Title: 30 Snapshots
Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel (or aceofannwn on livejournal)
Spoilers: For Gabriel the archangel, mostly. Season 5, probably.
So. Here are a bunch of ficlets and shorts involving everyone's favourite Trickster archangel himself, Gabriel. Some are gen, some are slash (relax, you'll be warned) and some are plain crack.
All have been written for my spn_30snapshots fic prompt table.
Ficlet Title: Air
Summary: Gabriel kidnaps Sam and takes him to Disneyland. It takes Sam a while to realise what's behind it.
Warnings/spoilers: If you know who Gabriel is, you're good. Mild Sam/Gabriel. AU series five – i.e., Gabriel didn't die, but stayed to help Team Free Will. Well. I say 'help', but hey, that's entirely subjective…
Prompt: This is for the prompt 'air' on my spn_30snapshots table.
Air
Sam was sitting doing research when there was a "come on Sam, let's do something fun," and a hand on his shoulder, and he was suddenly standing somewhere else entirely.
"Gabriel!" Sam exclaimed, turning to glare at the archangel. "I was researching!"
Gabriel just grinned up at him. Most people were intimidated by the sight of Sam glaring down at them, but then archangels were powerful enough that it was like being glared at by a beetle: of absolutely no threat whatsoever.
"Oh, please, you weren't going to get anywhere," Gabriel claimed, dismissing Sam's protests as irrelevant. "Besides, I can take you back to the same moment you left, if I want. You need to get out and do something, Sammy boy. Relax and unwind for a while. Trust me, it'll do you good."
Sam just gave him an 'I am unimpressed by your argument' face and looked around.
"Where are we?"
Gabriel's eyes lit up and he grinned again at the show of interest, however unwilling.
"Welcome to Disneyworld!" he proclaimed, holding out his arms like a magician who has just done a particularly impressive trick and is waiting for the applause.
Sam took another look around.
It did indeed appear to be Disneyworld. The giant, iconic castle kind of gave it away.
"Let's go find something fun to do," Gabriel announced, grabbing Sam's hand and dragging him into the crowds like the hunter was no heavier than a young child.
Sam was forced to go along behind him, compelled by the archangel's strength and the way Gabriel had firmly interlocked their fingers.
Still, he thought. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
It turned out to be simultaneously embarrassing and awesome, in the way that was uniquely Gabriel.
For a start, Gabriel never once let go of Sam's hand. Possibly this was because he was afraid that Sam might attempt to slip away and escape, but it was just as likely that he liked tugging Sam around behind him like a pet. The sight of them going around hand-in-hand seemed to give some people the wrong idea, though.
A teenage girl standing behind them in a queue for one of the rides smiled cheerfully and actually told Sam that she thought he and his boyfriend were cute.
Sam found himself speechless and appalled, but Gabriel just smirked and said "why thank you," in honeyed tones.
Dick.
Still, Sam also had enormous fun. Gabriel knew all the best rides, and the queues mysteriously shortened whenever they joined one, and Gabriel's flow of light-hearted chatter and sarcastic remarks was pretty entertaining when it wasn't at Sam or Dean's expense.
They stopped several times to buy candy, like a stick of cotton candy, and a rainbow-swirled lollipop roughly the same circumference as Gabriel's head.
"Dude, how can you possibly eat that?" Sam asked, staring at the enormous plastic-wrapped confection.
"Archangel," Gabriel cheerfully informed him.
More like a glutton for candy, Sam thought.
Gabriel frowned and hit him over the head with the flat side of the lollipop.
"Ow!"
Sam rubbed his head in annoyance, while Gabriel happily unwrapped the giant candy.
"I think you actually out-jerk Dean, which is impressive," Sam told the archangel sulkily.
"I'm good at impressive." Gabriel waggled his eyebrows over the huge lollipop.
Sam just made a face.
Two hours later and the lollipop was still going strong when Gabriel suggested,
"You humans need to eat, right? And I bet all that bulk of yours takes a lot of maintenance. Let's find you some eats."
Sam was gratified to discover a sushi place, which made Gabriel roll his eyes a little.
Sam had been feeling hungry, not to mention that he'd been getting a bit tired-out by the time they had stopped to look at a store selling clothing and other souvenirs.
Gabriel had tried to make Sam wear a hat with Mickey Mouse ears, but Sam had flatly refused. No way in hell. Dean would have laughed himself sick at the sight.
"You should eat more candy," Gabriel said idly.
"It's unhealthy," Sam replied. It wasn't like he never ate candy; he just tried to eat a healthy diet, that was all.
"You know, scientists have found that chocolate can be good for you."
"Not the stuff you eat," Sam said bluntly.
Gabriel playfully frowned.
"Are you saying I have cheap tastes in chocolate, Sam?"
Yeah, he was. Honestly, if Sam could snap up any type of chocolate he wanted, it wouldn't be the stuff Gabriel ate.
Gabriel's eyes instantly acquired a gleam.
"Oh, really?" he asked lowly, apparently taking Sam's words as a challenge, or an invitation maybe.
He snapped his fingers.
There was now a plain wooden box sitting on the table between them.
Sam gave it a vaguely wary look.
"It's not going to bite." Gabriel's voice was dry.
Finishing his sushi, Sam cautiously opened the box and removed a layer of tissue paper, to be met with the sight of rows of carefully-crafted chocolates each sitting in its own tiny ruffled paper cup, all of them resting on shiny red tissue paper.
Definitely not cheap chocolates.
Sam tried one.
He made an involuntary sound, and Gabriel smirked, his eyes glinting.
"These are good," Sam said, reaching for another one, not entirely of his own volition. His tastebuds had kind of hijacked his motor control.
"So, the forty-five dollar boxes of chocolate are the way to go," Gabriel observed. "Duly noted."
Sam paused to gape at him.
"Forty-five dollars?"
"Yeah, so I'd better see you enjoying the damn things." Gabriel's eyes sparkled with playfulness.
Sam hesitated, but then, Gabriel had tried specifically to find chocolate Sam would like. It would be rude not to at least eat some of them.
He only half-noticed as he reached for another chocolate.
The two of them went on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
It wasn't the most interesting ride Sam had ever been on, but Gabriel loudly told him stories about actual pirates he had known, and that part was interesting.
Gabriel was still holding onto Sam's hand – he only let go when one of them was eating something, just about – but Sam found that he didn't really mind so much. He'd gotten used to it, and truthfully, it was vaguely nice, although he'd never admit it.
Gabriel just smiled at him, a bit more warmly than usual, and continued his story about Blackbeard's wife.
After that they went on some ride for some alien movie, which Gabriel found hilarious; in one section that had been modelled on the concept of an alien laboratory, Gabriel sat and giggled hysterically, and eyed the robotic aliens with speculative mirth, as though wondering what would happen if he turned them into real aliens.
Sam didn't ask; he was pretty sure that the giggling – and who knew Gabriel giggled sometimes? – was to do with that trick Gabriel had pulled on that college frat kid a few years back, and if Gabriel planned to wreak havoc on the rides, then he didn't want to know. Someone else could be the responsible one, for once.
"Aliens," Gabriel said happily as they exited the ride, his giggles finally dying down, while Sam watched him in some amusement. The giggling had been weirdly endearing. "I love aliens. Of all the ideas you humans could come up with, you decide that species from other planets are coming all the way out here just to violate you in horrible and experimental ways before just putting you back where they found you. Sam, who the hell comes up with something as weird and twisted as that?"
"You were thinking about the college kid and the slow-dancing aliens, weren't you?" Sam asked resignedly.
Gabriel chuckled.
"Man, that was great."
Sam shook his head and sighed, but couldn't help his slight grin.
It had been kind of funny, if really, really wrong.
It was while they were up in the air on the ferris wheel, looking down at the theme park spread out below them, surrounded by sky, that Sam finally caught on.
"Gabriel," he asked, a little hesitantly; if he was wrong then this was going to be mortifying, "are we on a date?"
Gabriel grinned at him, eyes warm.
"Took you a while."
"Oh." Sam thought about it. Contemplation of the idea required some internal rearrangements of his mental landscape.
"Okay." He was surprisingly alright with the idea.
Gabriel laughed softly, and squeezed Sam's hand. Sam squeezed back.
Gabriel leaned against Sam's shoulder, and they sat and looked out at the world below, surrounded only by air.
At the end of the day they reappeared in the motel room to the sight of an irate Dean.
"The hell have you been!" Dean exploded, his anger failing to disguise the fact that he had been out of his mind with worry.
Sam looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel shrugged.
"Hey, I said that I could get you back the moment you left. Not that I wanted to."
Sam had to hold back a snort. That was typical Gabriel.
"Are those Disneyworld bags?" Dean's voice rose an octave. "I've been sitting here wondering what the hell happened to you and you were at frigging Disneyworld all day?"
"I'll see you later, Sammy," Gabriel said, smirking at Dean and enjoying the visible increase in fury the smirk provoked, and sending Sam a quick glance. "British Museum next time?"
"Sure," Sam agreed, intrigued. Now that he knew it wasn't going to lead to something unpleasant, Gabriel could even kidnap him again next time, as long as there wasn't something vitally important going on. Sam being abducted by archangels at odd moments would have the advantage of pissing off Dean, and Dean had been a pretty big jerk lately.
Gabriel smiled with mischief, presumably reading Sam's thoughts again, and disappeared.
Leaving Sam alone with a ranting Dean.
"What? Next time? There's gonna be a next time? Son of a –!"
Sam tried to stifle his grin, and wondered which bag Gabriel had put the box of chocolates in.
FIN