AVERTING THE APOCALYPSE FOR WINCHESTERS
Sam stomped around the kitchen, flinging open cabinets and growling angrily as he searched for ingredients. He didn't even know whether this would work, but damn it, he had to try. It was better than doing nothing while Dean and Bobby were off on a hunt without him.
His leg wasn't even that bad. The windigo hadn't even hit bone, and Dean had flamed its ass right after. He was fine. Besides, they had bigger worries at the moment - like the Apocalypse.
Which brought him back to his current predicament. A dusting of flour (abandoned in the bottom of a bag), maybe half a cup of sugar, and a handful of white chocolate chips whose bag claimed they were milk chocolate.
Sam sighed and went to hotwire one of Bobby's wrecks.
x x x
One grocery trip later, Sam had the ingredients, but the recipe still made less sense than his old law texts…or any of the two dozen spells (in half a dozen languages) that he had memorized.
So he pulled out his laptop, opened Google, and went to decoding the mysteries of 100 Cookie Recipes for Beginners.
Slowly, he figured out how long to set out the butter and eggs (half an hour, or until they reached room temperature), what "cream together" meant (mix with a spoon), and why he needed to let the dough chill in the middle of making it (so that that it would stay firm and in one piece).
It still seemed like a lot of work for some petty bribery, but then he was trying to bribe one of the most powerful beings in existence, so he guessed that he should consider himself lucky.
x x x
The cookies were lopsided, awkwardly lumpy, and tasted like chalk - when they didn't taste like charcoal. Bobby's oven, Sam had discovered, was clearly unreliable when it came to maintaining an even and accurate temperature. Or telling time.
He swore to himself and put more powdered sugar in the icing.
x x x
Sam limped into the living room, setting the plate of iced sugar cookies - the few that weren't irreparably burnt or broken - on a table.
"Dear Gabriel," he sighed. "I pray that you get your feathery archangel self over to Bobby's. I have - "
"Why Sam, you shouldn't have!" the trickster in question cooed, immediately grabbing a lime green cookie (with chocolate sprinkles, God help him) and shoving it in his face. "Although…"
"I wanted to - "
Gabriel's eyes bulged and he carefully set the cookie back on the plate without taking a second bite. "Actually, yeah, I'm right. You shouldn't have. So what made you abuse some poor unsuspecting sugar, moose?"
Sam grimaced and made another attempt. "I wanted to talk to you. To ask your help."
"So you massacred some baked goods?"
"Shut up. I didn't burn the icing."
Gabriel swiped a finger through the tinted confection and shrugged, allowing his argument. "So, then, what are you buttering me up for? Planning to assault my delicate virtue?" He leered at the taller hunter in a way that belied his own words.
"I want your help. Your brothers are still hunting Dean and I, and demons are - "
Gabriel silenced him with a raised hand. "I'm staying strictly neutral in this war, Sam. You should know that."
"What about the other monsters, then? If you won't help with the Apocalypse, what about killing off some of the garden variety crap while we take on everything else? We hunters are spread thin enough as it is; we need - "
"You need a hell of a lot more baking lessons if you're trying to bribe me with these," Gabe interrupted, catching on. "Besides, archangel? I can make my own damn cookies." He snapped one into his hand - a chocolate chip cookie almost as large as his head - as if to demonstrate.
"Yeah, but - I spent several hours learning how to bake those. How many monsters could you kill if you spent the same amount of time smiting them?" Sam argued, glaring at the cookie. "And how often do you have someone make you cookies?" Even shitty burned ones, he thought ruefully.
"So, you want a quid pro quo?" Gabe teased. "You realize that there are things I like even more than burnt cookies."
Sam's eyebrows shot up before he smoothed his expression back into calm nonchalance. "Such as?"
Gabriel grinned, and the bowl of leftover icing appeared in his hands. "Naked moose, for one. And it's a much better incentive than unsweetened sugar cookies."
x x x
When Dean and Bobby got back three days later, they were surprised to find an archangel camped out in his spare bedroom. Sam just shrugged and said that he was trying to earn a reward for averting the Apocalypse.
He carefully didn't mention that "earn a reward" translated to "courting Sam". There were only so many surprises Dean could take without pulling a weapon on them.