(A/N): Hey Guys! Again, Sabriel has taken hold of me, mind body and Soul for the foreseeable future.
This sweet little One-Shot came to me tonight, about an hour into my shift. It bounced around inside my head desperately seeking exit for four hours. I was half-crazy with feels by the time I had the chance to scribble an outline down on paper.
I hope this piece of utter, shameless fluff brightens your day/night as much as writing it brightened mine.
Comments are awesome, but not obligatory.
Happy Reading!
~.~
Gabriel Novak was Sam's first kiss.
Most people know this.
Sam and Gabriel like to tell the story when people ask, when people give them that same odd look and ask them how they came to be. It's fair question. Sam and Gabriel have been friends all their lives, from perhaps the very day the Winchesters moved in next door to Gabriel's family.
So when people look at them funny and ask how they came to fall together after nearly twenty years of friendship, Sam will look at Gabriel with a fond, indulgent smile and Gabriel's eyes will glitter, just a little.
Sam was six months old the day he met Gabriel Novak. His brother Dean was holding him, guarding him gently in his arms even then, at four years old. Their mother Mary had given them jam sandwiches, a snack easy to put together in the chaos of unpacking a kitchen. When they were finished eating, John had suggested Dean check out the garden. It would be good for him to get some fresh air after so many hours cooped in the car, following the van that held everything they owned.
Dean took his brother with him, because he was a big brother and in his opinion that was what big brothers did. He'd teach Sam everything he knew. He'd protect and guide the baby into the awesome little brother Dean just knew he would be.
Dean was sitting on the porch steps and holding Sam up by his armpits, talking slowly and affectionately as the kid tried to balance on legs still a shade too weak to hold him up just yet. He'd already pointed out a butterfly, carried Sam close and followed it across the flowers for a time. He'd sat Sam down on the grass to catch a beetle and show his brother how it scuttled. Sam's eyes had been large and round at that, and Dean had taken pride in being the one to teach Sam about beetles.
They'd retreated back to the porch when the voice had stiffened Dean's spine and caused him to pull the baby close as he peered across his new garden at the boy on the other side of the wilting wire fence.
Gabriel Novak was four years old too, just three weeks older than Dean, but much smaller and much louder. He made a lot of noise for such a short kid, and there was something about him Dean didn't really like, even if he liked the rest of him.
Maybe it was because of the secrets that looked like they hid in his eyes. Dean liked when people were honest and readable. Secrets weren't fun, and Dean didn't like them much.
Gabriel had come into Dean's garden without asking, inviting himself over to see the baby who was watching him with quiet, curious eyes. Despite how Dean had pulled Sam away, Gabriel had only followed, right into the house and into the kitchen where John and Mary were, introducing himself and giving a long and buoyant story about his family without even being prompted.
John and Mary liked him, even if Dean only sort of liked him.
When Gabriel brought his little brother Castiel over after dinner, Dean found he liked him much better, even if he was a whole year younger than Dean. It was Castiel who taught Dean how to handle Gabriel, even if most of the time the boy did as he pleased regardless of how they scolded or disapproved.
Gabriel claimed to be awesome with babies, being four and all. Dean had told him to go away, and Gabriel had laughed and taken no notice.
It didn't matter how many years went by, Gabriel always laughed and paid no heed when Dean told him - however colourfully as they grew older - to go away.
Sam Winchester doesn't remember that day, though it feels like he does because of the number of times Dean and Gabriel have told him about it. Their recollections don't match perfectly, but Sam knows the gist of it.
Sometimes, when they are on their own, tangled together on the sofa or in bed, and Gabriel is feeling particularly affectionate, he'll whisper to Sam that he knew, even then. Sam doesn't really believe it, that four year old Gabriel loved Sam right the way back then, when Sam was only a baby. But he likes to hear Gabriel say it, anyway, because he's loved Gabriel Novak all his life.
It's not really his fault that it took him twenty years to truly realise just how much.
He grew up always loving Gabriel, so how was he supposed to know that best friends weren't supposed to feel like that? He loves Castiel, differently, and Balthazar different again, and Michael more so. He even loves Lucifer, though sometimes he hates him just as much.
He doesn't really believe that Gabriel fell in love with him then, even without knowing it, but it's still a good story.
Another good story, a really good story, is the one that he and Gabriel tell the people who give them that odd look and ask that question.
The shortest answer is that Sam is just stupid.
The reason it took twenty years, almost to the day, is that Sam Winchester can be just a little bit dumb when it comes to Gabriel.
But they still like the story. It's a good story. A great one.
Sam was eleven when he had his first kiss.
He was discovering girls then, because his friends at school were all discovering girls, and Sam knew Gabriel would know so much more than him. Dean would too, naturally, being the same age as Gabriel and so much older and more experienced than his little brother. But Sam didn't want to ask Dean because if he did Dean would probe him about the girl, and there wasn't really a girl, not then. Sam just wanted to know about girls in general, just for future reference.
Gabriel was an easy choice, because for all his boundless, unchainable wildness, Sam had always found it easier than most to control him. Or at least to calm him enough not to end up in trouble. Most of the time.
Sam always starts the story with that, and he'll give Gabriel that same quiet, fond look as he says it, telling the people who ask that Gabriel was soft on him even then.
Sam went to Gabriel, who was fifteen and infinitely wiser and more knowledgable on the subject of girls and kissing. Sam didn't need to ask to know, because he just knew Gabriel would know. Gabriel always had answers for him when he wanted them, and usually he gave them without much fuss.
Unless he really wanted something, then he and Sam would make a trade. Gabriel would answer questions in exchange for Sam's lollipop, or half his candy bar or the next go on his yo-yo.
But Sam had known Gabriel was the person to ask.
So Sam went to Gabriel, his best friend in all the world, and asked him what kissing was like.
Gabriel told him it was just like hugs, but better. Like cuddling but only with someone you really liked. Like, someone you like liked. Sam asked what it felt like, and Gabriel sat beside him on the floor of Sam's bedroom and sucked thoughtfully on his lollipop for a moment before answering.
He told Sam it was probably the best feeling in the world, especially if you really liked the person. Especially if you loved them.
Sam had wondered what that kind of love felt like, but he didn't ask. He didn't want Gabriel to think he was a stupid kid who didn't like a girl yet. Sam knew he'd get there, he just needed the right girl to meet him, that was all. Then he'd know, and he would kiss her, and that'd be it. And then Dean would have to realise Sam wasn't a little kid anymore. That he was nearly twelve and that he was growing up.
Sam had taken a deep breath and asked if Gabriel would show him.
Sam always flushes at the memory of Gabriel's reaction, of the sweetness that he feels when he thinks of his best friend looking at him the way he had then, something surprised and a little bit nervous and at the same time lovely.
Gabriel had told Sam he couldn't kiss him, because Gabriel wasn't the person Sam was in love with and shouldn't Sam try with her instead?
Sam bit his lip and tried to decide whether he should confess that there wasn't a girl yet but that there would be, and soon. In the end he decided just to ask again, and to give Gabriel the look that always worked, the one that Dean and Gabriel had dubbed the "puppy-eyes thing".
Gabriel had rolled his eyes but given in as Sam had hoped he would, pulling his sucker from his mouth with a pop that made Sam laugh and giving Sam a bright and playful smirk because he'd done it on purpose to hear him laugh.
Sam's first kiss was incredibly awkward, as he imagines most people's first kisses must be. Sam remembers how hot his face was, how shaky his insides. But it had been Gabriel, and he trusted Gabriel and Gabriel wouldn't do anything truly awful to him, however much he liked to play practical jokes on him.
Gabriel talked Sam through it, first. He told Sam how important it was to close his eyes, how it might help to hold Gabriel's cheek like he might want to with the girl. His voice was whispery and secretive and put Sam at ease. Sam did exactly what Gabriel told him he should, and he'd liked the way his fingers slipped by accident from Gabriel's cheek into his hair when Gabriel moved forwards at the same time he did.
Their noses bumped, and Sam remembers one of them giggled nervously after the first brush of lips, but he's not a hundred percent certain that it was himself. Gabriel took hold of Sam's chin, asking without words if it was okay to draw him closer. Sam had let him, focusing on the feeling and remembering it, because he really liked it and bet girls would too.
Sam remembers he tasted like the blue raspberry of his lollipop. He remembers how much they gasped with laughter and fell apart on the floor when they knocked their foreheads together by accident. He remembers how utterly powerless they were against the laughter when Dean poked his head into the room to see what was going on.
So yeah, Sam's first kiss was incredibly awkward, to start with at least. By the end he was lying on his carpet beside his best friend, laughing at the plastic stars on the ceiling and thinking about how awesome kissing girls was going to be for real.
It would take Sam eight years, three different girls and an irrational disliking of Gabriel's boyfriend Kevin to realise that the reason kissing, however good and wonderful and enticing, didn't work as well with girls was because they weren't Gabriel.
Sam and Gabriel like to answer those questioning looks with that story because they like the memory.
It's a good story. It makes people laugh.
When it's told, people tell Sam and Gabriel that they were meant to be, even if it took so many years to finally find each other. They think it's cute that it took Sam being unable to understand why he just didn't like Gabriel's boyfriend Kevin, even though the guy was clever and friendly and just the kind of person Sam usually made friends with. Everybody always says it's a good story.
Most people know Gabriel Novak was Sam's first kiss and they know why, know the story of how one curious boy asked his best friend what kissing was like, and how his best friend showed him how awesome kissing was.
Only Sam and Gabriel know that Sam Winchester was Gabriel's first kiss too.
~.~