Chapter Text
Dean is about 99% sure he’s high or drunk or something. Despite not having consumed a drop of alcohol or lit up a single joint since hearing he’s going to meet Sam’s (Presumably) Super Respectable Significant Other, he’s pretty certain that what he’s seeing can’t be real.
Sam, for his part, is filling his role of looking like he’s gonna shit his pants from nerves sometime in the near future fine enough. All required sheepish smiles and anxious hair-adjusting present and accounted for. No problem there.
But the… thing standing beside him? The little, blonde, inked-up dude? That’s about the entire reason Dean’s becoming steadily more and more convinced that he’s tripping.
"You must be Dean," chirps the tiny guy on the doorstep, swirling his tongue around the red orb of a Tootsie Pop and flashing a grin.
"Uh. Yeah. And you’re…" Dean trails off as his attention is drawn to the garishly-bright shirt the dude’s wearing. The only detail he really absorbs is that there’s a blue, yellow and pink pirate saying something about pansexuals and booty on it.
"Gabriel!" the guy—Gabriel—supplies cheerily.
"My boyfriend,” Sam adds, slipping an arm around Gabriel’s waist pointedly even if his voice is a couple octaves higher than usual. He gives Dean a look that says I know what you’re thinking and don’t you dare say it, and continues, “Who I like. Very much.”
Gabriel practically purrs at the attention from Sam, and holds a paint-stained hand out to Dean. “Nice to meetcha, Deano.” Then, before Dean’s even had the opportunity to shake his hand, Gabriel’s bustling past the older Winchester into the house and is blabbering about something he saw on Extreme Homes.
Dean looks over his shoulder just in time to see Gabriel wandering into the kitchen, then turns back to face Sam and says, “Uh.”
"Dean," Sam says, warningly.
"He seems…"
“Dean.”
"…nice?"
Sam huffs out a relieved laugh at that, though it’s tinged with tension around the edges. “He’s a lot to take in at first, I know. But—”
And Dean will probably never find out what Sam was going to say next, because then Gabriel’s skidded back into the hallway and is chastising Dean about the colour of his kitchen so agitatedly Dean can’t really understand what the hell the guy is even trying to say. All he catches is a, “Lime green? Really?” at the end before Gabriel trudges back into the kitchen again.
"He’s got a thing about greens. I think it’s food-related," Sam explains with an apologetic look, and trails after his boyfriend.
***
As the evening progresses, Dean learns that Gabriel’s working on a series of paintings inspired by the angels he and his siblings are named after. It also becomes apparent that Gabriel’s got an over-sharing problem. And a PDA problem. Which is probably how, somewhere between dessert and coffee, he ends up perched in Sam’s lap while detailing the story of how his younger brother walked in on him and Sam dancing the horizontal tango and couldn’t look either of them in the eye for a month.
"You should meet him," Gabriel concludes thoughtfully around a mug of coffee that’s more sugar and foam than actual beverage. "Cas, I mean. He’s got three winters’ worth of firewood up his ass, sure, but I think you’d like him. Don’tcha think Deano and Cassie’d make a good couple, Samster?"
Sam mumbles out something about Dean’s aggressive über-masculinity probably preventing him from hooking up with a guy for anything longer than a one-night stand, then stretches out further on the couch and drifts back into his after-dinner sleepy daze again.
Shooting his younger brother a glare, Dean admits, “Gonna hafta agree with Sammy here, Gabriel. I ain’t usually too big on dick—”
He’s cut off as some fiddly gadget, an iPhone or iPod or iSomething-of-the-sort, is tossed at him. Dean catches it before it hits him in the face, then stares at the picture displayed on the screen, puzzled, and looks up for some explanation.
Gabriel points at the iThing. “Novak family photo. Forget the awkwardness and whatever Balthazar’s doing with his hands. Just focus on the kid in the trench coat. Dark hair, blue eyes, looks vaguely constipated… He’s hard to miss.”
Dean drops his gaze to the photo again, murmuring out a, “Huh,” when he finds the sexpot Gabriel’s referring to. Definite interest is stirred within Dean at the sight of the messy-haired guy that must be Castiel, and he becomes very aware of the fact that Cas looks like he’s just stumbled out an office-set porno.
"Can’t see much of a family resemblance," Dean comments, looking between Castiel and the fair-haired, golden-eyed Gabriel.
"To quote Thor in The Avengers, he’s adopted. So’re the rest of us in the Novak brood. Long story. But also probably how I ended up an artist and he became a World Religions professor, now that I think about it.” Gabriel wriggles a bit in Sam’s lap, demanding attention until Sam wraps his arms around him. Apparently satisfied by that, Gabriel’s relaxes back against the younger Winchester’s chest and takes another sip of coffee.
"He’s a professor? Huh," Dean says again, suddenly feeling even more open to exploring his sexuality than he did thirty seconds ago, and he studies Castiel’s picture further.
He only looks back at Gabriel when he feels a pair of amber eyes boring into him. “What?” asks Dean cautiously at the sight of the expression on Gabriel’s face.
Gabriel squints at Dean before twisting at the waist to peer at Sam too. As he does so, his shirt lifts up a little and Dean catches sight of a pair of wings inked into the skin of his lower stomach, framing a sigil Dean doesn’t recognise.
"Jesus," Gabriel says when he turns back to Dean.
“What?"
"You Winchester boys really are something, huh?"
"Meaning?" demands Dean, growing annoyed with Gabriel’s whole act.
"The goody-two-shoes nerd of the litter, ol’ Sammaroo over here—" Gabriel pats Sam’s hand affectionately, "—has the hots for a dropout artist with more ink than a biro factory, and Mr Testosterone’s got a kink for bedheaded professors with trench coat obsessions?" Gabriel lets out a gleeful cackle. "If that ain’t the plot for a sitcom, I’m Aretha Franklin!"