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There was a hole in the floor of the Winchesters’ bathroom.
Normally, that sort of thing wouldn’t have bothered Gabriel. He was an archangel; what was a small hole in the floor going to do to him? But this was the Winchesters’ bathroom, which meant of course that it was inside their house, warded to Hell and back. Gabriel’s powers were fritzy within all of those wards, or at least they had been the last time he was allowed inside. He glowered down at the hole. His foot had gotten stuck, because he hadn’t thought to be on the lookout for random booby-traps inside the goddamn bathroom. He tugged on his foot, wincing when the sides scraped against his skin through his socks.
Gabriel couldn’t really feel pain. Archangel perks or whatever, that only a small list of items could truly hurt him. Still, he was partial to his vessel after hand-crafting it, and healing while inside the Winchesters’ house was, again, finicky. Injuring himself hadn’t been on the agenda for today, but his patience was already waning thin and the urge to just yank his foot out of the hole was growing by the second.
“Gabriel?” There was a knock against the bathroom door. “Are you in there?”
“Yeah,” said Gabriel, priding himself on sounding mostly normal. The only thing that could’ve been worse about this whole damn scenario was if one of the Winchesters was there to witness his ineptitude. Thank Daddy Dearest he’d locked the door.
“You okay? I’m coming in, so make sure you’re decent… I guess you’re not really modest, huh, so it doesn’t matter⎯” The doorknob twisted as Gabriel lunged for it, the door sliding open. Gabriel’s hands landed against a solid, well-built chest instead of the wood he’d been aiming for. He huffed, eyes travelling upwards. “Hello, Gabriel.”
“Fuck you, Winchester.” Sam grinned, amused. Gabriel hadn’t pulled his hands away from his chest. He didn’t quite want to. The youngest Winchester was hot as Hell, perhaps literally, and Gabriel had always been a flagrant rule-breaker. But Sam was straight, so Gabriel could take what he could get in the form of inconspicuous groping. Hey, he’d never claimed to be innocent! Damn well the opposite, actually, and Sam shoved him off all the time whenever he wasn’t in the mood for Gabriel’s casual touching. It wasn’t something either of them bothered getting offended about anymore. Plus, he was pretty sure that he’d twisted his ankle wrong somehow from where his foot was stuck in the damn hole and he didn’t trust it to hold his weight if he let go of Sam’s chest.
“What are you…?” Sam’s eyebrows furrowed as his gaze trailed away from Gabriel’s face to behind him. Gabriel rolled his eyes.
“Care to explain why you have a damn hole in your bathroom floor?”
“Oh, that.” Sam laughed, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. Like it was only a silly house-decorating quirk, and not an inconvenience that was ruining Gabriel’s life. (Maybe, just maybe, Gabriel was being dramatic, but he figured he was allowed, after being forced on the run for the hunter in front of him.) “Yeah, it’s been there for a while.”
“Why?”
Sam shrugged. “There was an issue a while back with the pipes for the sink and it was leaking into the vent, and Dean never got around to fixing the hole afterwards. We were kind of distracted with our Dad, and then saving the world from Yellow Eyes, and then… Well, you know.”
“So you just…live with a hole in your floor?” Gabriel replied, incredulous.
“I don’t even notice it’s there anymore,” Sam admitted. “I’m so used to walking around it. Normally we have a magazine or a towel or something stuffed in it or laid over it, but we probably forgot. It didn’t cross my mind, for sure, and Dean uses the bathroom in the garage more than this one, so…”
“That’s ridiculous, you know that?” Sam’s lips tugged into one of his knowing smirks. Gabriel wanted to wipe the expression from his face…with his lips. Perhaps his fist, instead. He tended to vacillate wildly between wanting to get up to some good old-fashioned hate-fucking or wanting to lay Sam down and worship him until he cried. Gabriel tried not to think about it, most of the time. He didn’t need to examine any of those desires too closely.
“You’re stuck, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Gabriel sniffed haughtily. Sam raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, really? So if I just take a step back here, you’ll be absolutely fine?” He stepped away slightly, making Gabriel yelp and lose his balance. Before he could go crashing to the floor, Sam caught him with one hand grabbing Gabriel’s forearm and the other steadying his waist. Gabriel hated the way his stupid vessel’s heartbeat sped up.
“I reiterate: fuck you, Winchester,” He all but growled. Once again, Sam only grinned. His hand didn’t drop from Gabriel’s waist, although his grip loosened.
“Why haven’t you,” Sam let go of him to gesture vaguely at the air. Gabriel tried not to mourn the loss of his touch. “Y’know, angel-mojoed yourself out. It can’t hurt, right?”
“We’ve been over this, Sam!” Gabriel exclaimed with an irritated huff. “Your crazy, angel-warded house makes all my mojo go haywire, so snapping myself out of this is a big no-go. I really don’t want to end up Splinching myself.”
“...Splinching?” Sam repeated, mystified.
“The fact that you haven’t read those books is honestly shocking. Anyway, so not the point. I’m stuck.” Gabriel frowned. “Help me out.”
“What’s the magic word?” He teased.
“Abracadabra. You’re crazy if you think I’m gonna beg you to help me. That’s your job, remember?” Gabriel replied snidely. The traces of humour and contentedness disappeared from Sam’s face in an instant as his eyes shuttered, closing himself off. Something horribly like guilt permeated Gabriel’s mouth.
“Cas was looking for you.” Sam said stiffly as he crouched down, delicately wrapping a hand around Gabriel’s ankle. He flinched and instinctively steadied himself on the other man’s shoulders. Sam didn’t object, but his muscles were wrought with tension underneath Gabriel’s hands. “There you go. All better.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. The pit in Gabriel’s stomach grew.
“Sam⎯” He tried, only for Sam to stand up and shake his head.
“I gotta help Dean out in the garage with Baby. Find Cas, okay?” He didn’t even wait for confirmation before practically fleeing from the kitchen, the room that the bathroom was attached to. Gabriel sighed. Damn Winchesters and their dramatics. He left the bathroom, not even remembering why he’d gone in there in the first place, and walked out of the back door. He continued just far enough to be outside of the Winchester boundary line before stopping. Prayers worked just fine within the boundary, but he felt a stifling urge to get out of the Winchester’s wards.
“Cassie?” Gabriel called, sensing his brother pop into existence behind him. He turned around, raising an eyebrow. “You needed me?”
“I…needed you?” Castiel repeated, brows furrowed. Gabriel glared at him.
“Look, I’m not in the mood for games, so if you could just tell me what you needed, then we can both get on with our lives.”
“Brother, I promise, I didn’t need you for anything.” Castiel pursed his lips. “I did not even know you were at the Winchesters’ until you called for me…”
“Oh, I’m gonna kill him,” Gabriel threatened darkly as he turned his glare on the two-story house behind them. It was a pale, unassuming blue-grey with a dark roof. There were flowerbaskets attached to most of the lower floor windows because Castiel had taken up gardening, and the front door was painted a stark white. The paint was peeling in spots and it wasn’t the newest or anything, but it was…safe. An odd feeling to associate with an easily-crushable building, but Gabriel had given up on controlling his emotions.
“Please do not kill anyone.” Castiel said, alarmed.
“You think he’d know better than to tell such an obvious lie! For fuck’s sake! I thought he was the smarter Winchester?” Gabriel complained to himself. Castiel gave him an odd look, which, rude. His brother was ten times more strange than this on a daily basis, and Gabriel only judged him half of the time.
“If that’s all, I’ll be going⎯”
“Nope!” Gabriel declared, grabbing Castiel’s arm before he could disappear. His little brother frowned at him. “You’re coming with me. Chaperone, alright? The newly-revealed, on-the-lam archangels can’t be trusted by themselves, remember? And we’re going into town for this, so. You don’t have a choice.”
“It’s rude to not allow someone a choice.” Castiel replied flatly. “Dean has told me before.”
“Cassie. I’m going to pull out my hair if you don’t come with me.”
“You’re threatening me now. Or is that blackmail? Emotional manipulation? It doesn’t matter. I’m not doing anything until you tell me where we’re going.” His brother stood his ground. Silently, Gabriel cursed the Winchesters for ever facilitating Castiel growing a backbone. Castiel had always been stubborn, even as a fledgling, but meeting the Winchesters took it to new heights entirely.
“Hardware store. Wherever you can get a new vent cover, I mean. I don’t know.” Gabriel shrugged. Shopping wasn’t his forte, unless it was for designer clothes. Even then, he often chose hideous clothes because they were more fun. Castiel raised an eyebrow.
“...I’m confused.”
“Don’t question it. Chaperone, yeah?”
“I suppose.”
⎯⎯⎯
“Why are teenagers so judgy?!” Gabriel cried dramatically as they exited the fifth hardware store. It was odd for an average-sized town to have that many hardware stores, but at least it wasn’t churches. “I swear, I’m gonna give that punk nightmares he’ll never forget⎯ What do you think, Cassie? Showing up in his underwear to class or making a fool of himself in front of his crush?”
“You’re supposed to be keeping it on the down-low.” Hearing Castiel’s grave, sombre voice say slang was never not funny, which went a little way to assuaging Gabriel’s low-burning annoyance. Seriously, just because he hadn’t known…anything about the kind of vent cover the Winchesters’ bathroom floor needed didn’t mean that he deserved the judgemental whispers that had followed them out of the hardware store. Teenagers, man.
“But that’s not fun, Cassie.” He might’ve been whining, which was unbecoming of an archangel, but Gabriel was also a pagan god, so it all worked out. Plus, his dignity had been smashed to smithereens centuries ago, when Helen of Troy turned him down. Castiel huffed.
“Life isn’t just about fun, Gabriel. It’s also about keeping you alive.”
“I can’t believe you think I can’t combine those two,” Gabriel replied instantly. “Hello? Pagan god extraordinaire, remember? I survived for a millenia like that, and it was fun to boot.”
“Yes, but every hostile being on Earth currently knows your preferred methods of hiding. Your Trickster disguise is out.”
“I know. Jeez, Cassie, I’m just kidding around. I won’t do anything to the teenage punks at the hardware store, or to blow our covers.” Gabriel glanced away, noncommittal. “If you can’t trust that, trust my self-preservation instinct.”
“I trust you, Gabriel.” There was a beat of silence. Gabriel tried not to gape at Castiel as they continued to walk in the vague direction of the Winchester property.
“If you make me get all emotional on a Tuesday afternoon, I swear I’m going to dye your hair pink. Or blue. Bleach blond, maybe.” Gabriel threatened thickly, hoping Castiel couldn’t tell how choked up he’d become. The whole tuned-into-angel-sensitivity thing was a mindfuck to get used to; he never used to be this emotional, not even back in Heaven. After spending so long stifling himself with pagan magic and cloaking, though, it was difficult to get used to how much archangels felt.
“Please do not do that,” Castiel said quickly, startling a laugh out of Gabriel for the urgency in his voice. “I like my vessel how it is.”
“No promises.”
“Gabriel,” Castiel complained, in the same voice he had whenever he was a fledgling, getting sick of Gabriel’s teasing games. A rush of nostalgia barrelled over Gabriel so strong that he thought his knees might buckle from the sheer weight of it.
“Awh, Cassie, you know I’m joking.” He elbowed Castiel’s side gently. “Now, let’s get to the Casa de Winchester.” Within the next second, they’d been transported safely inside the wards via Castiel’s flight. Gabriel didn’t have that sort of clearance yet; he didn’t blame the Winchesters. He’d been trying to get them to play along with the Ineffable Plan™ just a few months ago, and the brothers weren’t known for letting go of grudges.
“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing with that now?” Castiel asked, letting go of Gabriel’s arm. He had one intimidating eyebrow raised. Gabriel flashed a winning smile.
“‘Fraid not, Cassie. But if you could distract Tweedledee and Tweedledumb for a little while, I’d appreciate it. Maybe take them out for that new butterscotch pie we saw ads for in town; I’m sure Dean-o will enjoy that. And that café doubled as a bookstore, so Sammich will have plenty to do.” The suggestion sounded too rehearsed, which wasn’t what Gabriel wanted, but Castiel accepted it with minimal fuss. The other angel inclined his head slightly.
“I’ll get them out of the house. Don’t destroy anything.”
“Not in the plan, dearest brother,” He agreed with a roll of his eyes.
Around ten minutes later, Gabriel was settled back in the bathroom off of the kitchen. He sat cross-legged on the floor, tongue sticking out slightly as he unscrewed the vent cover with a hole bent in it. The options that he’d bought were spread out behind him, soon to be tested for size. He was glad that this whole thing was much less complicated than it appeared; it was kind of stupid that neither of the Winchesters ever bothered to fix it. Gabriel supposed preventing Apocalypses did take it out of them. Humans were so easily adaptable. He admired it on some base level. Despite spending centuries training himself to be adaptable, he was an archangel at heart, and a stubborn one besides that. It had been hard to get himself used to change, to being fluid, and humans did it naturally from birth.
“If one of you doesn’t fit, I swear to everything holy⎯” He hissed at the vents. The one with a hole in it was tossed aside to be disposed of at a later date. The vents he’d chosen were, of course, in various bright colours because even if he was doing something…nice, it was still going to be personal. There was a cherry red one, an oceanic blue one, an ugly brown one, and Gabriel’s personal favourite; the golden vent.
Thankfully, it was the one that ended up fitting. Gabriel took the screws from the other, broken vent and screwed it back into the floor. He leaned back, smiling at his handiwork. It was nothing fancy, but it was nice to see a piece of what so clearly screamed him surrounded by Winchester and more Winchester. He stood up, gathering the other vents in his arms and wondering if the Winchesters would be back soon. He hoped that Sam liked the bookstore. Gabriel would’ve preferred to have been there, to see that adorable wide-eyed look of wonder Sam unconsciously did anytime he was surrounded by books⎯ Alas, he had to be here, fixing things. Hopefully earning Sam’s silent, begrudging forgiveness while he did it. At least there was no chance of Gabriel getting his foot stuck in the hole again.
Gabriel carried the leftover vents and screwdriver to the garage, picking a spot on a crowded shelf to dump them onto. He was sure that they’d go unnoticed in the midst of the rest of the clutter. Dean was meticulous about everything in his garage except for the back wall of shelves, which housed all manner of random shit. Gabriel was pretty sure that there were even some cursed objects tucked into the mess, which was why the Winchesters rarely bothered with it.
Gabriel walked back into the kitchen, catching a glimpse of gold through the open bathroom door and smiling faintly to himself. Maybe he could get used to this, laying low at the Winchesters. Maybe.
⎯⎯⎯
Before he’d proved himself, Gabriel had only been to the Winchesters’ house once.
Since narrowly avoiding death and permanently wounding (but not killing) Lucifer, Gabriel had been back a few times. He was supposed to stay indefinitely, so as not to attract more attention, but Gabriel wasn’t easily confined. Especially not to a house where he was limited to solely the ground floor. It wasn’t like it was a mansion; there was the kitchen, the spacious living room, the average-sized study, and then the laundry room that led out to the garage. The second floor contained the brothers’ bedrooms, thus rendering it off-limits. Nobody had ever said that in so many words, but Gabriel wasn’t an idiot. He hadn’t even seen Castiel go up there, and Dean wanted his pet angel everywhere.
So he was surprised, to say the least, to receive an explicit invitation.
“What?” He said, more clueless than he would’ve liked. Sam frowned at him.
“I said, do you want to help me set up shelves?” It’d been a few weeks since Gabriel put in a replacement vent. Sam hadn’t commented on the new, shiny gold bit of Gabriel thrown into their home, but he hadn’t shied away from Gabriel since, either. All in all, he considered it a win. “They’re going up in my room, and Dean is out with Cas today for that vamp nest in Roanoke.”
“I feel like you should know going into this that I have absolutely no experience putting up shelves.”
“Is that a yes?” There was a challenge in Sam’s eyes, though Gabriel couldn’t figure out why for the life of him. Still, he’d never been one to back down before.
“You’re on, Winchester,” he agreed. Sam grinned, turning around and leading the way upstairs. The stairs opened into a small common area with a TV tucked into the corner and an old, but comfortable-looking brown couch. There was an end table stacked high with books and a painting on the right wall, but Gabriel didn’t get much chance to look closer before he was dragged into Sam’s bedroom.
It was bigger than Gabriel expected. The floor was carpeted, plush under his feet, and the walls were panelled with a neutral wood tone. There was a closed door that Gabriel assumed led to a small closet on the left wall. The bed was set to the left of the door, covered in all a manner of books, with dark navy covers and way too many pillows. It looked like Sam’s entire collection, mostly consisting of fiction, which made Gabriel want to smile. Those books were for Sam. Something he got to keep all on his own, not anything for a case or to save the world. Just something he liked. It was nice to know that Sam could still have those sorts of things. On the opposite side, there was a tall wooden dresser with several stray knickknacks atop it and a bunch of pictures. Across from the door was a long, horizontal window with a desk set directly in the centre. The corners were conspicuously bare, so Gabriel figured that’s where the bookshelves were going.
“Hey!” He exclaimed, walking over to a dismantled bookshelf set that he’d only just noticed at the foot of Sam’s bed. “I know this. It’s my story.”
The pretty, dark wood marbled with lighter shades was inlaid with carvings and Norse symbols, describing the tales of Loki. Delicately, like he might upset the stories being told if he was too rough, Gabriel dragged his fingertips against them. His escapades, his losses, his glories…All written right there, for anyone to see. It was a hell of coincidence for Sam to have bookshelves with his story, but the carvings weren’t necessarily super distinctive. Unless Sam had been holding out on him this entire time, and he could read Norse. A faint twinge of possessive pride filled Gabriel as he looked down at the shelves.
“I know,” said Sam, effectively dashing all of Gabriel’s rationalisations. He whirled around, looking at Sam with wide eyes.
“What? Why would you⎯”
“I know you don’t spend time up here yet,” Sam said, cutting him off. “But I wanted it to be…familiar, if you did. I know how it feels to come back wrong, to realise that you don’t have a place in the world anymore. I mean, I’m lucky because I’ve always had Dean and here, home, but… Well, you know, whatever, man. I just don’t want you to have to keep running.”
“I’m not allowed up here, though?” Gabriel questioned dumbly, because he was half-running on autopilot. Of all the things he expected Sam to say, and there were many, admitting that he wanted Gabriel to feel at home? That would’ve been dead last, if he’d thought of it. It felt like they were on the edge of the precipice and Sam was about to throw them bodily over the edge, hurtling through the air without knowing if safety or death awaited them. And damn him to Hell, but Gabriel wanted to fly.
“What?” Sam said blankly. Gabriel was overcome with a distinct feeling of déjà vu. “Of course you’re allowed up here!”
“You don’t even let Cassie up here, what was I supposed to think?!”
“Oh my God. Gabriel. You don’t need permission to be up here. I mean, don’t go into Dean’s room without permission, but you can be upstairs. Or in my room. You have blanket permission.” Sam winced, as if abruptly realising what a stupid thing that was to gift to a Trickster. “You have blanket permission if you’re not trying to prank me,” he amended.
“Oh, but Sammy,” Gabirel crooned, smirking wickedly. Sam threw him a dirty look.
“Are you gonna help me set these up or not?” He demanded. Gabriel held up his hands in surrender.
“Sheesh, sheesh, yeah! Are you gonna make me help you organise your books alphabetically, too?”
“If you’re enough of an asshole, sure.”
Well, the joke was on him. Gabriel was always an asshole, and spending more time doing pointless human things with Sam sounded right up his alley. He didn’t have much better to do, and he liked being around Sam. It was easier to feel things in his presence without becoming overwhelmed by them. Plus, Sam was pretty, and Gabriel was weak to good eye candy.
“You don’t know how bad I can get, Sammykins.” Gabriel winked.
“You killed my brother more than a hundred and twenty times. I think I do.” Sam deadpanned. He winced at the ungracious reminder.
“Oh, come on! I apologised!”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t lord it over your head forever, Gabriel.” Sam’s tone very much implied the duh he didn’t say. Gabriel glowered at him.
“You’re insufferable, Winchester.”
“Only to you, Gabe.”
⎯⎯⎯
The fridge was a staple of the Winchester household.
It was one of those older white models that would probably outlast even an Apocalypse, battered on one side and marred with scribbly pencil marks on the other, signifying the boy’s heights. That part was particularly funny to Gabriel, who learned from Castiel that this house had only been acquired when Dean was nearly twenty. Meaning that the two Winchester brothers had purposely stooped to make sure they could fit on the stupid fridge, more than likely for the sake of a joke. It was plastered with newspaper clippings buried under more newspaper clippings; Gabriel had found ones so ancient that they’d yellowed under all the layers. Cases that the Winchesters had solved, of course, each slip of paper defaced with permanent marker with score tallies or who had killed what or, on occasion, hot victims’ friends’ numbers.
Gabriel kind of hated that he loved it.
It was hard to explain, but everything about the fridge felt homey. A landmark of the Winchesters, a glimpse into their daily lives, another wall that was chipped away in the face of Gabriel’s forced proximity. It was a symbol of family. A fridge filled with leftovers and take-out boxes and Tupperware containers and failed cooking experiments. It was everything Gabriel didn’t have, couldn’t have by virtue of being an archangel. The closest his family got to newspapers tacked on fridge walls was grooming each other’s wings, and even that fell out of fashion shortly after the first Michael vs Heylel fight.
“What are you doing?” Dean’s incredulous voice reached Gabriel from where he was standing in front of the fridge. He snapped out of a contemplative daze, turning to the other man with a winning smile. Dean looked at him suspiciously in the doorway, engine grease smeared on his forehead and an empty beer bottle in his hand. A good man would've told him about the grease⎯ Luckily, Gabriel was neither all that good or all that much of a man.
“Jeez, you guys really need a maid or something. Don’t you ever clear this out?” He fired back snarkily, allowing his mouth to take over before his hesitance could become obvious. Dean gave him a look that said ‘do you really think that’s ever a priority?’. Gabriel didn’t mind the history, anyway, it was just the first thing he thought to say. “I’m just admiring how many times you’ve lost the tally, Dean-o.”
“Oh, for the love of God⎯ I’m gonna kill that punk!” Dean exclaimed, sounding irritated. Gabriel made a face.
“Damn, can’t handle your losses like a man, huh? Anyway, I found out that my pagan magic works much better inside the wards.” Gabriel wiggled his fingers with a smirk. “As long as I don’t go too overboard, I don’t tear through the protections and the wards don’t eject me like they did last time.” Trial and error, that was how he discovered that angel powers didn’t work inside the house. Castiel, the traitor, had opted not to tell him and watched with the Winchesters while he made a fool of himself figuring that out.
“You’re a fuckin’ asshole. You better not use any mojo to prank us!” Dean pointed one stern finger at him, like a scolding mother. Gabriel blinked, frowning.
“Who, me?” He replied in his best innocent Southern belle accent. “I’m an angel! Why, I’d never⎯”
“Being an angel’s never stopped you before,” Dean said with a sneer, interrupting Gabriel’s spiel. It was rude, that was what it was, and there was a lot that Gabriel could let slide, but blatant rudeness like that… Well, Gabriel was a Trickster at heart.
“Oh, I’ll show you angel, Dean-o.” He grumbled, snapping his fingers before Dean could reply. The hunter’s eyes widened and Gabriel nudged his pagan magic into physical form, popping two small, white, feathery wings in the space between Dean’s shoulders and neck. They fluttered slightly in the air, reacting to the temperature.
“GABRIEL?!” Dean bellowed, having reached up his free hand to get a feel for his new appendages. Gabriel gave a small finger-wave, cackling.
“Toodle-oo, Dean! Best regards to the garrison’s latest cupid!” And with a thought, he disappeared into Sam’s bedroom. The wards accommodated him and the slight use of angel mojo, thankfully, rather than tossing him into the Aegean Sea somewhere. Laughter left him breathless as he flopped against Sam’s bed, laying out like a starfish.
“What’d you do this time?” Sam asked, amused. He looked down at Gabriel, glasses lowered on the bridge of his nose, from where he was sitting on the left side of the bed. He had his back against the headboard and his legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles like a dork, with what looked like a Tolkien book in his hands. He glanced over to the bookshelf, noticing the open spot where the Tolkien book had been taken from. He’d spent a few hours basking in Sam’s presence and helping him arrange all his books in his highly specific order. Not just alphabetised, of course, because it couldn’t be just that. Gabriel’s leg had flopped over Sam’s and his arm had landed haphazardly near his waist, which he drew back to his side before it could fall down into Sam’s lap.
“Well, let’s just say Dean-o might be looking a little more angelic today than usual.” Sam raised an eyebrow. He looked a little like an old man with his glasses on, but it was adorable at the same time. Pathetic, squishy humans and their bad eyesight.
“Did you give Dean angel…attributes? Wings?” To no one’s surprise, Sam was spot on the money. Gabriel gave a longsuffering sigh. The hunter really was too smart for his own good.
“It’s no fun if you guess it on the first try, Sammich!” He snickered. “Anyway…Maybe I did. But they’re only small ones, really, definitely not big enough to achieve flight. Who knows, maybe Cassie will get a kick out of them.”
“He’s gonna know you’re up here.”
“Pssh, he still thinks you hate me, so what does he know, really?”
“Not true. I told him when I forgave you; he gets it, a little. I mean, I think he was more offended about being killed a hundred-plus times than I was about living through it.” Sam shrugged. “I’ve learned my lesson about not telling Dean when I acquire allies. He doesn’t get veto power, but, y’know, he gets something close. I can’t say it ‘cause his head’s already big enough, but he’s got a pretty good instinct for this sort of thing.”
It took a second for it to click that he was being compared to Ruby. The demon she-bitch who’d manipulated Sam into an addiction and subsequently goaded him into killing Lilith. Gabriel had to digest that, actually. He knew that he’d been an asshole, knew that he’d done possibly permanent damage to Sam’s psyche with the traumatic point he tried to inflict, but Christ. It was one thing to know it objectively and quite another to reconcile it with the fact that he was on the same level as Ruby. Or had been, before he got himself almost-killed and proved his loyalty. Some ridiculous, tiny part of him was hurt over it, even though the rest of him screamed that he deserved it.
“Okay, okay, but he doesn’t think we’re close. He still thinks I jet off to Bora Bora half the time, when I haven’t done that in weeks!” Gabriel exclaimed, hoping to cover his split second of hesitation with theatrics. Sam’s lips curved into one of those horribly dorky subconscious half-smiles of his, but his eyebrows furrowed.
“I don’t know, I’m pretty obvious.” Sam flicked Gabriel’s temple before he could make sense of the words. “You’re not her. Don’t worry or get stuck inside that big head of yours, okay?”
“What the fuck?” Gabriel spluttered, making Sam laugh. Not just one of those, ‘oh you’re so funny Dean’ sarcastic chuckles, either, no, a laugh. Full-bodied, shoulders-shaking-with-it type of laugh. He was…catnip, or something. The archangelic equivalent, at least. Addicting. Gabriel had never been one to deny his indulgences, but he knew he had to for this one. Sam was⎯ Sam was destined for his brother as a vessel if nothing else, firstly, but Gabriel knew better to put stock in destiny by now. Even so, Sam was wonderful and terribly complex and a protector to his core and a better, stronger version of Gabriel. The version that chose his family, that came back because they needed him. Of anyone, everyone, Sam deserved something so much more than Gabriel could be. He was only a coward with a brief change of tune once it benefitted him more.
“You been holding out on me, Winchester? Got some psychic mind-reading powers tossed in there or what?” Gabriel demanded teasingly. Sam grinned.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He managed to hold the suspense for a second before he was shaking his head, huffing a laugh. “No, my powers were burned out when I stopped using. Some days, I mean, it feels like I should start again, like it’d be worth it for them alone… An edge in this war. But don’t worry! I know better than that,” Sam hurried to add, like he was afraid his brother would burst into the room and hear him admitting to fallacy. Gabriel frowned.
“It’s… You can admit it with me. I’m not gonna judge.” He gave a wry chuckle. “Hell, of anyone, Sam, I know most what it’s like to fail your family, to give into addictions or hedonism. I spent centuries luring people into it.”
“...I wake up sometimes and it’s all I can taste. I don’t think I should remember the taste so clearly, after all these months, but I do. It’s like it’s burned into my brain, the blood and sex and more blood. I think most of the time I’m more scared that I don’t want it for the sake of winning this war.” Sam glanced back at his book, clearly uncomfortable. Gently, like he was approaching a spooked animal, Gabriel laid a hand on his wrist. It earned him a surprised glance, but Sam didn’t shove him away, so he figured he was in the clear.
“You do know, Samshine, that’s normal? It’s an addiction. I don’t know if it will ever go away. It’s okay to want, you know? You’re not inherently wrong for just wanting.”
Sam gave a bitter laugh. “Sure. Still an abomination, though, so I think everything I do is inherently wrong on some level.”
“What?”
“Oh⎯” Sam looked awkward, which was better than the bitter resignation, but not by much. “I forgot you weren’t around for that. Cas’ and I’s first meeting wasn’t…pleasant. I was so excited to meet an angel that I forgot how tainted I am, and, well, Cas had no trouble reminding me. No social filter, heh.”
“My brother called you an abomination?” Gabriel’s voice was torn between incredulity and a potent sort of anger. Sam blinked, looking adorably caught off-guard.
“Yeah? That’s what I just said.” Within a flash, his expression had shifted to teasing. “Don’t tell me your hearing is going in your old age, Gabe.”
“You aren’t tainted.” Gabriel replied, furious. “You sure as hell aren’t an abomination. It wasn’t your fault Azazel decided to use you in his absolutely insane plan, or that Ruby manipulated you into your addiction. I’m not saying you’re entirely absolved or anything, but sweetheart. Sam, what part of you could possibly be inherently wrong?” Without making the conscious decision to, Gabriel had risen from his starfish position, sitting cross-legged near Sam as he held the hunter’s gaze.
“Gabe, it isn’t that big of a deal⎯” Sam tried, cheeks faintly pink.
“I don’t know how to get this through that Cro-Magnon skull of yours,” Gabriel interrupted. “But you aren’t evil. You weren’t born evil, being Lucifer’s vessel does not make you evil, having an addiction doesn’t mean you’re evil, and you’re especially not evil for something that happened when you were a baby. Six months old, Sam. If there was a kid, six months old, who got fed demon blood and then fell into your care, would you ever consider them evil?”
“No,” said Sam, looking scandalised.
“That’s what I tho⎯”
“But most six month olds don’t kill their moms, either.”
Gabriel was seriously going to smack the man sitting in front of him.
“How many times have you bumped that noggin of yours? Pretty sure you’ve had to suffer a concussion or fifteen to be this stupid.” He shook his head with an exasperated look. “Christ, do I have to call your brother up here? Is that seriously what it will take? Dean’s allergic to feelings, you know, you’ll give him hives.”
Sam snorted. “You’re being dramatic.”
“Azazel killed your mother,” said Gabriel flatly. Sam flinched, subtle but there nonetheless. “I don’t know who made you think you did it, but you didn’t. It was Azazel. He pinned her to the ceiling and used hellfire to burn your house down.”
“I don’t appreciate the way this has turned into a therapy session,” Sam replied, clipped. “Although therapists usually aren’t as verbally abusive as you.”
“Someone’s gotta knock the sense into you, Sammy.” Gabriel winked, sensing that Sam was close to his breaking point. He tended to bulldoze over boundaries; it was kind of his whole schtick, but the last thing Gabriel wanted right then was to push Sam away. Hopefully, some of his words had gotten through, and they could talk about it again.
“Don’t call me Sammy,” He scolded automatically, an amused twitch to his lips. Gabriel grinned. “How long do the wings last?”
“Oho, why? You got any plans, big boy?” Gabriel replied, immediately jumping onto the new conversation topic. Sam raised an eyebrow at the pet name that had slipped out, but nodded regardless.
“I have plenty, actually.”
⎯⎯⎯
That night, while both Winchesters were asleep, Gabriel found himself in the kitchen once more. Still staring at the fridge, at all the family history that had made itself a home there.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few photos, carefully pinning them to the fridge with magnets without letting any newspaper clippings slip.
A Polaroid of Sam and Dean, around eight and twelve, went up first, both of them making exaggerated silly faces in the picture. Next was a candid of Castiel, eyes slightly wider than normal at the flash, standing in the middle of a gas station aisle of candy and junk food. Then a picture of Dean with bulging cheeks and half a pie left in front of him, around eighteen or nineteen before they’d gotten the house. One of Sam sleeping, mouth tipped open with a few plastic spoons already in and one coming into frame, courtesy of Dean’s hand. The brothers, leaning against Baby with beers, Bobby’s disgruntled form in the background photo-bombing. Bobby flipping off the camera on his dusty porch, still grinning despite it. Gabriel and Castiel, the former gesticulating wildly while the latter looked extremely confused. That one had been hidden in a dusty crevice of Sam’s desk; Gabriel had no idea where it was from, but it was his second favourite.
The crowning jewel, of course, went up last. A perfectly preserved photo of Mary Winchester, cradling a baby Sam in her arms with young, not-quite-toddler Dean next to her, looking at his baby brother with all the awe and love a child could muster. He’d exhausted more Grace than needed to go back in time and take it, innocuously enough that no rips in the space-time continuum happened. But it was worth it, seeing the photo surrounded by the others, a perfect representation of the Winchester family.
⎯⎯⎯
The garage was off-limits.
It wasn’t said in so many words, of course, and Gabriel knew by now that he was still allowed inside it. But that didn’t change the fact that it was off-limits. The garage was where Dean Winchester would hold court, were he inclined to particularly fancy metaphors like that. A more apt way to consider it would be that the garage was Dean’s man-cave. Either way, Gabriel kept out of it. He might’ve loved annoying the oldest Winchester, but he knew well enough that Dean had enough stripped away from him. He deserved his own house, but Gabriel was already in that out of necessity, so the least Gabriel could do was give him his privacy.
Of course, that was until he saw the toaster left disassembled on top of the freezer the brothers used to store the game they occasionally hunted. (They were adept hunters in every sense of the word, it seemed; getting the house, with its large wooded area out back, had only aided that endeavour. Bobby had taken them as children in his spare time, and Dean liked the hobby enough to continue. Sam helped gut and clean meat, but he wouldn’t kill the deer or birds.)
“Why…?” Gabriel murmured, slipping through the open door before he could think too hard about it. He’d been in the laundry room when he noticed the toaster, discreetly stealing one of Sam’s overworn Stanford shirts that smelled addictingly like him. He had like three, there was no way he’d miss one! “What’s wrong with you?”
Pagan magic didn’t like machinery. It was wild, unrestrained, free and chaotic. A grove of trees with branches interlocking, a river wearing through mountains, the inevitable ebb and flow of life and death. Angel mojo, however, that was a whole different beast. Angel mojo was a lot like a machine, actually. Explosively powerful, so many intricate pieces that had to be together to work, hard and unfeeling. It reacted to Gabriel’s emotions because it was still a part of him, but not like his pagan magic did. His pagan magic was impulsive, just like his emotions, but angel mojo only busted out randomly if he was truly overwhelmed. That didn’t happen often to archangels.
Carefully, with more delicacy than Gabriel thought he was capable of mustering, he pushed outward against the Winchester wards. It was silly, but Gabriel thought that they might be getting used to him. It was the only explanation that made sense as for why they didn’t react as strongly as they had before, only buzzing lightly with electricity when Gabriel brushed his powers against the border. He pulled back from the wards in his mind and looked down at the toaster, narrowing his eyes in concentration.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” Dean snapped, loudly disrupting Gabriel’s focus and causing the toaster pieces to fly in every direction. He whirled around, giving the hunter an accusing look as the man dodged a flying toaster projectile.
“I was getting it! What the fuck, Dean?”
“This is my garage, asshole. What were you doin’ with my toaster, huh?” Dean asked, eyes all squinty with suspicion. Gabriel huffed, frowning. He had to admit that Dean was a lot less intimidating when he had two fluffy angel wings sprouting from his back, but he wasn’t the type to repeat pranks, so…
“I was fixing it,” Gabriel muttered, eyes flicking to the opened garage door. He wasn’t planning an escape, no, he was planning a retreat. A tactical retreat into safer territory that didn’t have Dean Winchester’s forced macho-masculine aura all over it. Or at least not so much all over it. “I noticed it was broken…and you’re supposed to be saltin’-and-burnin’ a ghost two states over.”
“Easy case, easy run time,” Dean shrugged with one shoulder, just like Sam had a habit of doing. Gabriel wondered who’d given the habit to who, or if the boys were so intertwined that it had just popped into existence one day, a naturally shared trait like many others. “And you been doin’ that a lot lately, huh? Fixing things.” It was said with some strange sort of emphasis, almost like a double entendre. Gabriel blinked pointedly at Dean. Normally he was too good at ferreting out hidden meaning, but he didn’t know what the hell Dean was implying with this one.
“I…guess? What else did I fix?”
“The vent, Sam’s bookshelves⎯”
“Those weren’t broken!” Gabriel protested, interrupting Dean from where he was ticking off each item on his fingers. He gave him a dirty look.
“⎯the fridge, and now my goddamn toaster.”
“I didn’t fix the fridge, either.” Gabriel shrugged. “I just added some things. Made it better, if I do say so myself. It’s not like it was ever broken. And Sam asked me to help with the bookshelves, so I wasn’t fixing anything, I was being a good…guest.” He winced as soon as the words were out. Dean looked at him with disbelief, like he was also shocked that Gabriel had ever claimed to be a good guest. Gabriel did his best to be an annoying nuisance, not a guest of anyone. But he didn’t have any other claim on Sam or their relationship, if there was even anything to call a relationship. ‘Acquaintances’ was even more stiff, and fell flat in the face of the fact that they’d both tried to kill each other at one point.
“You gotta realise I don’t believe you, man.” Dean said scathingly, before a pensive expression came over his face. “You can’t fix him. Sammy ain’t⎯ Sammy ain’t broken, but you can’t fix him.”
“What?” Déjà vu had become Gabriel’s new best friend, apparently. He felt like he was repeating situations all over the place, confusion following every one of them. Dean gave him a disgusted look. “No, I’m not fucking with you here⎯ What?”
“You’re on some fixing kick! And I get it, man, or I don’t, whatever, Cas says to leave you be ‘cause you’re adrift and fuckin’⎯ Hell if I know, alright, but I get bein’ displaced and I get fixing. I get it, coming back from the dead and havin’ to fix stuff. I don’t wanna talk about this, definitely not with you, but for Christ’s sake, I need you not to try and fix my brother.” There was a desperate edge peeking through Dean’s tough-guy expression. “He’s had it enough. Dad tries fixin’ him all his life and then I try fixin’ him ‘cause he leaves and I don’t know what the fuck to do⎯” Dean took a deep breath.
“Y’know, when Sammy started grownin’ his hair out, I think he was about a freshman or maybe a sophomore. High school, for sure, but he hadn’t hit his growth spurt and he was still my scrawny little kid brother. That week, the motel was close enough from the school to walk, and I stayed at some chick’s house to⎯ I got back, and it wasn’t that late, but Dad was there. It was freaky, ‘cause he was never done with a case that early, and I… I sort of knew. Had a gut feeling. Anyway, I go into the bathroom, and⎯” Dean shook his head with a bitter laugh. “Sometimes I really hate that man, you know? A lot of the time I can’t, but I do. He’d shaved Sammy’s head. Held him down and shaved his head, all ‘cause it was too damn girly, too queer. That was the first time I got in my Dad’s face. I told him if he laid a hand on Sammy again that he didn’t want, that he wasn’t okay with, I’d knock him on his ass and I’d take the car and he’d never see us again.”
It wasn’t as if Gabriel didn’t know Dean was telling the truth. It was written all over him in the hard set of his mouth, the line of tension that his shoulders had become, the way his eyes were vaguely glazed over with memories and rage. So much rage. But it was hard to swallow. Gabriel had known, vaguely, in the way that Dean flinched when someone said ‘sir’ around him or in the way Sam still did a half-double-take occasionally when he laughed too loud. He’d known that John Winchester hadn’t been the best father, known in the way he knew that those little details and habits didn’t come from the rest of the Winchesters’ traumatic lives. It was one thing to know vaguely and another to be presented with cold, hard facts.
“You meant it, didn’t you?” Gabriel asked in slow realisation. Dean raised an eyebrow. “How old were you? Were you even eighteen yet?”
“The Hell does that matter?” Dean shrugged, as if it was no big deal. As if he hadn’t spent his entire life being his father’s perfect little soldier. As if he hadn’t threatened to turn that all on its head for the sake of his little brother. “It was Sam.”
And yeah, Gabriel got that, a little. He wasn’t going to pretend like he’d betrayed his own flesh and blood for any purely selfless reason, but Sam Winchester and his… everything had been a contributing factor, beyond the knowledge that Gabriel had his best chance for survival if he was in the Winchesters’ boat. It was Sam. What else was there to say?
“I’m not trying to fix him.” It was rude that it had been Dean’s first thought, but Gabriel had known all about the codependent, protective Winchester brother dynamic when he went into this. “I’m not. I don’t know how to get that into your thick head, but I⎯ It’s not about fixing. It’s about…Sam. It’s about how he always wanted a picket fence life and he’s not going to get that, but he can still have something like it. He can have, you know, pictures on the fridge and a perfect vent in the bathroom and whatever damn bookshelves he wants and his gross, lightly toasted toast.”
“Holy shit.” Dean said, eyes going wide. Gabriel blinked. “You’re in love with him.”
“What?!”
“I know you heard me, oh my God, I gotta go fuckin’ wash my mouth out with soap or something, oh my God. This is so gross. Holy shit.” Dean made an exaggerated gagging noise. “I’m gonna… Go. Yeah. Fuck. I still got angel blades, so don’t fuck this up, you hear me? Jesus Christ.” He backed out the room faster than Gabriel could say anything, staring after him like a mindless, gaping fish.
In his mind’s eye, the memories of the past few weeks flashed through. Fixing the vent to make Sam feel better after Gabriel made an insensitive comment, agreeing to build bookshelves to make Sam happy, ferrying pictures from across time for the sole purpose of helping Sam realise that he wasn’t an abomination. Sam, Sam, Sam. Sam’s hair, Sam’s sunflower eyes, Sam’s hands and mouth and⎯ Christ, why hadn’t Gabriel put together the pieces before? He’d chalked it up to errant sexual attraction, but there were feelings. So many feelings behind every desire Gabriel had. He was in love with Sam. The man with the demon blood, the prophesied Boy King, a hunter and protector, someone who had saved countless lives… That was who had an archangel, a pagan god, wrapped around his finger.
Did Sam know? Had Sam realised what Gabriel was so obviously displaying and peacocking about?
There was panic crawling up his throat and the wards that had buzzed against his skin so comfortingly a second ago slammed down against him as every inch of magic burst from him, throwing him so far Gabriel ceased to be.
⎯⎯⎯
Gabriel?
It could’ve been someone in the nameless crowd of revellers, shouting something too close to his own for comfort. It could’ve been a misconstruction, a phantom sound, but no. Gabriel knew that voice more intimately than he knew the feeling of hedonism, of sex and life and lust and godhood. Yet it was easy to lose himself in the sweat and the base thumping away under his skin, easy to ignore it.
Gabriel, please. I need you.
Visions of Sam dying, choking on his own blood, a vampire a ghost a werewolf a demon getting too close and dealing a death blow⎯
It wasn’t a conscious decision, snapping himself out of the party and into a familiar yard.
Gabriel blinked, staring at a house that had haunted him in some facsimile of dreams. Whatever dreams that could plague an archangel for days on end. He hadn’t thought that he had the clearance for this. The image of the yard had solidified and sharpened in his mind over distance, but he assumed that was through his burning, aching desire to remember it, not through the wards being edited to allow him in. Before he could do anything beyond having that world-shattering realisation, there was a tight grip on his forearm and his brother had popped into existence softly next to him.
“Cassie?” Gabriel asked suspiciously. “What are you doing?”
“You won’t talk to Sam,” Castiel said, sounding annoyed. “And he’s moping, which makes Dean mope, which makes him angry and prone to blowing up at everything. He has not been good company these past few days, and for that matter, neither has Sam. It’s your fault, so you’re fixing it.”
“Gonna be honest here, Cassie, I’m real damn sick of hearing that word⎯”
Castiel’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t care.”
“Cassie⎯” He couldn’t get the rest of the exclamation out before they’d flown into Sam’s bedroom. As soon as Castiel’s feet had landed, he let go of Gabriel’s arm and promptly disappeared once more. Gabriel gaped at the empty spot where his brother had just been, incredulous. “What the fuck?”
“You wouldn’t answer my prayers like a normal archangel, so I did what I had to do,” Sam said, unrepentant, from where he lounged on his desk chair. He looked unfairly put-together, in the pretty dark blue flannel that brought out his eyes and his hair looking slightly combed. More effort put in than usual, Gabriel noted. “Plus, Cas was ready to tear his hair out by the fourth time Dean snapped at him over something small, so…”
“I hear you’ve been moping?” Gabriel asked, striking for teasing and landing a little too close to concerned for his tastes. Of course, compared to Sam, he was a pathetic mess. His eye makeup was dark and smudged, probably runny, and the mesh shirt that looked perfectly in place at a rave now seemed tacky and wildly inappropriate. It was a good thing his jeans were tolerable, if a little too tight and pitch black with some neon paint splatters.
“A little,” Sam admitted with a wry smile. “I was worried, until I figured it out. What happened, I mean. Dean finally ‘fessed up after I sighed too loud or something.”
“I didn’t know there was anything to figure out, kiddo,” Gabriel said, winking. Sam raised an eyebrow.
“A week of radio silence after we’ve been, what, attached at the hip? It’s kinda suspicious, Gabe.” Sam softened. “You don’t have to do the whole Trickster thing with me, you know. I get why you’re scared, but you don’t have to be.”
“I’m an archangel, Sam,” Gabriel spat, barely keeping his shoulders from hiking up around his ears. “I don’t get scared.”
“You get scared all the time. You’ve called yourself a coward more times than I can count. And you’re terrified right now.” Sam smirked, all cocky edges and smug attitudes. Gabriel hated him. (He didn’t. It made everything so goddamn much worse.) “So what are you gonna do about it?”
“What am I going to do about it?” He repeated disbelievingly. Sam’s smirk seemed to sharpen at the corners. Gabriel’s blood boiled in his veins, sinking back into the familiar feeling of anger instead of fear.
“Yeah,” Sam said, goading. “What are you gonna do about it, Gabe?”
Gabriel stalked towards Sam, bracing his hands on the armrests as he leaned over Sam. The hunter’s eyes lidded, his lips still curled in that infuriating smirk. His gaze dipped noticeably to Gabriel’s lips and Gabriel grinned, enjoying the attention. It was tantalising, being the sole recipient of all that concentrated focus. One of Sam’s hands slipped around his wrist while Gabriel was admiring, thumb pressing against his vessel’s pulse point.
“I’m not this body, you know,” He said suddenly, eyes flicking back up to Sam’s. The lust faded a little, replaced with a fond exasperation. Sam swiped his thumb gently across the fragile skin of Gabriel’s wrist, each touch burning. “My true form would kill you. I mean it. You think Cassie’s impressive, you haven’t seen anything. Literally, of course, but just in general, whatever he’s told you? Twenty thousand times less impressive than me.” He was rambling, some distant part of him realised, from nerves.
“You’re you, Gabe. Trickster, true form, pagan god, and all.” Sam whispered, his breath ghosting across Gabriel’s lips. “That’s what I want.”
And then he was kissing Gabriel, warm and insistent, his free hand coming up to cradle Gabriel’s face. It was relatively chaste, sweet but nothing close to innocent, but that wasn’t what Gabriel wanted. He parted his lips, teeth gently tugging on Sam’s bottom one. Sam sighed, something about it so trusting, into the kiss and it was like a dam broke inside Gabriel. Everything he’d wanted for weeks, for months without knowing, handed to him on a silver platter. How could an archangel, a hedonistic pagan god, ever resist? From there it was tongues and teeth and Gabriel climbed onto Sam’s lap, desperately hoping the damn desk chair could hold both of their weights. He wound his hands into Sam’s hair, tangling the strands around his fingers.
“You drive me crazy,” Gabriel muttered against Sam’s lips when the other man had to pull away, breathing heavier than normal. His lips were bitten-red and plumper than normal, his cheeks pink, and vicious, possessive pride curled through Gabriel’s chest. He untangled his hands from Sam’s hair, sliding them down to cup Sam’s cheeks. “I need you.”
“You have me.” It was the immediacy of that reply that made Gabriel’s heart practically melt in his chest. He hated how he was reduced to sappy clichés around Sam, but it seemed that it was doomed to happen regardless.
“I need you to be mine.”
Sam smiled at that, bright and beautiful and so goddamn happy it felt like it was blinding Gabriel. He pressed a kiss to Gabriel’s forehead and somehow it was more intimate than any of the tongues-sticking-down-throats that they’d done a minute before. His hand had found Gabriel’s wrist again, thumb still swiping across his pulse point like he had to remind himself it was there. An endearing habit, to someone who was virtually immortal.
“We can talk about it,” Sam agreed with a faint huff of laughter. “We can belong to each other, if you want.”
“I want,” Gabriel promised, voice low. Sam’s grin slipped into something softer, the look in his eyes going predatory.
“Yeah?” He shifted his hips up slightly and Gabriel smirked, grinding down in return and making Sam’s pupils blow out. “Fuck yeah. C’mere.”
And, well, Gabriel was helpless to agree.
⎯end.