Sam settled into his stool at the diner, resisting the urge to let his head sink into his hands. Everyone always went on about how all lawyers had to do was yell and get paid millions, but they had clearly never met an actual lawyer. Hellish hours defending people Sam wasn't sure truly deserved it for whatever the state would pay him for the case. Plus, he had to deal with snippy coworkers who also were on the hunt for whatever case they could find that might lift them out of the Public Defendant hellhole. Between the politics and the clients, Sam woke up every day and regretted the decision. The only upside was breakfast at The Jolly Green Diner, ironically named in consideration of the surprisingly short owner. It was a tiny place with a mural of a 1967 Chevy Impala covering one of the walls and there was always bacon cooking, brown sugar sprinkled on top if Gabriel thought he was having one of those days. That was the first thing pushed under his nose as Sam sat with his head surrendering to rest in his hands. He looked gratefully up at the owner, smiling,
"Thanks, Gabe."
"No problem, Sammy. You alright kiddo? Look like you haven't slept in weeks."
"I'm good. Just," Sam rubbed his hands across his face, "the rat race makes me feel like more of a rat."
"Well, just remember, we could always use an extra hand around here." said Gabriel with a smile, leaning on the counter. Sam smiled at him, looking around,
"I dunno. You seem to pretty much have it covered between you and Balthazar." said Sam, waving at the cook in the back. Balthazar waved back, a toque perched three feet high on his head. Gabriel rolled his eyes,
"We're good most days, but you know, it'd be nice to have someone reach the high shelves…" said Gabriel, trailing off meaningfully. Sam laughed,
"Just ask me when I'm here in the morning. Can I get an order of buttermilk pancakes too?" asked Sam. Gabriel blew his breath out,
"Wow, Samm-o. Brown sugar bacon and pancakes for breakfast…you going for a heart attack?"
"It's shaping up to be one of those days." said Sam. Gabriel cocked his head to the side,
"So secretive, so mysterious. What could have possibly gone wrong by eight in the morning?"
"I lost my shoe." said Sam. Gabriel peeked over the counter and sure enough, he was looking at one brown loafer and one shamrock-green sock. He failed to stifle a chuckle,
"Did it answer a 'lonely soles' ad?" asked Gabriel. Same poked him in the arm,
"I will have you know that it happened to fall off my foot. And down a storm sewer." he said. Gabriel laughed and clapped a hand on Sam's shoulder,
"Sammy m'boy, I do believe that takes the cake. Breakfast is on house." He walked off to help other patrons and Sam smiled to himself. A rat in the rat race he may be, but this rat got breakfast and pancakes on the house.
Later that month, Sam was rudely awakened by the sound of his phone buzzing. He rubbed at his eyes, vaguely noting it was 2:57 in the morning. He picked up his phone but didn't recognize the number. Answering it nonetheless, he said,
"Hello?"
"Sammy?" Came the whispered voice on the other end. Sam sat straight up in bed,
"Gabriel? What is it? How'd you get my number?"
"I checked the phonebook," he hissed and Sam could almost see him rolling his eyes, "Hey, listen up. I think I hear someone downstairs in the diner."
"What?"
"Check that gap between your ears and see if it knows English. Someone's in the diner and I don't know who and I don't know what to do! We're closed and no one should be here."
"Alright, um, just stay up there. I'm coming over." He got out of bed, pulling on his nearest pair of pants.
"Good. Do I need to stay on the phone with you?"
"No, I'll be okay. Hey, if you come upstairs, say 'Pig-n-a-Poke' so I know it's you."
"'Pig-n-a-Poke'? Really?"
"Tuesday's special, all day long." said Sam. Sam couldn't see it, but he heard the shaky smile in Gabriel's voice. Sam nodded,
"Alright. Be there in three minutes." Sam zipped up his sweatshirt, covering the fact he wasn't wearing an actual shirt, and ran out of the apartment. The Jolly Green Diner was, in fact, just around the corner from his apartment and he was there in two minutes flat. He pulled up just short of the front window, catching his breath.
"Psst!" Sam looked up and Gabriel was leaning out his window, waving down at Sam. Gabriel waved back up, then looked around the area. A police car was parked just across the street. Surprisingly, the diner lights were on and the door unlocked. Sam wasn't sure if he should be more or less suspicious. He stepped in the door, wincing as the bell dinged above him. He heard rustling around the corner cease and Sam froze. He had no weapon, not that he could use it. The only weapon he had close to hand was a shaker of salt and somehow he doubted that would scare off anything. Sam sighed, grabbing a chair from one of the tables and lifting it above his head. He took a deep breath. This was not what he had planned to do at three in the morning. He jumped around the corner, lifting the chair up to slam it down on the intruder. The chair came swishing down through the air, narrowly avoiding the invader as he turned his face,
"Sammy?"
"Dean?" said Sam. He dropped the chair.
Ten minutes later saw Dean, Sam, and Gabriel around the table, each chomping on their own piece of pie. Dean shrugged and said through a full mouth,
"I'm sorry, man. The door was unlocked and the lights were on; I just thought you were in the back or something and particularly unsociable."
"Dean…" Sam could shake his head at his big brother and eat another bite of pie. Gabriel shot Dean an unsure look,
"Did you not think to check?'
"I'm a police man; of course I cleared the perimeter!" said Dean, half joking and half offended. Sam groaned,
"Of course it was your car out front. Why would I have ever thought otherwise?"
"I live to surprise." said Dean with a grin. The group fell into silence before Gabriel shook his head in disappointment,
"I leave Balthazar to close up one night, just one night, and he leaves the lights on and door unlocked. That man is going to get a serious talking-to."
"Balthazar? Blond, stubble, about your height?"
"Yeah…" said Gabriel suspiciously. Dean slammed his hand on the table,
"Son of a bitch. He actually called me earlier. We're friends from college. He called me and told me to stop by The Jolly Green Diner tonight on my shift. Said it was an all-night diner." said Dean. Gabriel looked almost a little pissed,
"I swear, the next time I see that smug little French bastard again, I'll—"
"—embrace me warmly, I'm sure." said Balthazar, walking through the door with the smuggest grin any of them had ever seen. He walked over and swooped up Dean's newly served, untouched piece of pie and cut the tip off. Dean squawked in protest when Balthazar swallowed it down but Balthazar paid him no mind, "I simply had to get Dean in here to see exactly what his baby brother and Gabriel were up to." The subjects of the conversation looked at each other and Sam asked slowly,
"Which is...?"
"Dancing around each other like a bunch of twelve-year-olds! Honestly, if I had my way, you two would have hooked up months ago."
"Hey!" said Dean, standing up. Sam blushed furiously and Gabriel was unusually quiet. Balthazar just laughed,
"What, are you going to defend your brother's virtue? Especially since you were the one going around deflowering my own brother."
"Castiel is your brother?" asked Sam. Castiel and Dean had been together since high school. Balthazar grinned,
"Half-brother, but close enough. But back to the point. You two," he pointed at Gabriel and Sam, "need to either stop having loads of eye sex or start having actual sex. God, it's right up there with Titanic on the scale of pathetic things, the way you two carry on."
"Sammy," said Dean, turning to his brother, "this is the Gabriel, isn't it?"
"What?" asked Gabriel as Sam nodded to his brother. Dean leaned back in his chair, grinning,
"You two have had this coming for a long time."
"What does he mean?" Gabriel asked Sam. Sam couldn't quite meet his eyes,
"We went to the same school from kindergarten through high school."
"We did not!" said Gabriel, "I would have noticed an actual Jolly Green Giant!"
"That's because I didn't get tall until the summer before college. Sam Winchester? A grade under you? We had pretty much all of our high school electives together?" he said. Gabriel's eyes widened,
"You're that Sam Winchester? The one who sat behind me in Probability and Statistics? Little nerdy kid, always had his head in a book and pretended not to know I was cheating off his homework?"
"That was him!" said Dean with a laugh. Gabriel couldn't help eying Sam up and down,
"Damn, Sammy. You grew." The two could only stare at each other before a while before Balthazar whined,
"Kiss already! It's getting boooooring." He practically bounced up and down. Sam gave him the Dean-christened 'bitch face' and Gabriel said,
"Can it, Bath Salts."
"You called him that too?" asked Dean. Gabriel scoffed,
"Is there any other more fitting annoying nickname?" asked Gabriel. Dean shrugged,
"Well, as enjoyable as this was, some of us have work at dark o'clock in the morning. I gotta scram." said Dean, standing up and stretching. Sam stood up as well,
"It was good to see you. Next time let's actually get together instead of, you know, you scaring someone and them calling me on the police." said Sam. Dean nodded and the two shook hands. Dean left, dragging a reluctant Balthazar out by the collar of his shirt.
"But I wanted to see what happens next! It isn't a commercial yet!" whined Balthazar. Dean shook his head,
"Oh yes it is." Dean closed the door behind him and saluted Sam good-bye. Sam saluted back and Dean and Balthazar made their way to the police car across the street. Sam turned to Gabriel, hands in the pockets of his pajamas,
"Well, I guess your big bad burglar technically wasn't so big and bad after all." he said. Now that he thought about it, it could potentially be taken as awkward that he was alone with the man he had a…well, a thing on in a diner at almost three thirty in the morning. Sam gestured at the plates, "Let me help you clean this up."
"Oh, that's not necessary." said Gabriel, jumping up to start clearing the table. Sam was about to say that he really didn't mind, but just then the light directly above their table shattered. Glass sprinkled across the pies and the pair of them jumped back.
"No worries, I'll clean it up." said Sam.
"No, I got it." said Gabriel. He reached out to pick up the plates, then withdrew his hand with a gasp. Blood was dripping down his finger and a shard of glass stuck straight out of his finger, "Shit." he said. Sam pulled the finger to him,
"Crap. Can you get it out or do you need me to?"
"Um…not so good with blood…" said Gabriel, who was indeed looking a little pale. Sam nodded,
"Right. Do you just want to look away or something while I pull this?"
"Sure. My, those windows are dirty! Wow, would you look at that—ouch!" exclaimed Gabriel as Sam pulled the glass from his finger. Sam dropped the fragment onto a plate,
"Sorry. You should probably go run that under the tap. Where do you keep the band aids?"
"Oh, look at you. Large and in charge, I see," said Gabriel with a smirk as he walked to the sink, "Band aids are in the cupboard above the stove. Too high for me to reach, funny enough." Sam quickly found one and brought it to Gabriel, who had finished washing out the cut and dried it with a napkin. Sam handed him the band aid and went back out to the mess, hands on his hips. It was only a moment before he sighed. Quick clean did require sacrifices. He unzipped his hoodie and laid it across the table, covering up any remaining shards of glass. He hadn't heard Gabriel walk in behind him until he heard a low whistle behind him. He turned and Gabriel eyed him up and down,
"Damn, Sam. You've grown." Sam looked down, slightly embarrassed at his lack of shirt, then shrugged. Gabriel had to make an effort not to lick his lips as he watched Sam's muscles ripple with that simple gesture.
"I was in a bit of a hurry, I guess. You know, what with the incredibly frightening burglar you had breaking into your diner." said Sam with a smirk. Gabriel grinned,
"Well, I do appreciate your punctuality." Sam rolled his eyes at the man and turned back to the mess covered by his sweatshirt. Gingerly, he bundled everything up in his sweatshirt and carried it to the sink, dumping it all.
"We can shake off the glass and wash it." he explained. Gabriel shook his head,
"I'll take care of it. You have work at the asscrack of dawn tomorrow, Sammy. Go home. Get sleep." said Gabriel, patting Sam's bare shoulder. Sam protested,
"It's no trouble, really."
"Sam. Go home. Get sleep. We'll talk tomorrow."
"Talk?"
"By 'talk,' I mean make grunts passing as communication because at this point, with this little sleep, neither of us will be able to actually make conversation in," Gabriel checked his watch, "three hours."
"Fair enough." said Sam with a sigh. He felt guilty leaving Gabriel to take care of the mess, but he did have work incredibly early tomorrow. He'd tip really well and bring a new lightbulb tomorrow. As Sam left, he turned just before walking out the door.
"Hey Gabriel, how come you didn't just call the police to begin with?" he said. Gabriel blushed,
"I didn't think of it." he said. Sam nodded,
"Okay. Just curious." Sam walked out, the bell dinging behind him. As he made the short, shirtless walk back to his apartment, Sam smiled just a little bit. Gabriel thought of him before the police. What would Dean have to say about that? The thought made him smile a little wider and walk a little lighter. It was four in the morning on a work night and he was walking shirtless back to his apartment, but Gabriel went to him before the police and that made it alright.