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Dean is teaching Castiel how to swim.
Correction: Dean is teaching Castiel how to enjoy swimming. The angel already knows the mechanical motions required to keep his vessel afloat and moving in water, although he doesn't need them – if he wanted, he could just…stop breathing entirely. Keep Jimmy's body in stasis until oxygen became more available. Sam's pretty sure that angels don't exactly need to breathe, anyways.
But Castiel swims like he walks: quickly, and purposefully. He swims like he has a destination in mind when, really, the only place he's going is to the edges of the pool. Dean is valiantly trying to show him the difference between 'swimming because the lake monster is after you' and 'swimming because being in the water, in the middle of July, is nice.'
So far, Castiel is taking to it rather well. He's already splashed Dean twice, though he seems more hesitant to apply his newfound knowledge to Sam, sitting on the edge of the pool with his legs in the water, or Gabriel, lounging on a reclining beach chair off to the side.
Sam kicks up a plume of water, watches Dean dodge out of the way, sputtering and laughing. Gabriel slides his sunglasses down his nose, looking generally amused.
"You're not going to swim?" Sam asks, because Gabriel looks like he's perfectly content to lay there, in his capris and his t-shirt, until his skin starts baking.
"Nah," Gabriel answers. "Swimming isn't my thing."
"It wasn't Castiel's thing, either." As if in answer, Castiel finally manages to work up enough courage to splash ineffectually at Sam's legs, which are already wet, but Sam gives him a smile anyways, because damnit, he's trying.
Gabriel tilts his head in Sam's direction, a movement that is at once condescending and amused. Team Free Will hasn't necessarily changed Gabriel for the better, but it has changed him. First and foremost is that at least he's helping them now, instead of actively trying to convince them to 'accept their destinies.' Which Sam still thinks was total bullshit.
"Trust me," Gabriel says. "It's most definitely not my thing."
Sam shrugs, and then slips into the water, diving down so that he can grab Dean's ankle and yank him under. Classic beach prank, slightly less effective in a small, clear pool, but Dean is so distracted with trying to teach Castiel how to hit a beach ball that he totally doesn't notice Sam sneaking up behind him.
Hearing Gabriel laugh from the sidelines is totally worth it, even when Dean punches him in the arm afterwards, and Sam knows it's going to leave a bruise.
~
Gabriel doesn't shower.
Which isn't to say that he's filthy – he keeps himself clean the way that Castiel used to, somehow using his Grace to repel things like dust and grime. And angels don't sweat, even when they're encased in vessels, so really, all Gabriel does is change his clothes every week or so, generally when he gets bored. They're always the same cut – a long-sleeved jacket with a button-down shirt underneath, jeans, and boots. He seems uncomfortable, the few times Sam has seen him without his jacket…like he has one less layer to protect him from the rest of the world.
When Gabriel goes out of his way to manifest a jacket that's light enough for the middle of July, Sam starts getting suspicious. It's one thing to always have a jacket on in the winter, but in the summer? Even angels know better than that – Gabriel still gets weird looks wherever he goes.
Dean chastises him for his curiosity.
"If he wants to make himself sick from heat stroke then let him," he says, taking a massive bite of his bacon cheeseburger.
"Angels do not suffer from heat stroke," Castiel corrects, and Dean plucks an olive from Sam's salad and pitches it at Castiel's chest.
Castiel, after a moment of thought, carefully pulls a handful of ice from Sam's empty glass of water, and then shoves that handful down the back of Dean's shirt.
Sam thinks Dean is too stunned (and, maybe, a little bit proud) to do much more than yelp and try to shake the ice out of his sleeves.
~
Sam gets his opportunity a little more than a week later.
He doesn't even think of it as an opportunity at the time – they're hunting some sort of snake monster that drools acidic venom everywhere, and Gabriel seems to have some sort of personal vendetta against it. By the time Sam and Dean pick themselves back up off the ground from where the snake tossed them with its tail, the creature in question is little more than an indistinguishable lump of meat and scales, and Gabriel is covered, absolutely covered, in smears of venom and huge clumps of rapidly-congealing blood. He wipes a chunk of snake flesh from his face, and Sam can hear Gabriel's skin sizzling.
He makes a noise, some horrified, awful noise, and he grabs at Gabriel's jacket, strips it from the archangel's shoulders before he can even begin to protest, and then turns it inside out so that he can use it to wipe the venom from Gabriel's cheeks and eyes. Then, when the jacket proves too bloody, he goes for Gabriel's shirt.
"Personal space, Winchester!" Gabriel protests, but Sam's already gotten the first few buttons undone, and he's going for the home stretch, when he notices something odd.
Something silver. Lines, spiraling across Gabriel's skin – the skin of his vessel, really. Sam would think they were tattoos, because of the color, but they're grooved. Like they've been carved into the flesh itself.
Gabriel takes advantage of Sam's befuddlement and yanks his shirt closed, then quickly snaps his fingers. Within the blink of an eye he is once again fully dressed, fully covered. He gives Sam an inscrutable look, and then…vanishes.
Sam stares at the place where he was, unblinking for a long moment.
"Dude," Dean says. "What the hell was that all about?"
Sam has no idea.
But he plans on finding out.
~
He starts out small. Bumping into Gabriel accidentally-on-purpose, hoping the archangel will stumble and get dust on his jacket or something. Sam's not even thinking of Gabriel just snapping his fingers and magicking the dust away – it's a moot point, anyways, because bumping into Gabriel is like bumping into a wall. He's as immoveable as stone, and Sam gives up pretty quickly.
Which means he has to step up his game a little. Much to the amusement of Dean, Sam becomes a klutz overnight. If he orders extra dressing on his chicken wrap, some of it inevitably winds up on Gabriel's jacket, or on the front of his shirt. The same goes for ketchup, barbecue sauce, hot sauce, and every kind of melted cheese possible.
But the thing is, Gabriel just takes it. Even though Sam is fairly certain he's being almost painfully obvious, and even if he wasn't Gabriel could still read his mind and figure it out anyways, Gabriel just…doesn't do anything. He snaps his fingers and cleans up the stain and then he keeps on doing whatever it is he's doing.
It gets to the point where Dean finally draws him aside (leaving Castiel to ponder the mysteries of American Idol), and says, "Look, Sam, if you want him naked so bad, just tell him you're interested. I mean, he's a douchebag, and I don't get it at all, but Gabriel's like, ten times better than Ruby ever was."
Sam frowns. "What? No. I don't…I don't want to get him naked, Dean. It's not like that."
Dean shrugs. "Could have fooled me."
"This man's voice is very atonal," Castiel calls out, and Dean has to dash back inside to rescue his angel from the horrors of Simon Cowell.
Leaving Sam to think.
Just tell him, Dean had said. Well, Sam isn't planning on getting Gabriel naked and having his way with the guy, but he can't think of anything else to try, save for actively trying to ruin Gabriel's clothes on hunts. And he thinks that would somehow be more creepy than just asking.
~
"What happened to you?"
Gabriel raises an eyebrow, then glances out the window, at Dean and Castiel climbing into the Impala in order to go a procure 'sustenance,' in Castiel's words, but Sam strongly suspects that Dean is going to take the angel to a bar and try to get him drunk, with the excuse 'Just because it's the apocalypse doesn't mean we should stop having fun.'
Sam thinks that Dean's 'having fun' is more about posturing than anything else, these days.
"That's a fairly broad question," Gabriel muses. "Let's see…Created by the glorious and all-powerful love of God, I spent a couple billion years – Heaven's time, not Earth's – as a messenger for His greatness…"
"No, I mean…What happened to your chest? Does your vessel have tattoos or something?"
"Considering my vessel was born in the fifteen-hundreds…no."
Sam huffs, frustrated, and Gabriel is just lying there, on Sam's bed, no less, and looking sort of smug and sort of defensive and…and…
And it's really none of Sam's business, is it? Just because Gabriel's an angel and an asshole and he's done horrible things to them…that doesn't give Sam the right to pressure him into doing something that makes him uncomfortable. Sam feels his resolve to find out the truth waver, and then collapse entirely. He sits down heavily on the edge of Dean's bed, scrubbing his palms over his face. Gabriel watches him warily.
"…Nevermind," Sam says, after a long moment of silence. "It's none of my business. I'll stop bothering you." Jesus. That's what he's been doing. He's basically been harassing Gabriel, hoping for a reaction. He feels like the biggest douchebag ever.
Gabriel, in response to Sam's self-admitted assholery, takes off his jacket and then starts unbuttoning his shirt.
"Uh," Sam says, because that seems like a pretty safe way of expressing his confusion. Admittedly, he's worried that if he actually points out what Gabriel's doing…it'll stop, and he'll never get to know what that flash of silver was.
"Not a word," Gabriel snarls softly, and then he undoes the last button, and pushes the shirt off his shoulders, and his chest is absolutely covered with them. Thick and thin, short and long, brightly glowing or dusky as starlight through clouds…the silver marks on Gabriel's chest don't follow any sort of pattern, criss-crossing at random, like strokes from a knife.
"What are they?" Sam asks, because he can't not ask.
"Scars," Gabriel says simply. "Not the vessel's. This body is still as pristine as the day it was born. These are…mine. One-hundred percent archangel Gabriel."
"How?" Sam is uncomfortably aware of how…intimate this is. How close Sam is coming to reaching out and laying his fingers against one of those bright and jagged ribbons of silver.
"It's hard enough for a human body to contain a healthy angel," Gabriel says with a shrug. "An angel with war wounds is another matter entirely. Makes it harder to keep my Grace tucked up all neat and tidy."
Grace. Sam is looking at Gabriel's Grace. The stuff that makes him an archangel, filtered through layers of bone and skin and sinew, somehow made safe for Sam's human eyes.
"War wounds," he repeats, faintly, and then, before he can stop himself, he's reaching out and touching. Pressing his fingers to where the light is brightest, a slash directly across the middle of Gabriel's chest. The archangel stiffens, but doesn't pull away.
"From the First War. Out of all of us, me and Michael took the worst damage. Michael because he was playing hero, me because I was too stupid to get out of the way."
Sam doubts that. He rubs his thumb over the length of the scar, and then, realizing what he's doing, quickly draws his hand away. He thinks he might be blushing. His cheeks are certainly hot enough for it.
"Sorry," he says quietly. "I didn't know."
"Yeah, well, now you do."
Gabriel quickly shrugs his shirt back on, covering up the soft light of his scars, while Sam perches on the edge of Dean's bed and thinks about what he's seen. Not just the scars themselves, but also Gabriel's reluctance to let them be seen. Can angels be self conscious? Sam supposes there's a first for everything.
"Your brother bought pizza," Gabriel says suddenly, and Sam looks up.
Gabriel vanishes just as Dean opens the door.
"Meat lovers!" he crows triumphantly, setting down two boxes of pizza on the nightstand. "And one extra cheese, because Castiel is refusing to eat the sausage."
"I cannot identify the animal from which it came," Castiel complains, and Dean points at him.
"Hey. Not knowing is half the fun! C'mon, just one slice."
"Dean, I am not certain…"
Sam picks up a slice of cheese pizza and carries it with him out into the parking lot. He sits on the curb and eats slowly, looking up at the moon, a white and yellow coin hanging suspended in the sky
~
On the fifth of August, Sam, Dean, and Castiel hole up in another motel with a swimming pool.
Castiel is thrilled. Dean goes out of his way to buy the angel some swim trunks, so that Cas can stop using Dean's old 'spare' trunks, which are too big by far for the much lankier angel. Sam debates not going out at all, but a brief flash of tropical Hawaiian print draws him out to the edge of the pool, where Gabriel lounges in his capris and his silk shirt. He doesn't look up.
"I was kind of a jerk," Sam says quietly. Not that Dean will hear him over the sound of splashing water.
"Yeah," Gabriel agrees. "You kind of were. But hey, it's not like you've cornered the market on being an asshole."
Sam eyes the pool water, which is clear straight down to the bottom, and rippling with the movements of Dean and Castiel.
"You know," he says conversationally, "I was reading an article the other day about the Cook Islands. Apparently the beaches there are fantastic."
Gabriel peers up at him, squinting against the sun.
"Have you ever gone scuba diving before? I hear wetsuits are pretty comfortable."
Slowly, Gabriel smiles at him – small, tentative, but it is a smile.
He raises his hand, fingers poised to snap.
"Make a wish," he says.
Sam closes his eyes.