Disclaimer: I love Supernatural, but that's the closest I'll ever get to own it.
A/N: A brief Sabriel oneshot, who popped into mind all of a sudden. Warnings for slight age difference, mentions of awkward boners and the worst big brother ever.
"I still don't understand why I had to come with you guys," Dean complained and closed the car door behind him with extra force, the slam ringing loud and disturbing some song birds in a tree nearby Sam noticed. "Bobby said he would check up on me if I stayed back home. And Pastor Jim probably would too!"
"You're fifteen years old, Dean," Mary replied tiredly, as her oldest son brought their argument up again. "And I don't understand why you wanted to stay back so much anyway, you used to love coming here."
"Well, maybe I don't want to hang out with my parents and my boring little brother for three weeks anymore," Dean bit back and Sam tried even harder than before to act as if he didn't hear their argument over his book. Mary glanced at him briefly and sighed.
"John, will you please say something?" she pleaded.
"Shut up, boy, and start unloading the car," their father commanded gruffly and Dean grumbled but complied.
"Sam, will you put your book away and help bringing the bags inside?" Mary asked Sam timidly and he nodded, slowly placing his bookmark and closing the book reverently.
"What twelve-year-old reads Tolstoy anyway?" Dean muttered under his breath, obviously still mad that he was being forced onto a family vacation.
Sam ignored him with practiced ease and started taking bags into the old summer home. He felt incredibly lucky that Mary had let Dean take the guestroom to make him less opposed to going. Now Sam wouldn't have to listen to his brother rant all day. And moan and grunt all night.
It was so embarrassing to share room with his brother at his age. Even more so at Dean's, which was his only consolation.
"I'm going to see if the Novaks are here," Dean declared the moment all the bags had been brought inside and he was out the door before Mary had turned around to tell him not to stay out too late if they had come already.
When Sam went to bed, snuggling up with War and Peace, delirious to finally be the one in the top bunk, Dean still hadn't come home.
x
Mary and John were quiet when Dean finally came out for breakfast and Sam did his invisibility act the best he could, almost soundlessly eating his waffles and drinking his juice. Mary shot John a stern look and the man sighed and righted himself in his chair.
"When did you come home last night?" he asked and Dean shrugged casually.
"Dunno," he said around a mouthful of food. "'Bout twelve-ish, I guess."
"Don't you think that's a bit on the late side?" John asked after Mary gave him another pointed look.
"Perhaps, but it's not like I had to get up in the morning and Anna wanted me to have dinner with them and time just flew by." Mary had told John that she had been on the phone with Anna Novak. It was probably the only reason he hadn't gone out to bring Dean home. "Cas' older brother, Gabriel, is with them this year. He's off to college in September."
"Where to?" Sam asked, making his parents jump by reminding them of his presence. He was used to that by now, so it didn't hurt him that much.
"Don't remember," Dean replied, spewing crumbs all over the flowered tablecloth.
"DEAN," Mary reprimanded and he shrugged and Sam sighed and decided he would go to the beach when John and Mary would go say hi to Anna and Michael Novak.
Nobody interrupted him on the beach.
x
"Hey Sammy," a loud voice said and a hand ruffled Sam's hair.
"Don't call me Sammy," he shot back automatically and glared at his brother.
"Don't worry about it, bitch. Cas just wanted to say hi, then we're going to check out the girls. I heard Jo Harvelle started developing."
Sam wrinkled his nose in disgust at Dean's obvious enthusiasm. "Hey Castiel," he greeted the teenager beside Dean. Castiel was, as always, wearing long sleeves and jeans, even in eighty degrees. Sam only remembered seeing him in short sleeves once before, when the heat had pressed above ninety.
"Hello Samuel," Castiel said back and smiled a bit stiffly.
"Great, now let's get going," Dean declared and started down the beach, Castiel struggling to keep up with him. Sam shook his head at their odd 'leader and follower'-relationship and wondered why Castiel still bothered with Dean. He himself, had given up on him ages ago, when he ended up stuck on the roof on the shed in their back garden back home.
Then he returned to his reading, more than happy to sit alone in the quiet, the sun burning his sunscreen lathered back, courtesy of his mom, and the wind sweeping in regularly, cooling him down. The bottle of water next to him was lukewarm but nice enough when he grew too thirsty and he was all things considered pretty content.
"You must be Sammy," a strange voice then said and a shadow fell over Sam's legs. He twisted and eyed the stranger suspiciously.
"I can scream loudly like a girl, and everyone around here knows who I am," he stated even as he assessed the other to be just a few inches taller than him (which was pathetically short), looking all too goofy for a kidnapper and way too young to be a proper pedophile. And what kind of bad guy ate their candy themselves instead of using it to lure the gullible young kids away.
Not that Sam was gullible, far from actually. A combination of a ruthless older brother and an ex-marine dad had made sure of that.
"There won't be any need for screaming," the might-be-abductor assured him. "I'm Gabriel Novak. Cassie's older brother. Dean said you would be down here if I was bored, and I'm sorry to inform you that your parents just aren't that exciting to be around."
"What's their names?" Sam asked, still on guard like his father had told him to be.
"Mary and John Winchester," Gabriel said with a smirk on his face that really rubbed Sam the wrong way. "Do you want to see my driver's license too?"
"Yes please," Sam shot back and Gabriel guffawed.
"Sorry 'bout that kid," he said and dropped down on the sand next to Sam who discreetly inched away from him. "Don't have any pockets in my trunks. But I know your brother, Dean, and my brother Castiel, has been having one of the greatest bromances of all time during the summer months the last eight years or so and that they never let you tag along. And that you had a penchant for running around naked around your house when you were around five years old."
"Oh," Sam said and looked down as a rush of heat to his face alerted him of an embarrassing blush.
"Still worried that I'm going to kidnap you and do bad things to you?" Gabriel asked with laughter in his voice and Sam felt his ears grow hot too.
"Shut up," he murmured without any strength.
"Will do, Sammy-Boy, if you put down that giant brick of yours, I'm actually nervous that you try and kill me with it. It might just qualify as a blunt weapon!"
Sam put his book down and fidgeted uncomfortably with the cover while Gabriel lied back and squinted against the sun.
"So, Wig-Sam," Gabriel started and Sam wondered idly if he was going to use a different annoying nickname every time, "any particular reason you're lying on your stomach?"
Sam blushed, groaned, and hid his head under his skinny arms and Gabriel laughed loudly.
"Can we please not talk about that," he asked in a thin voice as the laugh grew quieter and Gabriel patted him comfortingly on the shoulder.
"Sure thing, Kiddo. Want me to tell you about applying for college? That's a real killer story, if you know what I mean."
And then Sam ended up spending the entire stay with a nineteen-year-old with the maturity of one of Sam's toes.
x
The following year Castiel told him Gabriel said hi, but was too busy working, to save money for the coming school year.
Sam was surprised to realize he was disappointed.
x
Dean's arms were annoyingly defined, Sam mused and inspected his own, stick-thing ones in despair. His big brother's chest had filled out in the last couple of years too, and was all broad, and muscled, and tanned.
And so, yeah, maybe Sam was jealous of his brother. His charming, not awkward at all brother, who had Castiel as the perfect wing man, waiting on his every whim, and the girls falling at his feet.
Not that Sam was that interested in girls, a thing that at times worried him. All his friends were obsessed with girls, they were all they ever talked about. Chuck was the only one not thinking about girls 24/7 and that was because he was too busy talking about World of Warcraft and whatever fantasy series he was reading.
But Dean just had it so easy.
"Hey Sam," a dull voice sounded and Sam started in surprise, but then felt a wave of happiness wash over him when he recognized the form dropping down next to him.
"Gabe! Hi!" Sam noticed how eager he sounded and cleared his voice, embarrassed that it broke and ended in an awkward squawk. "How are you?" he asked, worried, when he eyed Gabriel's apathetic look and registered the fact that the other hadn't commented on his teenage-awkwardness.
"Horrible," Gabriel sighed and covered his eyes with his arm dramatically.
"I'm sorry?" Sam said tentatively, confused with the completely opposite way Gabriel was acting. Sam's experience had him being carefree and and irritatingly good-natured.
"Me too." Gabriel sighed again, deeply and wretchedly. "I'm counting on you to keep me occupied, you're my only hope, and pretty much the only reason I came here."
"Oh?" was the only thing Sam could think of saying and he felt his ears burning. "Is there any special reason for this?" he couldn't help asking.
"I was dumped." Gabriel moved his arms and fixed Sam with a soul-searching look. "You've ever been dumped, Sport?"
"No," Sam said and shook his head.
"Lucky you, it sucks." Gabriel rubbed his eyes. "I still love Kali with all my being," Sam hummed emphatically, "I got a note saying 'I don't see this going anywhere Gabe, you're all party and fun, and I want more' and then a friend told me he had gone back to India. Stupid exchange students." Gabriel turned onto his stomach and rested his chin on his arms while fingering a sea shell absentmindedly.
Sam gaped.
"I'm sure you'll find somebody else," he managed after a while, his mind reeling with knowledge.
"Of course I will, but not yet. Now I want to mourn and enjoy my time with you, feeling like the cradle robber I obviously am." And then he smiled at Sam who had to press his legs to his front as he deciphered his body's reaction to Gabriel's presence and his statement and his sexuality and he had never thought about that before, only a lot in the evenings when he was trying to fall sleep.
"Now tell me how you're doing with the unfortunate boners."
He still had a great summer with Gabriel, doing his best to keep the other's mind anywhere but at his ex.
The next summer Sam went to Math camp when Mary and John when to the summer house. Dean had finally been allowed to stay home alone. It also happened to be the last time Dean was allowed to stay in the house alone.
"-aaaAAAAAMMMYYYYY," a voice bellowed and Sam almost dropped off the bed from the scare when the door to his room burst open and hit the wall with a loud smack. "Holy SMOKES, Sam bam thank you ma'am, when did you grow so big?"
Sam grinned and awkwardly got to his feet. "Hey Gabe," he said, feeling somewhat shy about his height.
"Jesus Christ," Gabriel breathed and looked Sam up and down several times. "You're like a giant. No wait, a Sasquatch is totally more precise with hair like that," Gabriel said and pointed at Sam's floppy bangs with a broad grin.
"Shut up," Sam muttered and crossed his arms over his chest protectively. He had grown like weed over the last year, but he was still as bony thin as always so the mockers hadn't stopped coming after him. They only switched from calling him little twerp and midget and turned to expressions like giant and beanstalk.
But he found he really couldn't be mad when Gabriel was the one calling him names. Because he was stupid and a teenage girl like that.
"Were you this tall last year?" Gabriel asked, still staring.
"No, I had a growth spurt after Christmas," Sam explained and remembered the book on the ground, bending down to get it.
"Still Tolstoy?" Gabe teased him and Sam shrugged. "Wait a minute, you weren't here last summer! How could you leave me here all alone? I had to listen to Cassie moaning and sighing like a lovesick girl the entire time because Didn't show! Do you have any reasons for not showing? Huh? Do you?"
"I was at Math camp," Sam defended himself. "I didn't know mom and dad had chosen to go here those weeks when I signed up."
Gabriel smirked. "Math camp? Really? How adorkable, Sammy-kins." Then he shook his head. "By Golly, you've grown big."
"I'm a teenager, from what I've heard that's all we do," Sam protested and rested against the windowpane.
"I never did grow much when I was a teenager," Gabriel threw back and shook his head. "Besides, you aren't that much of a teenager anymore, how old are you? Seventeen? Eighteen?"
"Sixteen."
"Oh, God, Sam! You make me feel like a pervy old man," Gabriel declared and flung himself onto the bottom bunk bed with the dramatic flourish Sam recognized as typical Gabe-havior.
Then he caught up with what Gabriel had just said and felt himself blush.
"What?" he squeaked and coughed to hide his embarrassment. "You aren't that old!"
"Am too," Gabriel groaned. "I'm 23 – I'm far too old to be ogling a kid like you!"
Sam bit his lip in excitement as he felt his stomach flutter. "You were ogling me?" he asked, disbelieving and ecstatic.
So maybe he had been harboring the biggest crush ever on Gabe since he was fourteen.
"Dude, that's so embarrassing for you," he said and tried to keep his smile from going completely shit-eating. "You're lucky our brothers aren't here."
"Tell me about it," Gabriel complained. "But I can't help that I've got a thing for tall guys."
And Sam spent the summer falling deeper and deeper in love with an oblivious college student who was busy thinking up new nicknames for every time they hung out.
x
The next summer Sam was beyond excited to see Gabriel. He had filed out a lot since he started working out in the gym two times a week after school and he was pretty sure he could get Gabriel to look at him like he had last year again.
Anna Novak told him that Gabriel had gotten an intern job at a prestigious law firm close to his college. He had started working there the day after he finished classes and was already talking about all the money he would be making in a few years.
Sam made up his mind to study law at Stanford too. He had been juggling with a lot of different ideas, and the way Gabriel had talked about law before had really caught his attention.
It wasn't just because he wanted to be closer to his crush, it really wasn't.
x
Senior year in High School had been one of the best ones in Sam's life. He hadn't been teased so much after he grew as big and buff as many of his old tormentors and Balthazar had been eager to teach him about all the intimate stuff the healthy guys could do, which Sam never really had a chance to explore before.
He had been looking forward so much to seeing Gabriel in the summer before he went off to college. And then Dean had been a dickwad and told him, that Castiel had written in one of his letters – and really, who wrote letters and not e-mails nowadays? - that Gabriel would be too busy with his summer job to come, again, and Sam had felt so crushed he had broken off his arrangement with Balth to be able to mourn properly.
He was pretty certain he understood how Gabriel had felt back when Kali had broken up with him, although not completely, of course, as Gabriel's relationship had been a proper one, going both ways, and not just a pathetic unrequited crush.
So he spent all summer moping and grunting at Dean when he asked if he wanted to join him and Castiel when they went out. He relented once and got so epically hammered he ended up spilling his secret crush to Castiel while he patted him comfortingly on the back and told him that not all great love stories ended up with a happy ending, and that he had always gotten the impression that Gabriel had liked him more than he thought he should.
It had made Sam feel a bit better, but not enough as he was hanging over a toilet, retching into it for all he was worth.
x
"Alright newbies," Lucas, Sam's RA, said icily and gave Sam and each of his friends a stern look. "These are good friends of mine, they've helped me with notes and all sorts of crap during their stay here and I hope to leech off of them for the coming years as well, so if one of you wannabes fuck this up, I will do everything in my power to make your stay here living hell, capisce?" The pre-law students nodded mutely an understood clearly why Lucas was called Lucifer behind his back. "Perfect. They're waiting inside." And then Lucas turned around and entered the diner without a look at the nervous college students.
"He's such a douche bag," Jess stated and shook her head after glancing at Sam for his reaction. He knew he should probably tell her that he was batting for the other team, but was scared she would start ignoring him if he did, and she was sort of awesome to hang out with. Andy nodded solemnly and jutted out his chest, trying to appear intimidating without success. Raphael ignored them and opened the door, Andy following him quickly, Jess and Sam following him more calmly sharing understanding and amused looks.
Sam shot a look around the diner, deciding it looked homey and nice before noticing Lucas in the far corner, shaking hands with a a dark haired guy and then he saw the man standing next to them grinning broadly with his dark blond hair and light brown eyes and Sam strode past first Jess, then Andy and Raphael before coming to a halt next to Lucas, eyes firmly on the figure next to him.
"Hi," he said breathlessly and felt his chest swell in the way eyes traveled up and down his body.
"Well, hello to you too! I'm Gabriel Novak, do you want to go out for coffee some day, I'm sure you have tons of questions I'll just love to answer for you." Gabriel held his hand out and Sam eyed it in confusion.
"Gabe," he said feeling the words slip his mind.
"Sure, I react to that too," Gabriel said cheekily and winked, his hand still held out between them. Sam started to notice the others staring at him.
"Gabe, it's me," he managed. "Sam Winchester."
Gabriel's eyes widened and his hand slowly descended. "Holy, sweet macaroni. When on earth did you get so big and moose-y?"
"What?" Sam was pretty sure Andy said behind him. All he could do himself was grin.
"Oh, I don't know. Some time after turning sixteen, I'm pretty sure."
For the first time ever Sam saw Gabriel look sheepish. "Yeah, sorry about never making it, but you know how it is, crap gets in the way and life and yeah. Of course you know. Shit sucks." It looked like Gabriel finally noticed the people behind Sam, eyes quickly working over tall, dark Raphael, to shifty, nervous Andy and last to beautiful, blonde Jess. "Girlfriend?" he asked and looked back to Sam, something akin to disappointment in his eyes.
"You're and idiot," Sam said. He didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry.
"Hey," Gabriel protested, looking thoroughly indignant.
"Shut up, Shorty," Sam shot back and took a step closer, forcing Gabriel to tilt his head to look him in the eyes. "Yes, I want to have coffee some day, because I've been thinking about that ever since I was fourteen and I'm old enough that you won't have to feel like a pervert anymore. I've probably always been old enough for that, mature enough at the very least. I was more mature when I was twelve than you are now, but that's not important. What's important is that coffee, which is going to be completely and utterly non-platonic." Sam licked his lips and smiled when Gabriel's eyes flicked down to follow the motion. "If you don't have anything planned I'm free right now."
"I'm gonna go now Luce, Crowley," Gabriel said, his eyes never leaving Sam's. "You have a nice time with the kids and I'll be seeing you around. I have some cradle robbing to do, so if you don't mind." And then Gabriel grabbed a leather jacket draped carelessly in the booth behind him, then he grabbed Sam's hand, and dragged him out and in to the nearest alley where he let Sam press him up against the wall and their lips together.
And, so maybe Sam had totally chosen Stanford because Gabriel would be there, but that was completely his own decision.
And obviously the right one anyway!