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This was getting out of hand. Sooner or later, Gabriel was going to have to learn that he couldn't just do everything he did as an angel now that he was human.
Of course, Sam knew it was going to take a while. Of course he did! He'd had to watch Dean go through a similar process with Castiel when the seraph had decided to 'power down', as he'd put it. Albeit, that had been an intentional choice that was made after a long period of deliberation. Cas had seen it coming because he was an active participant in the erasing of his powers.
Gabriel...didn't get that luxury. His powers failing had blindsided him, completely taken all of them by surprise, and it had been sudden and immediate. No draining over time or gradually chiseling away at it piece by piece, like Cas had had to do in order to permanently neutralise it. Gabe's Grace was stolen from him and he'd had no time to prepare. Not to mention, he'd been an angel thousands of Earth-years longer than Castiel, and was unfathomably more powerful. The loss was immeasurably greater.
So, of course, of course , Sam understood that it wasn't a one-and-done process, that he couldn't expect perfection overnight. Of course , he knew that.
At the same time, it had already been two years, and Gabe was still in the habit of forgetting he couldn't just heal himself on a dime or summon his every whim with a snap. Sometimes, he would say something witty and hold up his hand in smug amusement, and then get inconsolably demur for the entire rest of the day when he remembered he couldn't pull stunts like that anymore. Other times, he would mope around for weeks until someone (usually Sam) was able to raise his spirits with some stupid prank or some human thing he hadn't discovered yet.
One of Sam's biggest successes had been when he'd introduced Gabe to the relaxing pastime of binge watching. Gabe's favourites were the corny sitcoms and plethora of stand-up specials on Netflix, though if he was in the right mood, he was also partial to watching originals on Amazon Prime and Hulu. At this point, they'd conglomerated so many streaming services that it was downright ridiculous to even have cable at all.
But right now, it seemed absolutely nothing could cure Gabe of his misery.
Understandable, considering he probably had a hole the size Texas in his molar. Just because it was understandable, however, did not mean that it was any less irritating to have a blond little gremlin draping himself over your shoulders and groaning in pain as he made you physically carry him into the dentist's office, where he'd been refusing to go for the past year and a half ever since having a 'scary' first experience there upon becoming human. That is, if you qualified a seven-year-old giggle-screeching after getting off the laughing gas as 'scary'. Which, Sam certainly did not.
Nonetheless, he'd obliged his boyfriend's stupid fucking resistance and had been confident that he just needed to give it time. Well, he'd given it time, and all he got for it was Gabe following him around the bunker looking like a zombie and periodically leaning on him to groan like one, too. Eventually, Sam had caved and snapped, demanding to know why Gabe was being such a toddler, and Gabe had huffed defiantly and admitted that he needed to see the dentist. Sam had thrown his hands up in the air and exclaimed, "Finally!", but he hadn't celebrated. He'd felt bad that Gabe was in pain and was still annoyed by the ceaseless complaining, so he'd sort of just hauled Gabe up under his arm like a football and stuffed him into one of the cars.
Now they were entering the waiting room to check if there were any appointments available for an emergency filling, and Sam was plopping Gabe down into a chair as adults and children alike stared in perturbed bafflement at the colossal puppy man and his pint-sized pouting companion.
"She says there's an opening in half an hour," Sam announced as he returned to sit beside his former archangel.
Gabriel groaned, a sound reminiscent of Chewbacca, and whined, "I hate thiiiiis."
Sam only rolled his eyes at the melodrama and pointedly replied, "You know this is because you're still eating two metric fucktons of candy every day, right? You did this to yourself."
"I didn't knoooowww--"
"I told you! Repeatedly!"
They were whisper-yelling, attracting far more attention than they needed, which Sam tried to placate with a tight-lipped smile.
He focused back on his boyfriend who was now sinking down in the chair so far that his head was hanging against top of the back and his upper arms were touching the armrests. He looked like a middle-schooler having a tantrum. Sam rolled his eyes back into his head and huffed defeatedly.
Shaking his head, he calmly whispered so only Gabe could hear, "I know it's been tough without your Grace. I know because I've had to sit by and watch you deal with it, and even though you're sometimes...histrionic and childish about it, I do feel a little helpless, and I don't like not being able to help. Especially when it comes to you, Gabe." The shorter man was looking up at him now with glittering tawny eyes, and the awe was a welcome break from the angsty teenager act. "When I tell you not to do certain things, like eating shitloads of candy, it's not because I don't want to see you enjoying being human. It's because I know it's going to come back to bite you in the butt and it's the only way I really can help. Reminding you that humans are limited and human bodies suck sometimes is my only lifeline when I see you drowning, okay? 'Cos I can't just dive in like you used to do, and you don't always have the tools to rescue yourself, so...so, I'm sorry this sucks. I am. But please remember that I'm trying to be there for you."
Smaller fingers laced with Sam's then and when he looked back down at his former angel, Gabe was staring up at him with the world's weight in love dancing through his features.
"Will you come back with me?" Gabe asked in tiny voice.
Sam couldn't hide the half-smile that tilted his lips as he responded, "Yeah, of course."
"I love you," Gabe rasped, leaning his head against Sam's shoulder.
Chuckling, Sam kissed the top of his hair and said, "I love you, too, shortstack."
Gabe playfully socked Sam in the chest for that one, making Sam snicker.
He started making plans in his head to gather supplies for a more interesting teeth-brushing experience to get Gabe excited about it.
----
Shockingly, Gabe was at his most bucolic when high on laughing gas. Almost pastoral, in fact. Like, to the point that Sam was...mildly disturbed and tempted to ask the nurse if she was certain she'd given him the right thing.
She assured him that some particularly energetic people simply had an opposite reaction to the gas - sort of like how ADHD meds worked. So Sam left feeling a bit better about his blank-eyed partner, if moderately skeeved out by the vacant blinking.
Thankfully, by the time they were home, Gabe was back to being a total teenager and Sam was happy to entertain it.
He made Gabe brush his teeth thoroughly that night and was delighted by the surprise of minty breath when he crawled into bed and gave his late angel a sweetheart's kiss.
Soon enough, Gabe was regularly brushing his teeth right alongside Sam in the mornings and evenings, and would even fight Sam to use the toothpaste first.
And though he sometimes still tried to snap candy bars into existence and got pouty when it didn't happen, it was a pretty easy fix on Sam's part. All he had to do was take Gabe to the mom 'n pop candy store in town and let him go wild for a few minutes, and he'd be satisfied for weeks after. And when it really came down to it, Sam had to admit that he sort of loved the part of Gabe that was a relentless candy whore. A lot more than he was willing to confess.
But Gabriel knew. Really, everyone did.
Sam had always been a softy like that.