Author's note:Thanks to Ghastly Eternity for beta-reading and thanks so much to everyone who reviewed. You are all awesome!


12

Another one of Sam's calls went straight to Gabriel's voicemail. Really, the younger Winchester didn't even know why he was still trying to reach the archangel. No, scratch that, he knew exactly why he had been calling the other man around ten times already and he also knew why he would try again in a couple of minutes. In the past few days Gabriel had done a few rather nice things for Sam when he had felt the younger man needed to be cheered up. Granted, some of those things hadn't been appreciated at first, but in the end the younger Winchester acknowledged that, in his very own and rather strange way, the archangel had shown that he cared about his wellbeing. Sam felt that it was time to repay the favor.

They had been back at the motel for about an hour before Castiel had appeared, as per usual, directly in front of Dean. Even though the older Winchester was still somewhat freaked out by that kind of behavior, it had been easy enough to see that he was glad to confirm with his own two eyes that his angelic friend was okay. He hadn't been willing to take Gabriel's word for it, not that anyone had honestly expected him to.

Castiel seemed to be physically fine but in need of some rest. They didn't really have to leave in a hurry anyway, so it had been decided that they would spend one more night in town.

"Stop stalking the douchebag already!" Dean demanded from his place on the shabby couch. Dr. Sexy was on and because Castiel had never seen the show and had looked mildly interested Dean was given enough of an excuse to just leave it on. Only to let the angel have an authentic cultural experience, of course!

Sam ignored his brother and opened his laptop instead. It was highly unlikely that his newest idea would lead anywhere, but he didn't know for sure until he tried it.

"I was under the impression that doctors were meant to work in hospitals," Castiel stated in a confused tone, looking over to Dean as if he honestly expected an explanation. He probably really did, too.

"Yeah, and angels are meant to wear white tunics and play the harp," the older Winchester replied, "Look, it's like books, plays, whatever - based on true stuff, not actually true."

Castiel nodded slowly. Still, why let these people portrait doctors when they weren't acting like doctors? It was most perplexing, but the actions on the little TV screen captured his attention again and all the things that seemed illogical took a backseat in his mind.

At the other side of the room, Sam closed his laptop again and grabbed his jacket. He was a little surprised that Dean even realized what he was about to do since his show still wasn't over.

"You're not going to actually search for the jerk now!" Dean said insistently even looking over to his younger brother to make sure he understood that he was serious about this.

"The jerk's name is Gabriel and he saved our asses only a couple of hours ago," Sam argued knowing that this would come back to bite him in the ass – or worse – later, "And I'll make this my night out. You had yours yesterday."

The little rant earned him a curiously raised eyebrow from Castiel, of all people. The younger Winchester thought he saw some approval in the angel's expression, but it was damn hard to tell.

"Whatever, dude, but you're wasting the time you could be using in a much better way," the older Winchester shrugged. He was caving in here, but there was no need to make that all too clear.

"Have fun with your medical drama," Sam shot back making sure to stress the drama-part. With that, the younger Winchester quickly left the motel, not giving his brother a chance to really start a discussion.


It was surprisingly hard to find Gabriel, even though Sam had entered the right bar.

The younger Winchester had assumed that the archangel would be right at the heart of the party, so to say. Instead, he was sitting at a small table in a corner all by himself.

"The GPS on your phone was turned on, so I assumed you wouldn't mind being found," Sam explained with a small smile as he sat next to the angel.

"You didn't have to follow me, I'd have come back," Gabriel stated, though it sounded a little like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince the other man. Of course, he had had every intention of returning to team free will, but if he was being completely honest, he didn't know how soon he would have gone back to them, or how soon the intention to go back soon would have become the intention to probably go back some day.

"Yeah, I know," Sam replied, "But I thought you might like the company."

"Sasquatch, people running away usually want to be alone," the archangel shot back without heat but slightly slurring his words. Maybe he had thought that he wanted to be alone earlier, but the moment he had noticed the other man walking up to him he had felt nothing but glad to see him.

"Are you drunk?" the younger Winchester asked with a curiously raised eyebrow, "I didn't know angels could get drunk."

"It takes a lot of determination and hard work," Gabriel answered with a somewhat forced grin, "So I don't do it often."

In the end the couple of hours of feeling drunk weren't worth all the work and the hangover afterward. This didn't mean he didn't drink, but he didn't make it his goal to actually get hammered, usually. Also, Gabriel was leaning towards depression when he had had too much. Didn't it simply figure that a guy who did about everything to avoid having to be serious was a depressed drunk?

Sam cleared his throat a little awkwardly before he asked, "Do you have any candy on you?"

Gabriel frowned but didn't hesitate and handed a bag of M&Ms over. The younger Winchester opened the plastic wrapping and pushed the bag back toward the archangel.

"Looked like you were brooding hard enough to hatch an ostrich. But don't expect me to stuff them into your mouth now," Sam commented with a half-smile.

The action and comment earned him a real smile from Gabriel, which was probably the best thing he had seen all day. Yeah, he'd never say that out loud, but the archangel just looked a lot better – for a lack of a more fitting word – when he was smiling. It just seemed more like him and Sam found that lately he liked his usual self just fine.

"Why did you come after me?" Gabriel asked grabbing a handful of the candy.

The younger Winchester snorted before he replied in a somewhat amused tone, "Did we reverse our roles?"

"Meh, who's ever playing their roles anymore? It's totally overrated anyway, if you ask me" the archangel shrugged dismissively, "So?"

And, yes, he was insisting on getting an answer. The younger Winchester didn't let him off the hook this easily when he was asking questions, either.

"You seemed upset and then you just up and left. You're my friend, Gabriel. Of course I came after you," Sam explained, "Maybe I'm completely wrong, but most of the time, when I ran away, a part of me would have wanted someone to stop me."

Which didn't mean that he blamed Dean or their father for not doing it. Really, he had known both of them long enough to know that they didn't tick that way, but a part of him had always hoped that someone would just tell him to stop, come back and talk things over.

Yeah, he was a member of the completely wrong family, if he wanted things like that.

The archangel looked like he was getting watery eyes at that, which was the last thing Sam had wanted.

"Oh come on, don't," Sam mumbled as he put his hand on Gabriel's shoulder to pat it lightly. He was relieved when the archangel reached into the candy bag again and it seemed like he had gotten a hold on himself. The younger Winchester was surprised that he hadn't even noticed that at this point the archangel was basically snuggling into his side, however. There wasn't much use trying to change anything about the situation and Sam wasn't really bothered by it to begin with. He was slightly bothered by the fact that he didn't mind the contact, though.

"You and Abaddon were close?" Sam asked to get his own thoughts away from the solid warm weight of the archangel currently pressed against his side.

Gabriel snorted. "We were all close at some point, but that was eons ago," he replied and then added with a sigh, "I left home so I'd never have to fight one of my siblings again. Y'know for a place where people are meant to rest in peace there was a lot of fighting going on all the time. Ever since Lucifer started to rebel, anyway."

Sam had been under the impression that a lot of things generally believed about heaven and angels weren't true for a while, so this wasn't all that surprising to him. It was understandable that those memories and facts were hurtful for Gabriel, though. For a moment, he wondered how Castiel had felt about the situation in heaven before he had rebelled for them, but there weren't enough indications in his behavior even for a guess.

"You must have felt lonely," Sam stated in a soft tone, "Alone and away from home like that."

"Nah", Gabriel replied, sitting a little straighter but not moving away from the Winchester, "I have friends. Okay, I couldn't turn my back to them without being in danger of being stabbed, but they're my friends anyway. And there's the part where I can just, you know, create some company if I want to."

Under different circumstances, Sam might have asked for the archangel's definition of a friend. It didn't include having to watch your back around them in Sam's book. But as things were, he just didn't want to risk bringing Gabriel down.

"It isn't quite the same though, is it?" he couldn't help questioning the last part of what the archangel had said.

"Sammy, if it were the same, I'd be at home with my very own copy of you finding new and imaginative uses for chocolate sauce this very moment," Gabriel replied without batting an eye, but finally giving the younger Winchester some personal space back. He supposed that sexual innuendo and body contact together might still be a little too much for the other man.

Sam blinked a couple of times and cleared his throat pointedly before demanding, "Tell me you've never done that before!"

Because everything else would freak the younger Winchester out quite badly, to be honest. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea that the archangel Gabriel had a crush on him and that there was a very small chance that Sam might feel something in return, though it was impossible to say what the exact nature of those feelings was this far. It'd probably take a lot more time to figure that one out completely. But he knew for certain that he didn't like the idea of Gabriel creating a copy of Sam for his own amusement, especially not if that included any new and imaginative uses for chocolate sauce.

"What? No, no, of course not!" the archangel answered very quickly. Too quickly, Sam thought.

"Oh God, you did!" the younger Winchester moaned, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes to fight off the oncoming migraine and the unwanted pictures.

"No, I didn't," Gabriel insisted shaking his head and clicking his tongue for emphasis.

"Okay," Sam exhaled, relieved. Logically, he knew that he shouldn't just take the other man's word for it, but he just wanted to too badly.

"I really didn't," the archangel had to ruin the moment for the younger Winchester. He hadn't changed his completely innocent tone, but he had added a cheeky grin for good measure.

"You're a pain in the ass!" Sam grumbled.

"I resent that! I am usually very gentle unless requested otherwise," Gabriel replied waggling his eyebrows. He knew he was pushing it, but the younger Winchester was giving him all the right – or wrong – keywords here. Besides, he was still slightly under the influence, even though he had never reached his goal of getting drunk in the first place.

For some reason that wasn't even completely clear to Sam himself, the human just had to laugh about that. Maybe he was just really relieved to see those stupid waggling eyebrows instead of a serious and melancholic expression on the archangel's face, or maybe he had realized that he couldn't win this one so he'd better just roll with it, but whatever it was the evening took a turn for the better after this first wave of laughter.