabriel triumphantly held up a book when Sam wandered into view. Its cover depicted the impressive set of abs of a man colored in a faded grey and not much else. Everything above his shoulders and waist had been cut out of view. It was titled something that Sam would refuse to say out loud.
“Looks kinda like you, don’t you think?” he asked, looking between the two.
“Uh…” From what Sam could see, they did look strikingly similar. Of course, he didn’t feel like it’d be wise to point that out. “Why do you say that?”
“I’m an artist. I studied you- in the name of art, I mean. And I think he’s your spitting image.” Gabriel melodramatically paused. “Wait. You don’t happen to model in your spare time, do you?”
“Could you, uh, not talk so loudly?” Sam mumbled.
As if on cue, a group of school aged children walked in nice clothing. They were guided by a frazzled looking woman, presumably their Sunday School teacher, that took one sweeping look of disapproval at them and herded her group in the other direction. Gabriel rolled his eyes.
“Someone needs a Snickers.”
“We look like creeps, Gabe. Like we're grown men reading porn on a Sunday morning."
“We’re just having a discussion about fine literature, Sam.”
“In the Erotica section?” he asked, his brow furrowing as he glanced up the sign dangling above them.
“Absolutely. Here. Hold this,” Gabriel said, shoving the book into his hands.
Their teacher glowered at them as she passed their row. Sam half-assed a wave with averted eyes, his cheeks tinged with crimson.
Looking pained, the woman slowly walked down their aisle, turning her back to them the first moment possible to hunt through the shelf of books behind them.
“Gabriel, religion’s right behind us,” he hissed upon feeling the judgmental eyes burning through him from between shelved books.
Gabriel looked at him and just grinned as if that was the punchline to a joke.
It was half past nine on Wednesday when Sam crawled into his bed to scrape together a few hours of sleep before he was inevitably woken up by the insatiable sex drive of a playboy. He’d been resting for several minutes when he realized that something had struck the wrong chord when he’d walked in.
Sam reluctantly sat up and glanced around. Other than his few items scattered about- albeit not where he’d left them last- everything else had been cleared out. The bedding had been stripped from the neighboring bed, the socks cleared off the still-sticky floor. The only memorabilia left behind was a disgustingly overflowing trash can and the remnants of smell from excessive Axe body spray and the strong buildup of musk that came from several consecutive days without showering.
He got out of bed, sifting through all unseen corners.
Finally, he could at last get some sleep. He collapsed heavily onto his bed, taking solace in the few brief moments of pure peace he was able to scrape together.
Then there was a short knock on the door. It was flung open without invitation. In marched Gabriel, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He tossed his belongings onto the bed, swinging himself onto it with some effort- they were pretty far off the ground.
“What are you doing here? It’s late,” Sam asked when at last pushed himself up once more.
“You think this is late? Who are you?” Gabriel disgustedly asked. He shook his head. “We can address that later. Anyways, it’s a long story centered around my charming and devious feats. Started with me flirting with this uptight lady down at registration. So, she told me that I needed to-,”
“What’s the short version?” Sam interrupted, feeling fairly certain that Gabriel could monologue long after his lungs ran out of air.
“Short version is that I’m your new roommate, Samshine.”
Sam was almost afraid Gabriel’s grin was going to cut him.