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When Sam wakes up, Gabriel is still there.
It’s almost dawn and he’s exhausted, running on maybe four hours of sleep, but the archangel’s presence is humming through the room like the buzzing of a fluorescent light and Sam’s still not used to it. His entire body is prickling with the uneasy knowledge that something foreign is nearby and that he is naked and vulnerable. Consciously, he knows it’s Gabriel, because when he opens his eyes a slit to peer through the semi-dark, all he can see is Gabriel’s face and the honey-dark tumble of his hair emerging from a cocoon of blankets.
He’s still not used to this, even in his mind - not used to Gabriel… being there. He’s always there, now. He’s in diners when Sam walks in to order something to eat. He’s sprawled out on the motel bed when Dean opens the door (and then growls under his breath and leaves to book another room). He’s in the backseat of the Impala after they limp back from a hunt, bruised and bloody or just plain exhausted.
He’s just constantly there and Sam’s not sure how to deal with that.
It’s not like he hates it. Gabriel can be — okay, usually is — a complete dick, but most of the time it’s no worse than dealing with Dean when he’s at his most childish. He whines and he makes terrible jokes and he never shuts up, but sometimes he’s — different. Sometimes he’s calm, and somehow the back of the Impala becomes large enough for Sam to stretch out on and sleep, his head in Gabriel’s lap and Gabriel’s fingers in his hair. Sometimes, Gabriel doesn’t shove Sam down on the mattress and smile wickedly, and instead hooks his ankles together and watches Copsuntil Sam falls asleep with his hand curled next to Gabriel’s hip.
So, yeah, Sam doesn’t hate it, but it’s weird and he knows that if Gabriel doesn’t stop, Sam’s going to start liking it.
Going to miss it when it’s gone.
Dawn creeps through the thin curtains and settles into the room, thin and grey like cigarette smoke. It slinks across the sheets in long, pale fingers and lights on the line of Gabriel’s jaw, the curve of his eye-socket. Sam watches Gabriel for a moment, absorbing this almost-human moment of softness, before closing his eyes and forcing himself to sleep again.
“I’m tired.”
“Gabriel, I don’t want to go to Cabo.”
“Just. Do something else for today.”
“Gabriel!” Sam says, sighing in exasperation. “For- stop turning the links into porn sites. I’m trying to research.”
“And I’m trying to drop a hint, Sam,” Gabriel shoots back. “All that time you spend tracking omens and looking for weird crap in news articles written by morons, you’d think you’d be better at picking up on things.”
Sam looks up from the computer screen to see Gabriel grinning at him from his position on the bed, legs spread invitingly and jacket discarded on the floor. Sam swallows, turns back to the screen.
“I’m busy, Gabriel,” Sam says, and his words sound cold even to him. “Go find something else to do.”
Gabriel doesn’t make a sound, but when he leaves, the room feels a little more empty.
Gabriel doesn’t show up again for two days, and when he does, he’s sprawled obnoxiously in the backseat of the Impala. Dean ignores him completely, too used to Gabriel showing up like this to bother getting annoyed, and cranks the radio up in anticipation of Gabriel’s chattering.
When the first six miles are filled with nothing but AC/DC and the familiar grumble of the Impala’s engine, Dean shoots a look at Sam from the corner of his eye and frowns. Sam glances in the rear-view, and Gabriel only stares back, a broad smirk daring him to say something.
Sam doesn’t say a word.
Gabriel stays with them until they stop for the night, but when Sam looks back from the door to his room, he’s gone.
Sam shoves the diner door open and looks around automatically for Gabriel before he realises what he’s doing. He catches sight of him sitting in the far booth with a comically huge ice-cream sundae sitting before him, silver spoon flashing as he devours it. Sam stares for a moment, and then looks away, walking to the front counter to make an order. The image of Gabriel with sunlight curling around his shoulders like a contented cat feels imprinted in his memory, and he wonders vaguely how long it will take for him to forget it - or if he ever will.
It’s been years, but the memory of Jess sitting on a picnic blanket with a book of poetry propped open on her lap, sunlight thick on her skin and hair, is still strong enough that he can smell the grass and remember the taste of her mouth when he kissed her.
While he waits for his order to be filled, he gives in and goes to sit opposite Gabriel. Gabriel nudges his shin with the toe of his boot and grins.
“Heya Samsquatch, fancy seein’ you here.”
Sam snorts and stretches his legs into Gabriel’s space, trying to convince himself it’s because he needs the leg room and not because he likes that Gabriel doesn’t pull away when their calves press together.
“Why do you keep doing this?” he asks, instead of pointing out that Gabriel knew full well Sam would be here — somehow. “Showing up so often?”
Gabriel raises an eyebrow, closing his mouth around another enormous bite of ice-cream with no apparent difficulty.
“You’re always… around,” Sam says lamely, gesturing vaguely as though it will make his point more clear. “You shouldn’t — don’t you have anything better to do?”
“Sure,” Gabriel replies after a beat, shrugging. “Whole world and then some at my fingertips, kiddo.”
So why are you here with me? Sam doesn’t ask. Instead he takes a breath, ignores the part of him that wants to hold onto Gabriel so tight his fingers sink through flesh and sear into bone, and says, “I think you should do other things more often.”
Gabriel blinks at him, stares blankly, and slowly pulls the spoon out of his mouth. “Alright, then.”
When his order comes, Sam leaves Gabriel sitting in the diner and steps out onto the street, walks to the Impala, doesn’t look back. Even as he’s swallowing a mouthful of pastry and cheese, the smell of ice-cream and mint lingers on the back of his tongue, and when he closes his eyes to sleep that night, alone with Dean snoring on the next bed, he sees Gabriel wearing sunlight like a cloak, smiling when he sees Sam walk towards him.
Sam thinks maybe he’s falling in love.
It’s not like he wants Gabriel to leave. He wants him to stay, stay forever in a way that terrifies him because he hasn’t wanted something so bad since the demon blood. He wants to pull Gabriel down into his bones, be filled until his teeth rattle and his blood sings and when he breathes, he’s breathing light.
So, it’s not that Sam doesn’t want Gabriel to stay. It’s just that people get bored of each other if they spend too much time together, and Gabriel is more capricious than most, more impatient, more prone to boredom.
It’s better to spread their time and make the most of it.
This time, Gabriel stays away for a solid two weeks. Sam spends the whole time feeling like his ears have suddenly stopped ringing after months, and every time he realises the noise is gone is like being jerked awake without warning. He’s distracted enough on that hunt that the poltergeist manages to knock him clean through a drywall and he wakes up with Dean swearing at him for being so fucking careless.
Every time Gabriel isn’t in the diner, isn’t on his bed, isn’t plonking down beside him at the nearest wifi hotspot, doesn’t show up in the Impala without warning, Sam reminds himself that this is a good thing. People need space - archangels need more than most.
When Gabriel finally does show up, it’s to tell them that they’re in the wrong damn town and he’s taken care of the tupla for them. He’s all smooth, hard edges, like battle-armour, and Sam kisses him before Dean has even left the room. His mouth is sharp, and when he kisses back he bites like winter, bitter and cruel and Sam tastes blood when Gabriel sucks his tongue into his mouth. Later he’ll be ashamed of how the taste only makes him want Gabriel more, but in the moment he is too feverishly hungry to touch and be touched.
There’s an edge of pain to everything that night. Gabriel holds too tight and bites too hard and for once doesn’t listen when Sam reminds him not to leave marks. When he wakes up in the morning, he’s alone and there are bruises on his thighs and wrists, and teethmarks on his collarbone, low enough to be covered by a shirt but aching.
Gabriel’s at the diner when Sam walks in to order breakfast. There’s a dark line of hickeys down his throat from the night before, bared like an offering, or maybe in defiance, and something in Sam’s chest loosens at the sight. Gabriel doesn’t look up from his tower of pancakes when Sam sits down with him, but when Sam hooks a foot around his ankle under the table, he doesn’t pull away, either.
He hates himself for it, but every time Gabriel comes back, Sam’s too relieved to tell him to leave again. It’s almost three weeks before he finds the strength to tell Gabriel not now, or go do something else.
Gabriel goes utterly still and all the air in the room settles, heavy, until the pressure and silence makes it feel like being underwater. Sam swallows and reminds himself to breathe.
“This hot and cold thing is getting really old, Sam,” Gabriel says, deadly calm. “And I gotta say, I’m pretty fucking confused, so why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
“I just think,” Sam says, taking a breath, “That you should spend more time doing other things.”
Gabriel raises an eyebrow. “Y’know, when we started this I could’ve sworn Iwas the one with commitment issues. Having second thoughts, kiddo?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then what? ‘Cause I’m starting to feel like a clingy girlfriend, here.”
Sam sighs, drops his face into his hands and presses his palms to his eyelids. He takes a moment to pull the words up from the dark, hidden corner of his mind where he tucks thoughts he doesn’t want to have, and then looks up. Gabriel is standing close enough to touch, looking at him with the kind of blank expression that has always reminded Sam of glaciers - not for the coldness, but for the deceptive stillness, the destructive force hidden underneath.
“I don’t want you to get bored,” he says, and doesn’t pause, doesn’t give Gabriel a chance to open his mouth. “Listen. You’ve spent pretty much your entire existance flitting around the world on a whim. You’ve seen history unfold — and I’m guessing you had something to do with the French Revolution at least — and my life is pretty… boring, most of the time.”
“Did you miss the apocalypsewe nearly had last year?” Gabriel asks, apparently unable to restrain himself even when he’s making the windows rattle with quiet frustration. “Because if not, I think we need to revise your definition of ‘boring’.”
“Shut up,” Sam sighs automatically. “I know a lot of weird shit happens to us — and a lot of it is your fault — but we spend most of our time waiting for more weird shit to happen, and it’s just — how can you not be bored with that when you can be anywhere you want with a snap of your fingers? Isn’t it mundane, to you? “
“‘Course it is,” Gabriel replies, his careless shrug completely at odds with the velvet-heavy, soft look in his eyes. “But you do understand that your life is like blinking for me, right? You could live to be a hundred, two hundred, and your life is only ever gonna be a tiny fraction of mine, Sam — and you won’t even get that. Ten years, twenty maybe. That’s nothing.”
Gabriel folds his arms, shifting back on his heels like he’s trying to put as much distance between them as possible before he speaks again. Sam watches his expression shift like watching light from underwater, muted and slow and wavering, and understands what he wants to say before he says it.
“I want all the moments,” Gabriel says eventually, voice strained with the effort of speaking the words. “Even the boring ones, even the stupid ones like this where you’re being a moron, so can you stop trying to send me away?”
Sam thinks of the things he remembers most about Jess. It’s not the big moments, not really — it’s the little things, like how her hair would slip out from behind her ear when she was reading, the way she’d always hold a coffee cup by the side without the handle. He thinks maybe being in love is about wanting the quiet moments, the moments you spend alone until you have someone to share them with.
“Okay,” Sam says, and Gabriel seems to relax minutely. “Okay.”