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Sam was starting to get very suspicious about Christmas.
Every year it was something similar; pagan gods of the winter equinox, evil reindeer, evil gingerbread cookies for fuck’s sakes—it was like evil took a break from its regularly scheduled programming of death and mayhem to put on a holiday special. The only difference was you could turn off the shitty and inevitable Adam Sandler Christmas Marathon when it invaded the channels. When it came to monsters you had no choice but to grit your teeth and take the red and green non sequitur as it came. Even on Christmas Eve. Dean had started calling the phenomenon a Winchester Christmas—“Chrinchestermas”, as Sam resolutely refused to call it. The way he saw it, it was the universe wishing them season’s greetings the only way it knew how: by trying to kill them.
This time it was some kind of infestation of weird, peppermint-striped hamster creatures with an appetite for living flesh infesting the attic of a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Which got him thinking, how come there were never any Haunakah-themed monsters this time of year? Team Evil needed to work on its representation.
Sam grunted with effort as he bunted the last one out the window with a crowbar. It sailed to the ground in a red and white streak and bounced off into the bushes somewhere. No salt or iron needed here; these things had a nasty bite, but a little blunt-force trauma did the trick just fine.
Dean’s voice sounded from the bottom of the steps. “Finished up down here,” he called. “How you doing up there, Sammy?”
“I think I’m good,” he called back, picking up one of the plump, dead creatures by its long ears and staring into its obscenely large mouth. “We should burn the bodies, just to be safe.”
“Yeah, and tell the kid to stop feeding things after midnight,” he heard Dean mutter, punctuated by the clatter of a roll of trash bags hitting the floor of the attic as he tossed them up. “Since you’re already up there, I’ll take cleanup on the rest of the house,” Dean said, his footsteps fading away.
Sam sighed. Nothing like being stuck in a musty attic filled with dead gremlins on Christmas Eve. He’d like to see them try to write a carol about that. Then again, it was definitely better than their otherwise constant struggle to avert the apocalypse. Never in his life did Sam expect that killing flesh eating Christmas-themed hamsters would feel like a welcome reprieve. He shook out a plastic bag and started stuffing it with dead monsters, really wishing he had a pair of gloves or a face mask. It was starting to smell like rotting gingerbread up there.
By the time he and Dean took the bodies into the woods behind the house and dug a pit to burn them in, it was almost midnight. Maybe it was just the light, but the shadows under Dean’s eyes looked deeper than usual. They’d been on the road a lot lately, sleeping with their necks lolled at unhealthy angles against the seats of the Impala and their feet propped up on the dashboard. Motel beds may not have been the most comfortable of sleeping experiences, but compared to Dean’s tiny car they were like laying on a cloud in heaven. At least it would be, if Sam didn’t have visions of Lucifer dancing in his head every time he shut his eyes. In the end, the sporadic patches of half-sleep he got in the car were probably better.
“So,” Dean said, interrupting Sam’s chain of thought in what was probably supposed to sound like a conversational tone. “Any word from your douchebag angel yet?”
“My angel?” Sam spluttered. “You really want to go there, Dean?” His brother’s constant heckling about taking cues from Gabriel had gotten a lot more bearable ever since Sam had stopped denying it and started using Dean’s weird thing with Castiel as leverage. Not like there was much to deny, of course, but then again Dean would say the same about the obscene amounts of eye-fucking that he and Castiel had been enjoying lately. Sure enough, a muscle twitched in Dean’s cheek and he quickly busied himself with kicking some dirt onto the flames.
“And no, I haven’t heard from him,” Sam concluded, when it became clear that Dean was going to sulk until he broke the silence.
“What are we supposed to do until he pulls his head out of his ass?” Dean grumbled. “I’m all for saving lives wherever we can, but we can’t keep playing monster of the week when we have the frickin’ apocalypse on our plate. It’s like we’re stomping on roaches while the house burns down around us. We need intel on the horsemen, and we need it now.”
“Well if it was as easy as that we wouldn’t need to enlist the help of an archangel, would we?” Sam said mildly. “Speaking of which, maybe you shouldn’t make it your one and only goal to antagonize the most powerful ally we’ve been lucky enough to recruit so far.”
Dean just shook his head. “He’s probably off making some smuck slowdance with aliens again.” Sam couldn’t help but smile at that, letting the conversation drift into a companionable silence as they waited for fire to die.
“Smells like peppermint,” Dean grunted as the flames burned down to smoldering embers. “Merry Chrinchestermas, Sammy,” he said, picking up a shovel to bury the remains.
Sam grinned. “Stop trying to make it a thing.”
When they trekked back to the house, the Fuller family was waiting for them in the living room. Their young daughter Addy was clutching her father’s leg, peeking out from behind her parents with a shy smile. The adults looked a lot more wearied, but all in all they were taking this very well.
Glancing around, Sam was glad to see that their rescue hadn’t done too much damage; a wall kicked in there, a lamp knocked over there. The only casualty had been the family dog; they’d spent half an hour cleaning what was left of it out of the inside of a wall earlier that night.. All in all it could have been worse. Their Christmas tree and the presents beneath it had survived the worst of the fighting. Sam supposed that not actively ruining a family’s Christmas would have to be the best he could hope for today.
“It’s done,” Dean said, leaning on his shovel. “The evil furbies are all extra-crispy.” Sam could practically taste the family’s relief.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Fuller said, pulling her husband into a hug. “You saved our lives.”
“Just part of the job,” Dean said. “But tell you what, if you know any decent motels around here, directions would be much appreciated.”
“There’s not another town with a decent place to stay for hours,” Mr. Fuller said. “’Less you’re fond of bedbugs.” Sam resigned himself to another uncomfortable night. Seemed that they’d be spending Christmas with the feeling that their necks had been crunched like empty beer cans.
“Oh please,” Mrs. Fuller said quickly. “You don’t need a motel. You boys can feel free to stay right here. It’s the least we can do.”
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sam said immediately. Dean shot him a disbelieving look, and Sam could practically hear him wondering when Sam had decided to take over the role of unapologetic ass. The thought of sleeping in a real bed for a change was enough to make Sam’s spine twinge in longing for something resembling back support. As tempting as it was, there was a reason that Sam had been subtly guiding them away from people. He’d been seeing Lucifer in his dreams more frequently than ever, and if there was any chance at all that he’d wake up with Satan holding the reigns then he sure as hell wasn’t going to do it in the middle of some family’s living room. Dean would be safe; Micheal would put him back together again no matter what Lucifer did to him. Anyone else who got in the way would be chalked up to collateral damage. And Sam had been the cause of more than enough of that already.
The Fullers looked like they were gearing up to gracefully accept Sam’s rebuttal when the little girl flung herself out from behind her parents and threw her arms around Sam’s legs, staring up at him with adoring eyes.
“Please stay,” she said earnestly. “You made the monsters go away. They ate Champ, and they were going to eat me. But you killed them all and burned them up.” Sam looked up in chagrin at her parents, sure that they’d be pretty pissed at the thousands of dollars of therapy their daughter was going to need, but they just smiled tired smiles.
Normally Dean would have been just as eager to skip town and get out of these people’s lives, but Sam could see his resolution buckling. Weeks and weeks of little sleep and ample stress had worn his willpower to the bone.
“Don’t mind my little brother, his manners are a bit rusty,” Dean said eventually. “If it’s not too much trouble, we’d be happy to stay here for the night.”
Sam peeled their daughter off of his legs and ushering her back to her parents. “We’ll be gone by morning,” he promised.
“Nonsense,” Mr. Fuller said. “I insist you stay for breakfast. You’ve more than earned a free meal or two. Speaking of which, are either of you hungry now?”
“Actually, I think we’d just like to get some sleep,” Dean was saying, before their kid interrupted with a shriek of “Cookies!” and ran into the kitchen. Her parents shot the Winchesters an apologetic smile and trailed after her.
“There’s a spare bedroom up the stairs, first door on your right,” Mrs. Fuller said, pausing in the threshold, “and there’s the couch right here.” She paused, a quiet smile on her face, before stepping forward and pulling both the boys into a hug.
“You saved my family’s life,” she said, stepping back quickly and looking away. “I can never repay you for that.”
“No problem, lady,” Dean said. “This is what we do.”
She nodded. “I’m going to go try and get Addy into bed. You boys get some sleep.” They watched her head into the other room to join the rest of her family, Dean turned to Sam.
“So,” he said, sounding disappointed already. “Rock paper scissors for the bed?”
Sam started to raise his hand, then stopped. Dean looked so tired and pathetic in that moment, and his track record at winning was less than shining. Not to mention that, as nice as it would be to stretch out for once, he probably wouldn’t do any sleeping. With a sigh, Sam gestured to the stairway.
“You take it,” he said graciously, aware of the fact that he’d been kicking himself for his charity in the morning. Assuming his legs would still be capable of movement by then.
Dean looked suspicious. “Really?”
“Really. You need a good night’s sleep more than I do.”
Dean grinned broadly and set a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Sammy,” he said happily, “You’re the best brother ever.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sam said, swallowing a smile and swatting him off. “Go enjoy your good back support. And don’t even think about squandering it by talking to Cas all night.”
Dean immediately looked guilty before muttering some excuse and escaping up to the bedroom. Sam laughed quietly under his breath. Making Dean squirm about whatever weird thing was going on between him and Cas was one of the very minimal benefits of the apocalypse. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly, and knowing his brother’s track record with emotions he doubted Dean did either. That just made it easier to make fun of him for it. Normally Sam might be asking questions based on the fact that Cas was an angel, if not the fact that he was a dude-shaped angel and he hadn’t thought Dean swung that way. But if there was a time to say “fuck it” and then proceed to do so, the end of the world was it. Not to mention that it would be a bit hypocritical of him, what with the whole situation with Gabriel which was totally not a situation.
Sam turned his attention to the couch, inspecting the damage and putting thoughts of angels out of his mind. The sofa would have been too short for an average-sized person to stretch out on, and with Sam’s proportions it looked like he’d be spending the night scrunched halfway into the fetal position. Still beat the Impala, though.
The lights flicked off in the kitchen and Sam was just trying to work his way into a comfortable position that wasn’t some sort of yoga pose when the sound of little feet scurried into the room. Addy appeared with a plate of frosted cookies and a glass of cold milk, her short brown hair flipping into her eyes.
“These were going to be for Santa,” she explained, coming to a halt by the couch as Sam sat back up. “But Santa gets like 6 bajillion cookies on Christmas, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even kill any monsters. So I think you should have them.” She set the plate down on the table beside the couch and stared at him with wide, expectant eyes. Something painful found its way to Sam’s heart.
“Um, thanks,” Sam said awkwardly, picking one up to nibble the edge carefully. Someone, presumably Addy, had tried to shape them to look like Christmas trees. The one Sam picked up looked more like blob with green frosting smeared on it. It was possibly the sugariest thing he had ever tasted.
“It’s really good,” he said not entirely untruthfully, forcing a weak smile. That was enough to make Addy break out into a gap-toothed grin and throw her arms around Sam’s neck.
“Thank you again,” she said into Sam’s shoulder. “You’re the bravest man ever. Are you going to live with us now?”
“No, we’re just staying the night,” Sam said, patting her back. He should have pushed her away, told her that he was a bad person that could easily become the worst, told her to run back to the safety of her bed and forget she had met him at all. But he couldn’t make himself do it, couldn’t deny himself this one moment of happiness. It felt nice to have just one person believe that he was good. He knew he’d feel like shit about it later, and hoped that would make up for it.
“Champ is my dog,” Addy explained, totally unaware of Sam’s internal crisis. “Mommy and daddy say that Champ isn’t coming back because he’s gone to a better place. But I don’t think Champ would want to go to a better place if I wasn’t there. Maybe now that the monsters are gone, he’ll come back to me.”
Sam wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sure he misses you a lot, wherever he is,” he said, and that seemed to be the right thing because Addy broke away with a smile and yawned.
“I’m going to bed,” she said, but not before glancing at the plate of cookies with a hungry look.
“Can I have one, please?” she asked sheepishly. Sam grinned.
“Sure,” he said, and she snatched one up and stuffed it into her mouth before running up the stairs to bed. Apparently saving a little girl from monsters only got you so far in the cookie department. But still, he mused, this ranked as one of the better presents he’d gotten for Christmas.
The lights on the tree were the only things illuminating the room, blinking gently in reds and whites and greens. An appropriate hush had settled over the house, bringing certain Christmas stories to mind. There were no sugar plums waiting for Sam on the other side of consciousness, though. Just the Devil and his endless, reasonable arguments, wearing Sam down like water on rock until the only thing that was left was the one word Lucifer needed. Every night Sam went to bed wondering if this was the night it would happen. Tonight he resolved not to sleep at all.
That turned out to be easier said than done. Every few minutes he would get up and pace around the room, rolling his feet on the carpet to keep his footsteps from waking the rest of the house. But he was sore, and tired, and the couch was just comfortable enough to help him relax while just uncomfortable enough to convince him he wouldn’t fall asleep. He sat down and picked up another of the lumpy cookies. Maybe the sugar would help him stay awake.
He was staring off into the distance and wishing vainly for a cup of coffee when a soft noise came from somewhere behind him. Sam froze instinctively, focusing intently on the source of the sound. It was a soft crunching sound, barely loud enough to hear, but Sam’s instincts were lighting the signal fires. Casually Sam reached towards the pillow where he had tucked his gun earlier, but his fingers slid over cool, empty fabric. His gun was gone.
Fighting down the first pangs of real panic, Sam forced himself to breathe normally. Surprise would be his only ally now. With a final hiss of air he whirled around, springing up with his feet on the couch and his hands balled into fists.
No less than a few feet away and sprawled out like he’d been there the whole time was Gabriel. He had pulled up one of the armchairs so he could rest his feet on the back of the couch; the plate of cookies was resting on his stomach as he chewed them thoughtfully, a spark of mischief in his eyes. A ridiculous red Santa hat was perched on his head.
“Ho ho ho,” he said with a grin, shoving the rest of a cookie into his mouth. Sam stared at him, halfway wondering if he had fallen asleep after all. Popping into people’s dreamscape wasn’t really the archangel’s MO, but then again Sam seemed to break the mold when it came to what Gabriel was willing to do.
Gabriel saw his fists, still balled up in defense, and raised an eyebrow. “Are we going to have fisticuffs?” he asked drily. “Don’t worry, I come in peace. Now get down off that couch, you were too damn tall as it was and I’m getting a crick in my neck.”
“What are you doing here?” Sam whispered, lowering his hands self-consciously and easing himself back into a kneeling position while keeping his eyes focused on Gabriel. Automatically he glanced up the stairs towards the where he knew Dean was sleeping. Gabriel followed his gaze with a smirk.
“Don’t worry, we won’t be disturbed. Dean and company are sleeping like the dead.” Seeing Sam’s look, he rolled his eyes. “Oh please, they aren’t actually dead if that’s what you’re thinking. Give me some credit, Sam.”
“With you I can never tell,” Sam said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. It wasn’t strictly true—in the past few months he had come to trust Gabriel more and more, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like him at least a little—but he wasn’t about to tell him that. The archangel’s ego was inflated enough as it was.
Sam shifted, banishing such thoughts from his mind. “So why are you here, anyways? Do you have any news on the horsemen?”
Gabriel groaned. “What kind of workaholic talks business on Christmas?” he said accusingly. Sam just shrugged.
“I doubt Lucifer is taking the day off,” he replied.
Gabriel rolled his eyes dramatically. “I refuse to enable you in your addiction to being boring,” he said, gesturing fiercely with a cookie. “Just for one night, I’m making it your assignment to have a little fun.”
“What, so this is a social call?”
Gabriel nibbled one of his cookies demurely. “What, aren’t you happy to see me?” Sam raised his eyebrows expectantly. “I just wanted to check in with Luci’s favorite prom dress and make sure you weren’t spending your Christmas Eve in a way that was too horrifically lame. And let me say,” he gestured to the room around them, “this is much better than I expected, but you’re still thinking small.”
“Oh yeah?” Sam smirked in spite of himself. “And how would you do it better?” He had a feeling a good number of Gabriel’s Christmas celebrations had been more along the lines of “pagan blood orgies” than presents and gingerbread.
Gabriel looked thoughtful. “There’d be a lot more sex involved,” he said finally, shooting Sam a wicked grin. “Which, hey, if you ask nicely…”
“I’ll pass for now,” Sam said wryly. Gabriel had been flirting outrageously ever since he officially signed up for Team Free Will. Sam had been coping by alternately laughing it off or ignoring him. He wasn’t about to get into a game of sexual chicken with an archangel, but he hadn’t exactly told Gabriel to stop. He was definitely going to get around to that sometime.
As usual Gabriel just grinned and shrugged off the rebuff. “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it, kiddo. I’ve got a long list of testimonials that could help change your mind.”
“I thought angels were junkless, anyways,” Sam said, a part of him wondering why he was encouraging this conversation and another part too curious to care.
“Sure we are. But this body isn’t,” Gabriel said, gesturing to himself proudly. “I should know, I made it myself.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Take it from me, there is some seriously fine craftsmanship here. Real attention to the numerical details. Like length, and girth.”
“Yeah, well I think you might have missed a digit when it came to the vertical stuff,” Sam said before he could help himself. Gabriel rolled his eyes.
“Okay, one: I’ve been on planet earth a long time, kiddo. Back when I was fresh off the press people were proud to make it past 5’4. Two: I like being short. Tons of benefits.”
Sam’s mouth twisted in a smile. “Like what?”
Gabriel paused. “No ducking under low hanging tree branches,” he said eventually. Sam laughed. That in itself was a surprise.
“So,” Gabriel continued, dunking a cookie in the glass of milk with a pinkie finger primly raised, “Other than couch surfing in the middle of nowhere and being stuck in a tin can with five hours of Metallica, what’s on your plate for Christmas day?”
“That pretty much sums it up, actually,” Sam said wearily. He didn’t care, really he didn’t. Christmas had never been a big tradition in his family, although sometimes he thought back on the frenzy of tinsel and gifts and sweets during his Stanford years with longing.
“Not quite,” Gabriel drawled, his voice muffled by a huge bite of sugary dough. “You can already add ‘late night snack with an archangel’ to that list.”
“I think it only counts as me having a late night snack if I actually get to eat something,” Sam pointed out. Gabriel glanced between Sam and his precious plate of cookies with a torn expression before begrudgingly offering him one. Sam leaned forward and snagged one before Gabriel could change his mind. He didn’t really want one, but anything that got on Gabriel’s nerves was a win in his book.
“There,” the archangel groused. “Happy?”
“Sure,” Sam said with a bite, neglecting to call Gabriel out on the fact that the cookies were technically his anyways. Gabriel leaned back again, his expression satisfied. In moments like these it was all too easy to forget that the unassuming man in front of him had the power to level towns, to scatter the atoms of Sam’s to the cusp of the ever-expanding universe before making him new and whole again. Even with that knowledge burning in his mind, Sam found he wasn’t afraid of him. Maybe it was the milk moustache.
Sam tapped his fingers on the side of the couch, debating whether or not to branch into a zone of potentially uncomfortable questions. It had been a while since he’d had Gabriel in a position for personal queries; down time had been few and far between these past few weeks especially, and it seemed like the only times Sam saw the archangel was when he was pulling his ass out of the fire. Now, with nothing immediately life-threatening happening for a change, it seemed as good a time as any to be a little reckless. The couch was comfortable and he was still a little sleepy, and maybe that factored into his decision to take the plunge.
“Hey Gabriel, can I ask you something?” Sam asked.
“Ooo, Sam, I’d love to go to the winter formal with you,” Gabriel said, fake-swooning into his chair.
“I’m serious,” Sam pressed, already aware of the fact that his own question wasn’t a whole lot better. “I guess what I wanted to ask you was…why me? You never make personal calls to Dean like this. Not like it’s a problem or anything, Dean is still having some trouble wrapping his brain around the idea that we aren’t supposed to be killing you, so really that’s for the best. I’m just… curious, is all.”
Gabriel stared at him intently for a minute, his eyes dark, before shrugging nonchalantly. “I’m allowed to pick favorites.”
Sam could hardly restrain a disbelieving laugh. “What, so I’m your favorite now?” he said with amusement.
“Yep,” Gabriel said simply. Sam was momentarily speechless. That declaration left a strange, squirming feeling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t quite identify. What do you say when an angel tells you you’re his favorite? Suddenly he was struck with the realization that maybe this was how Dean felt around Castiel. But that wasn’t quite right. He couldn’t imagine Castiel showing up in the middle of the night to steal Dean’s food while wearing a Santa hat, for one thing. And Dean was the one who deserved the attention of an angel. Sam shook his head.
Gabriel frowned. “What?”
“I just don’t understand it,” Sam said. Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
“I like you, Sam. You’re a good kid.”
A lump formed in Sam’s throat. “No. I’m really not.”
Gabriel was silent for a few minutes before he abruptly stood up, the plate of cookies snapping back to its original place on the table. The archangel strode around to the front of the sofa and plopped down to face Sam, resting his hands firmly on Sam’s shoulders.
“Sam Winchester,” he said, completely straight faced. “I want you to listen very carefully to what I’m about to say. Comprende?” Sam didn’t dare to move. Gabriel leaned closer, his eyes boring into Sam’s.
“You are not a bad person. I know that angsting over every possible detail runs in your blood, and that you’ve done some stuff that you’re less than proud of. But you’ve always had good intentions, road to Hell aside,” Gabriel said. “Just trust me on this, kiddo. I know evil, and you’re not it.”
“Yeah, because you’ve always had such good judgment in the past,” Sam said, pushing Gabriel’s hands off of him and turning away before he could see his expression. He hadn’t meant for it to come out so hurtfully, but hurting people was what Sam seemed to do best these days. It was probably for the best if he pushed Gabriel away while he still could anyways. He liked him too much.
Gabriel didn’t move for so long that Sam wondered if he had left, or whether he was just sitting there like he’d been carved from stone in that way that angels did. He hadn’t thought Gabriel would be capable of such stillness, which was another reminder of how little he knew about the archangel. Sam could just imagine how he looked now, his eyes dark and distant with the kinds of thoughts Sam couldn’t even fathom. Maybe it was selfish to think that he could somehow impact him with nothing more than a few words and some spite.
He found himself staring at the Christmas tree as the silence yawned between them. It was all too much. The house, the kid, the grateful expressions on their faces—and now Gabriel, here, making him smile and laugh and feel like a normal person for once. He could hardly stand it. Sam leaned forward and rested his head in his hands and wanted nothing more than to sleep.
“I don’t deserve this,” he whispered. “I don’t deserve to be happy. Not after what I’ve done. The demon blood, Lilith, Ruby, starting the fucking apocalypse—”
“Sam.” Gabriel’s voice was low. “Stop talking, or I’ll make you stop talking.” When Sam turned to face him there was something in his face that Sam didn’t recognize, something that made his stomach twist in a not-bad way. He felt as if they were teetering on the edge of something big, and he didn’t know what it was but he was ready to find out.
He opened his mouth to speak. A second later Gabriel was kissing it.
It was short, chaste, and nothing like Sam had imagined kissing Gabriel would be. Gabriel’s lips pressed to his gently, one hand cupping the back of Sam’s neck while the other rested lightly over his heart. The kiss was simple, affectionate, and completely lacking in the sexual vibes that Gabriel was usually so fond of sending Sam’s way. In a way, it was practically reverent. For a second Sam wanted to push back, to tangle his hands in the archangel’s hair and turn this into something it wasn’t. But he didn’t.
Gabriel pulled away a brief moment later, retreating out of Sam’s personal space. His hands travelled up to cup Sam’s face firmly, and Sam was too busy working his way through the implications of the past few seconds to do anything but stare.
“I’m going to warn you,” Gabriel said softly. “This next part is going to get pretty sappy. But you need to hear it. For all of your life—literally, your entire life—forces have been at work to bring you to the Dark Side. Azazel, Ruby, Lucifer, the whole rotten Brady Bunch, all of them setting you up to fall.
“But one thing they didn’t count on was you being so stubbornly, idiotically, fundamentally good. Every new weight they put on you to try and drag you down, you just fought a little harder towards the light. I think maybe if it they had picked anyone else the world would have hit the crapper a long time ago. But you. Sam Winchester.” Gabriel shook his head, an almost disbelieving smile on his face. “I think there’s more good in you than in anyone else in the world. That’s why I threw in my lot with you crazy kids. That’s why Lucifer is going to lose. And that, more than anything, is why you deserve to be happy.”
Sam stared at him, utterly unsure of what to say. Gabriel’s hands felt warm against his skin. He hadn’t felt this comfortable in a long time.
“Boy, you weren’t kidding about the sap,” he said, a little breathlessly. Gabriel rolled his eyes disparagingly, leaning back to rest against the arm of the couch and pick up the plate of cookies again.
“Shut up, it’s Christmas. Heartfelt revelations are part of the package. Though I should probably mention that if you breathe a word of this conversation to anyone else, you’ll wake up with a clown nose permanently attached to your face.”
Sam grinned. There was the Gabriel he knew. “Like anyone would believe me if I did. I’m still debating on whether I should be breaking out the silver knives and holy water.”
“Hey, I can be a perfectly nice guy when I want to be. Well, when the mood strikes. Well, it’s happened once or twice before. Theoretically. Point is,” Gabriel said, “You need to take my advice and try to remember how to be happy for once. Which, hey, like I said, I’d be more than happy to help.”
“And what exactly did you have in mind?”
Gabriel’s expression melted into something a lot more wicked. “You really have to ask?”
Sam was about to say something, honestly he was, but Gabriel’s lips had softened into a lazy curl of amusement and that sent his mind down a track that wasn’t even close to the innocent kiss Gabriel had planted on him a few minutes earlier. Up until this point, all of Gabriel’s “advances” had been to make him uncomfortable or, like the kiss, to prove a point. But now, looking at Gabriel’s mouth, the brief press of it on his own was all Sam could think of.
Gabriel smirked deeper when he saw how Sam had frozen up, pressing his thumb around the edge of his plate to pick up the remaining crumbs and lick them off the pad of his finger in a way that was nothing less than obscene. Sam forced himself to look away, heard Gabriel’s smug chuckle.
“Um, Gabriel,” Sam began. He could still sort of taste Gabriel on his lips, and that wasn’t distracting at all. “I’m kind of wondering what exactly this is right now.”
Gabriel shrugged. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“On what you want.” Gabriel shifted forward so that he was on his knees on the couch beside him, so that Sam had to turn his body and lean back to see him properly. Part of him registered how weird it was to be looking up at him for once. This was quickly approaching a level of personal space that even Dean and Cas would blush at, but for some reason Sam couldn’t imagine pulling away.
“Come on, Sasquatch,” he said lightly. “It’s Christmas, after all. What’s at the top of your list?” His face was a jumble of warm light and shadow, blinking in and out of existence as the Christmas lights flickered. And he still had that stupid hat on. This was different than all the flirting Gabriel had been volleying his way in the past; at some point in the past minute this had stopped being a joke.
“Surviving the apocalypse would be a plus,” Sam said quickly, before he could blurt out any of the much less family friendly ideas going through his head. He only hoped that by some stroke of luck Gabriel wasn’t tuning in to his thoughts at the moment, but he doubted it. Gabriel was never one to play fair.
“Oh Sam,” Gabriel said evilly, and yeah, his eyes were blatantly raking down Sam’s body now in a way that should have made him feel very uncomfortable. “Always so lacking in creativity. You need someone to broaden your horizons.”
Gabriel was getting closer than he was before, shifting his body forward until he was kneeling on the sofa hardly a foot away. Sam moved automatically, intending to give him more room, but the angel followed him until he was practically in Sam’s lap—practically, but not quite. He was close enough that Sam could feel the heat coming off him, could fucking smell him, and of course he smelled like peppermint. His mouth was just a few inches away, still with that perennial smirk on his lips, but he didn’t move forward. He paused there, his breath brushing across Sam’s cheek the only thing touching between them, his eyes flicking from Sam’s mouth to meet his gaze. There was no doubt in Sam’s mind as to Gabriel’s intentions this time.
“What would make you happy?” he murmured, his voice slipping in and out of Sam’s ears and turning everything between into grey pudding. “Go on, Winchester. Do you want me? Because in case it wasn’t obvious, I sure as hell want you.” His eyes were blue and green and gold all at once, full of something old and fickle that Sam wanted nothing more than to somehow make his own. And for once, he thought maybe it would be okay to have what he wanted. Especially if Gabriel wanted it too.
“Yes,” Sam breathed, the word torn out of his throat without any more hesitation. In a second Gabriel was on him, his knees straddling Sam’s waist as he tore off his stupid Santa hat and flung it away with a grin. A moment later that grin was crushing into Sam’s mouth.
Gabriel kissed slow and hard, lips sucking and pressing and pulling him open until he could do little more than gasp and take it. His mouth tasted rich and sweet, but crackled at the edge with something powerful that Sam couldn’t stop chasing. Hands fisted into the front of his jacket and pulled him closer, sliding up the back of his neck as if Sam was even capable of pulling away.
When Gabriel finally tugged his lips away Sam wasn’t sure whether it was mercy or torture. Maybe a bit of both. And yeah, if Sam was currently existing on a more coherent plane he would probably feel a bit self conscious about how totally wrecked he felt in that moment. But it’d been so long since he’d felt someone grinding up against him just like that, and the fact that that someone was Gabriel meant that he was not going to waste his time pondering it when there were so many more interesting things he could be putting that remaining brain power towards. He was starting to understand what Gabriel meant by creativity.
“What’s the rush, Gigantor?” Gabriel murmured into the crook of his neck, running his mouth up the arteries and tendons there like he was mapping out the intricacies of Sam’s flesh with his tongue. “I promise the world’s not ending any time tonight.”
“No,” Sam agreed, not even batting an eye at how rough his voice sounded. “But if you keep your tongue out of my mouth for much longer I might fucking die anyways.”
Gabriel’s laugh was a low, dark rumble that definitely didn’t help Sam’s pants feel less restrictive. “Drama queen,” he murmured, bringing his lips back to Sam’s. This time the kiss was languid and filthy, leaving Sam as tight and tense as a wire while Gabriel’s tongue curled against his. With shaking hands, Sam started tugging Gabriel’s jacket off his shoulders.
It took Gabriel a minute to get with the program, but once he realized what Sam was trying to do he had his jacket and shirt off with a snap of his fingers. Sam forced himself to pause, pulling back to run his palms over the planes of Gabriel’s chest. His body wasn’t especially muscular, but Sam marveled over the way that he could feel his ribs when he pressed into the soft flesh, how the bones shifted under his skin when Sam’s fingers probed against them. He could feel the blood throbbing out of Gabriel’s heart as he leaned forward to drag his tongue across his right nipple, feeling his skin shiver and twitch as his fingers explored around it. Wrapped up somewhere inside that small frame was one of the most powerful beings of heaven, so close that Sam could fold him entirely in his arms. He wondered if Gabriel filled up that body to the brim, or whether his grace was tucked away in a lung or a kidney or some other secret fold of tissue or bone. He resolved to explore every inch of him until he knew for sure.
Gabriel arched his back with a quiet, appreciative sound as Sam kissed his way across his chest and neck, teasing his skin between his teeth and running a tongue over the bruises he knew he’d leave there if Gabriel let them show. He hoped he would. Sam wanted to leave a mark.
“Your turn,” Gabriel said huskily, tugging up at the edge of Sam’s shirt. Sam was more than happy to oblige as Gabriel peeled it off him the old fashion way, and the sound of his breath catching in his throat made Sam more than a little smug.
“Oh, Sam,” Gabriel said with feeling, his words coming short and fast. “Don’t mind if I just sit back and shamelessly objectify you for a second here.”
“I do mind, actually,” Sam said, roughly pulling him into another kiss before Gabriel could get any ideas on stopping.
A groundless fear, as it turned out. A second later Gabriel was shoving Sam onto his back, positioning effortlessly so he was lying underneath him on the couch. And Sam was pretty sure that the dimensions of the couch had shifted abruptly to let them both stretch out like that, but he wasn’t about to question it. The angel’s hands snaked up to grab onto Sam’s wrists and pin them into the cushion without so much as slowing down the kiss.
“Oh fuck,” Sam gasps into his mouth, practically writing against Gabriel’s weight above him. He was so incredibly strong. Sam flexed against his grip, but he might as well have been fighting against a mountain on his chest. And Sam wasn’t going to lie, being so completely in Gabriel’s power like that was different in so many new and exciting ways.
Gabriel held him down and kissed him until he was fucking whimpering, before sliding his hands down Sam’s chest and working his way lower with quick darts and pulses of his tongue. Sam let his head fall back and stared up at the ceiling, his eyelids fluttering, an extremely distant part of his brain pondered that the Fullers really should look into fixing that crack in the plaster. A twinge of guilt went through him.
Gabriel’s mouth was turning a wet circle around Sam’s navel when Sam’s higher brain functions decided to crash the party in his pants. He groaned in a way that was so not meant to sound sexy but which Gabriel seemed to take as encouragement, until Sam forced every fiber of his willpower into sitting up and pulling away.
“Fuck, Gabriel, wait,” he panted, and he had to admit that he couldn’t have sounded less enthusiastic if he tried. Gabriel peeled away from the attention he had been giving Sam’s belt buckle and looked at Sam as if he was about to smite him.
“Want to tell me why you’re not helping me rip the rest of our clothes off right now?” Gabriel asked wryly, cocking an eyebrow. He managed to sound a lot more put together than Sam, but there was still a slight shiver under his normal voice that Sam was more than prepared to take credit for.
“Look, uh, not like I don’t want this or anything,” Sam said. “Because I do. I really…really do. But, maybe this isn’t the best time or place to for it.”
Gabriel frowned. “Meaning?”
Sam gestured at the living room around them. “For starters, this is someone’s house. Someone who kindly offered to put us up for the night.”
Gabriel’s face remained unimpressed. “And?”
Sam sighed dejectedly. “And so maybe fucking each other all over their sofa isn’t exactly the best response to their hospitality.”Although saying it out loud was doing very little for his remaining willpower.
Gabriel smirked. “It doesn’t have to be on the sofa,” he said, leaning back in for another kiss. Sam couldn’t help but swallow it up, running his hands over Gabriel’s shoulders before pushing him away with a pointed look. Gabriel groaned.
“Come on, Sam,” he whined. “I can make everything as good as new after. No one would have to know.”
Sam stared at him evenly, preparing the ultimate boner-killing weapon. “They have a kid, Gabriel. Just me knowing would be bad enough.”
The archangel groaned and flopped backwards onto the couch, crossing his arms petulantly over his bare chest.
“And the cockblock award of the century goes to our very own Sam Winchester,” he said petulantly, but Sam could hear the bemusement in his voice. It struck suddenly how tired he felt. Sam took a steadying breath until he felt a little less likely to continue tearing Gabriel’s clothes off and slid up beside the archangel, so that he was flush against Gabriel’s side. It was a strangely intimate posture, but Sam had already moved and he was too comfortable to get up.
“Sorry,” he murmured into Gabriel’s shoulder, planting a gentle kiss there. He could already see the bruises springing up on Gabriel’s collarbone; I did that, he thought. I made a dent one of the oldest, most powerful beings in the universe. The thought was fairly egotistical.
Gabriel shuffled over so they were laying face to face, his fingers tracing Sam’s anti-possession tattoo absent mindedly. They lay there like that for a while, breathing the same air and sharing the heat.
“I could take us somewhere else,” Gabriel said eventually. “Anywhere you wanted. We could have sex on a beach in Cancun for a week straight and still be back before Dean wakes up this morning.”
“Seven days of beach sex doesn’t actually sound all that appealing,” Sam commented. Gabriel shrugged.
“I’m sure I could convince you otherwise. Or we could get the nicest room in some swanky hotel in Paris. Silk sheets, a view of the Eiffel tower, all that romantic crap.”
“I think it’s a little early in our relationship to be talking about eloping to Paris.”
“Fair enough. Then I could carve out a space just for us, build it from scratch however you wanted. Think about a house where the entire floor is a bed, or everything is made out of chocolate.”
“Alright there, Willy Wonka,” Sam laughed, earning himself a gentle nip on the earlobe.
“All of that sounds really…really great,” Sam said after a pause. “But you know,” he looked around the room, gently running his fingers up and down the bumps of Gabriel’s spine, “I think for now I’m happy just being here, like this. This is…nice. Really nice.”
Gabriel shifted closer to him, burying his face in Sam’s chest. “Sap,” he heard him mutter. Sam couldn’t help but smile.
“You’re the one who was talking about stealing me away to Paris not five minutes ago,” Sam mouthed into his temple. Gabriel murmured something sleepy and incoherent that tickled Sam’s skin. He didn’t think that angels could sleep, but he guessed that Gabriel had had plenty of time to figure out how to do it. He pressed his cheek to the top of Gabriel’s head, not even starting to think about the can of worms that would be open if Dean came downstairs and found the two of them shirtless and disheveled in each other’s arms. For once he wasn’t going to worry about it. More than anything he just wanted to fall asleep here like this, but there was one thing he had to be sure of first.
“Gabriel?” Sam said quietly.
Gabriel sucked in a soft breath. “Yeah?”
“Can I ask you for something?”
“Duh.”
Sam stared up at the ceiling, not really daring to hope. “Do you think you can keep him out of my dreams for tonight?”
Gabriel stirred against him slightly, raising a hand to touch Sam’s temple. “I’ll do you one better,” he murmured. A second later Sam was asleep.
The next morning Sam was woken up by a heavy weight hitting his legs. He sat up to find that Dean had thrown his pack on top of him in the traditional Winchester wake up call. The couch had reverted back to its normal, spine-scrunching length, but Sam felt loose and well rested. He’d practically forgotten what that felt like.
“Up and at ‘em,” Dean called, sauntering into the kitchen. “Pancake time.”
Sam didn’t especially want to move. The dreams he’d had last night were still clinging to the back of his mind like an afterimage, and this time they had featured an entirely different archangel. Gabriel had made good on his promise.
Sam swung his legs out of bed, realizing that somehow his shirt had ended up back on him sometime after he fell asleep. Gabriel had come a long way if he was actively taking steps to prevent Sam from humiliation. Then again, he had done nothing to heal the hickies marching down Sam’s chest.
He plowed his way through a stack of pancakes courtesy of the Fullers, who made quiet conversation in low voices to avoid waking Addy up. Dean didn’t comment on the fact that Sam kept smiling for no reason, and Sam didn’t comment on the fact that Dean looked like he’d been up late on the phone doing exactly what Sam told him not to.
The Winchesters were just about to leave when a loud barking struck up from somewhere just outside. A second later there was a thump from the upstairs bedroom, and the sound of feet running to a window.
“Mom, dad!” Addy’s voice came shrilly from the top of the stairs. “Look! Look!” She ran to the front door and flung it open, and a tiny ball of white fluff came barreling in after her.
“It’s Champ!” she squealed, gathering the squirming creature up into her arms and running into the kitchen. The dog looked perfectly unharmed, despite the fact that Sam and Dean had fished ¾ of its digested remains out of a wall the day before.
Mr. and Mrs. Fuller exchanged a baffled glance, and hell, even Dean looked weirded out. It was all Sam could do not to burst out laughing in front of everyone. Should have known you were spying on me, you creep, Sam thought fondly, reaching down to scratch the dog’s ears and muss up Addy’s hair. He was so going to give Gabriel shit for this sentimental stuff later, assuming that the archangel hadn’t spontaneously combusted under the force of doing two good deeds in a single day.
Sam chuckled quietly to himself. Gabriel obviously still felt like he had a lot to make up for, and he wasn’t wrong. But he was trying to do better, to be better, and if there was anything that Sam could relate to it was that. As he stepped outside and took a deep gulp of cold Christmas air, he breathed in the lingering scent of peppermint that drifted on the breeze with a few errant snowflakes. It felt good. He felt good.
Sam smiled. Maybe there was hope for the both of them yet.