Title: Stolen Moments

Snippet #21: Can't Explain this Fixation ~ After the brief moment, the rose a memento of exactly what he isn't sure, Dean starts feeling weird. A little too weird for his liking.

Warnings: Teen. Spoilers for Season 3's 'Mystery Spot', which means in Dean's point of view Gabriel is Loki but in Gabriel's it's of course Gabriel, which is why I used both intentionally. This turned out a little different than expected, but I'm extremely satisfied.

Set to Fall Out Boy's 'The (After) Life of the Party'

~Could it last?

Watch you work the room~

"Hey!"

The hunter looks up. Loki's about four steps away from him, a red rose twirling delicately in between his fingers. He starts walking around Dean, widening the distance between them with each step.

Dean doesn't know why, but this burns somewhere deep inside him.

He misses Sam, he honestly can't say it enough, in his head anyway, and he wonders what the hell Loki wants with him here, in a vacant warehouse on an empty dance floor, acting, what Dean supposes anyway, romantic and playing hard to get.

So no, Dean doesn't understand any of this at all.

"What am I doing here?"

"You're here," Loki grins, "for my own benefit."

"Yeah." Dean crosses his arms. "But why?"

The trickster sighs and places the flower on the counter near him. He takes a step closer to the hunter but Dean takes a step back. He doesn't like this. He doesn't feel comfortable with this.

"Where's Sam?"

"Safe. Pissed at me," he adds. "But perfectly fine."

"And what is he doing right now?" Dean presses.

"Sleeping."

"How can I know that for sure?"

"Gee, Deano. You never let up, do ya?"

"No freaking way. Wanna know why?" He steps up to Loki now, his intention to make this up close and personal, to make sure Loki knows his opinion of him. "Cause I don't trust you. And," he adds with great emphasis, "I don't like you. In fact, I could give a rat's ass about you."

Gabriel bites his tongue, he wants to tell Dean that he should care because he is the one killing him over and over to drill a hard truth into his little brother's skull which he should have known ages ago. He doesn't say a word though because he likes Dean, admires him and generally wants to be friends. Okay, that last one was a lie. He wants Dean permanently, as a mate, has intention to mark him and make him his.

The problem? He wants the human to want it. He wants the human to beg for it. So hells yeah, he's gonna keep his cool and try not to piss Dean off further.

"Fine," he turns away and picks the rose up again, handing it over to Dean, making sure the human sees his genuine smile. Dean takes it, surprisingly. "Just keep this as a token of my affection. I'll send you back now."

The room and Loki are gone before the hunter can take a decent breath.

xxx

Two days later of Sam mother-henning him to death and keeping him within close range at all times, something which is freaking Dean out way too much, he begins to feel a strange sensation pulsating in his gut. He fingers the petals of the rose that's grasped in his hand in a daze.

He feels empty, and after hours of thinking about why suddenly Loki pops up in his head, for no reason at all and the memory of him pacing on the colorful dance floor, his eyes never leaving Dean's, eases the ever-present ache in his chest just a little. He calls out for him on a perhaps foolish whim, when his brother's not around of course. Dean doesn't have to wait long, Loki shows up barely three seconds later, grinning down at Dean. Smug bastard.

"Okay," Dean tells him, standing up, suddenly wishing he didn't as he's simultaneously whisked back to the warehouse. "I admit..." he's cut off when Loki wraps his arms around him and pulls him down to a bed instead of the hardwood flooring that was only there a moment before.

His changeable, quite addictive kisses last for quite a while and then he pulls away for a second. Dean looks up at him, feeling strangely happy.

"By the way, the name's Gabriel."

"What the...?"