To say that Sam liked the bedding the archangels had given him was an understatement. The blanket and pillow from Heylel and Michael matched, a double sided fleece blanket that was dark blue on one side and a soft brown on the other. The pillow from Castiel was yellow and black with a honeycomb pattern. And Raphael's was a soft neutral gray. All the bedding had the same texture. It was soft, but not quite fleece, and everything was thick. Castiel had said that at least the one he had given Sam had been made with molted angel feathers, which made him think of down bedding. Except way nicer than anything humans had the capacity to make.

Sam was dwelling on the bedding at that moment because as soon as they had come into the new motel room, Dean had more or less stripped the second bed, piling all the mortal bedding onto the one that he had claimed for himself. "You have that pile of weird angel blankets, use that. This is all mine."

So much like he had been, Sam went ahead and made the second bed using just the archangel given bedding, and then he climbed under the almost nest because it was warm and nice, so why shouldn't he? Dean was nowhere to be found, as per the usual, and he wasn't tired now, he just wanted to bask. So bask he did.

Sam got his five minutes of quiet peace.

"Hey, Samalam, I got you a present!"

Sam climbed out from under the pile of blankets. "Gabe? What do you want?"

"I noticed that my brothers all decided you needed a ridiculous amount of bedding, so I got you a bag of holding to put it in! It's double sided, one for you bedding and one for your books. And since you're so loathfully lacking in anything good to read, I got your collection off to a start with all of my favorites! We have here one boxed set of Artemis Fowl, one Complete Works of Shakespeare, Alice Through the Looking Glass, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and Charlotte's Web."

Sam's jaw dropped as he eyed the first edition copies of books he'd read, heard of, loved, or had been dying to read. "Gabriel… you didn't have to."

"But I wanted to! No stealing my fun!" The archangel sauntered over and joined Sam on the bed. "Go on then, what do you think?"

The hunter took the proffered books one at a time, running is fingers across the covers as though they might disappear at any moment. But they didn't, and he flipped gently through a few pages before setting it down gently and taking the next. "Gabriel, thank you."

"You're welcome! Okay, now for the bag of holding."

Gabriel handed Sam what at first glance appeared to be a duffle bag. It had a zipper down the middle, extending across three sides of the bag. "Go on, open it! It opens like a book."

With a raised eyebrow, Sam unzipped Gabriel's supposed "bag of holding". He'd played enough D&D in college to know exactly what that was, but he couldn't figure out why Gabriel would refer to a simple duffle bag in that way. A place for all his bedding and all the books he ever wanted? That sounded just a little too good to be true.

The unzipped duffle bag looked like the inside of a suitcase. There was a thin covering over the left side and another over the right, so it was impossible to tell whether or not there was anything already inside the duffle. He leaned forward to brush aside one of the coverings.

"I don't recommend falling inside, I didn't include a ladder."

Sam unfastened the covering of the side on the left. It didn't look bottomless. But if Gabriel said it was, he probably wasn't lying. He put the set of Artemis Fowl books inside to see what would happen. They seemed to fall down into the duffle, but he couldn't see them clearly. "How do I get them back?" he asked.

"You reach inside and pull them out? It shouldn't be difficult."

"If you're sure." Sam wasn't sure whether or not he believed the archangel, but he reached inside to see if that was the case.

"Oh! Have you ever been to the Library of Congress? I have some business to attend to in DC, I could drop you off?"

"That would be awesome!"

Sam barely had time to pull his arm out of the duffle bag before they were flying. Could he have lost an arm?

The duffle bag was still in his hand when they landed inside what must have been the Library of Congress. But it was zipped shut and nothing appeared out of the ordinary with it.

"I'll be back, see you later?" Gabriel asked.

"Of course!" Sam had barely finished speaking before the Messenger was gone in a flurry of wing beats.

Sam explored the library. It had a vast collection in a multitude of languages and was the biggest library he had ever seen, by a large margin. Which made sense, if he remembered anything about how the collection was still expanding.

There was a list in his pocket, some things Dean wanted him to research about their next possible case. The resources this library contained was endless, and since he was here, he just had to use it.

Hours passed and Gabriel hadn't returned yet. With the closing of the library approaching, he went to see exactly how one would go about checking out books. It might as well have been the national library, after all.

But no. Checking out books from the library was expressly forbidden to anyone who was not a high ranking government official, and it sucked.

He returned to the table he'd been working at to find that someone else had taken a seat there. The blonde man sitting across from where Sam had been working seemed perfectly average, though it seemed that he was wearing an expensive shirt underneath his long coat.

"Hello, Sam."

Sam had thought he might know who the person was, but it was the lilting British accent that gave it away. Aziraphale. "Hello."

"I was wondering if you might help me? Crowley helped me move my collection of books to Heaven, but there's a lot of books here I haven't had the pleasure of reading and I thought you might be inclined to help me abscond with them? There's two copies of most of them, so you could take your pick of them."

"I would love to help!" His conscience was probably supposed to be telling him that stealing was wrong, but this was an archangel asking him to help steal from a library and he honestly wanted to be involved with that. Why wouldn't he? "Gabriel gave me a bag of holding earlier, do you think we should put everything in there?"

"I think that would do the trick. Everyone is in the process of leaving now, I can turn the power in this building off so you can clean the shelves off into the bag." The archangel stood. "The name's Aziraphale, but I assume you've guessed that already."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Aziraphale. I was hoping I'd get to meet you."

The archangel snapped his fingers, darkening the building. There was a soft red glow from the emergency lights and emergency exit signs.

"I say we have about thirty minutes. Just clear everything into the bag, I'll help."

They cleared all the shelves of all the rooms into the duffle bag Sam had brought and the weight of the bag never changed. Just like a real bag of holding. What had Gabriel even done to the duffle bag that it worked like this?

They finished clearing the entirety of the Library of Congress into the bag of holding before the police ever showed, but Sam was certain that the archangel had to of used some grace to make the process go faster.

"What now?" Sam asked, when they were safely a few blocks away and no one suspected anything.

"Now? Sam, Sam. Now we sort the manuscripts. Come on!"

The archangel and the human ended up in a room in a hotel that Sam couldn't help but belief was the fanciest hotel in existence. The room was cleaner than any hotel room Sam had ever stayed in. There were no questionable stains on the nice grey carpet or the stainless beige walls. The furniture was expensive, a matching headboard, dresser, two bedside tables, and a king sized bed Sam would have guess to be the most comfortable ever.

He frowned. "Why this luxurious hotel?"

"I happen to like it. And Gabriel insisted."

Of course Gabriel had insisted. Sam was surprised the archangel never complained about the flea-ridden holes in walls that Dean always selected when they were hunting because they were cheap and out of the way.

"Lets sort those books. You can keep whatever you want."

"But, don't you not like parting with your books?"

Aziraphale smiled. "Did you not see how many books we collected? Go on, take what you want. I trust you to take care of them."

Pouring the books from the bag of holding and onto the bed was not possible. So they tried taking a handful each to sort.

Sam knew he wanted the lore materials for researching their hunts. Azi opened the first book he came across and starting reading it instead of making a decision and Sam enjoyed the one section of the lore book so much he had to read more of it.

"I have the declaration of independence!" There was no response to Samael's exclamation because Sam and Aziraphale were so deeply enthralled in the books they were reading they didn't notice when he appeared, scroll in one hand and red pen in the other.

"Hey! Angel!"

Aziraphale looked up. "Hello, Crowley."

"I heard someone stole the entirety of the Library of Congress. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"They didn't deserve it. Not if they weren't going to share," Sam argued, not looking up from the novel he'd fallen into and was enjoying immensely.

"But you can't just take it from them. Couldn't you have duplicated it instead?"

"And where would the fun have been in doing that?" Aziraphale asked. "We are having so much fun."

Samael rolled his eyes. "As long as you're having fun." He walked towards the bed. "Find anything worth reading?"

"Did you want to read something specific?" Sam asked, reaching for the duffle bag.

"Anything will do. Although I'm always fond of prophets who think they're writing fiction."

"You can't have the Winchester Gospels."

"Already read them. Surely you can think of something more creative than that."

"We'll see." Sam reached inside the duffle and then poked his head inside because it felt like a giant swimming pool inside a backpack.

That's about what it looked like. There was almost not gravity inside the bag and the books were aimlessly floating around the inside of the duffle bag.

Sam wondered how hard it would be to build shelves along the edges with the fancy moving ladders.

"See anything?" he heard Aziraphale asked.

He saw so many books. How was he supposed to know what he was looking for beyond that?He had no idea how to determine what had been written by a prophet or would be interesting to an infinitely ancient archangel. There was no list of prophets in his head as there had been in Castiel's.

Before he could select a title to show Crowley, a streak of yellow crossed the edge of his vision. It was not a book, appearing instead to be threads. He turned his head, eye attracted to movement.

Sam found himself face to face with a gigantic golden retriever shaped body pillow that was more realistic than any he had seen before. He reached for it, shocked by how soft the fur of the dog was.

He leaned back, tugging the plush towards himself as he backed out of the duffle bag. "Aziraphale," he said, trying to keep his voice from breaking with want. "Did you steal someone's toy?"

"What? No. Only books. Why?"

"So why is this here?" He put the pillow on the bed even though he wanted nothing more than to keep her in his lap. But she didn't belong to him, wasn't his.

"I'm not sure, Sam. Does she have a tag?"

Sam didn't didn't move to check because he knew that if he touched her he wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to keep her.

Aziraphale was on the side of the dog nearest the head, so he examined the blue color around her neck. As he shifted it, a small envelope fell out. "Sam Winchester," the archangel read. "I do believe this is yours." He held out the envelope towards Sam.

He hesitated. He wanted to read it, but he was also afraid it wasn't real. Every day of the fantastical life of a courtship with an archangel he loved and meeting Gabriel's siblings was one day closer to the possibility that none of this was real and he honestly didn't want that day to come.

"Sam," Aziraphale said quietly. "The letter hasn't been tampered with. Just read it."

Better to read it now than to build his hopes up and be disappointed about it, Sam decided and tore it open.

Inside the envelope was a piece of pale yellow stationary. The handwriting was beautiful and full of serifs written in bright gold ink. There was a red bow at the top with the ribbon continuing around all the borders of the paper.

"Dear Sam," the letter read. "I saw this stuffed dog at a store and instantly thought of you. I know you love dogs, and while your current lifestyle isn't really stable enough to support a pet, I wanted to get this for you as a promise. I love you, Sam, and someday I will give you a real dog. Today might not be that day, but n the meantime, have this life size plushie as a symbol of my promise."

Sam blinked. "Mine?" he asked, reaching to touch the soft fur of the pillow.

"All my brothers are saps," Crowley lamented. "Where is my book?"

"You can read this one." Aziraphale charitably handed over the book he had been reading. "Would anyone like a glass of wine?"

Crowley agreed vocally and Sam nodded after Aziraphale had poured a glass for Crowley and another for himself.

Sam sipped the wine slowly, fingers still scratching the body of the dog. She was his. It didn't matter right now that she wasn't real. He had a dog.

"Where's Gabriel?" he asked suddenly, awhile later when he was on his second glass of wine.

"I think he'll drop by soonishly," Crowley answered, looking up from the book he was reading.

"Oh! That means it's time for presents!" Aziraphale snapped, refilling their wine glasses and summoning a package wrapped with blue wrapping paper.

"I heard that the other archangels didn't wrap theirs so I wrapped mine because tearing the wrapping paper is the best part."

Sam took the offered present and carefully untaped it so he could open it. The first item Sam pulled out was a folded blanket. It was as soft as the rest of the archangel given bedding and both sides were the same shade of green as Dean's eyes. There was also a pillow of the same color. Underneath the bedding there was a book.

"I was just going to let you borrow a copy because I trust you to treat books well, but I realized a copy you can keep might be more useful to you."

Sam gave the book a closer examination. "A basic encyclopedia of the Enochian Language?"

Aziraphale nodded. "I thought you might be interested in learning it."

"Oh, absolutely! Thank you!"

"Hey! I thought we were just giving Sam bedding!"

Aziraphale turned his head, smirking. "But I had to out do you, you're about to give him the best bedding."

"You were supposed to accept your defeat gracefully!"

"Not on your life!"

Sam swallowed a mouthful of wine. He was still feeling pretty clear headed and wouldn't have minded being just a little bit tipsier for this. He didn't want to get plastered, or drunk, but a little tipsier would have been better.

"Crowley? Can I see what you made for me?" Sam didn't want to be stuck listening to the two of the archangels bickering about who had brought him the better present when he appreciated absolutely everything all the archangel had given to him. He'd never been in a position to have bedding that actually belonged to him and it was nice.

Crowley pouted. "But Aziraphale gave you nice bedding and an awesome book!"

Sam sighed. They were children. They really were. And he really didn't want to deal with this, but someone obviously had to. "Samael, in February, do you know how much bedding I had ever owned in my entire life, that was mine?"

The archangel known both as Crowley and Samael shrugged. "How much?"

"Absolutely none. I even had to borrow linens when I was in college because I couldn't afford to buy an entire bed set. I don't mind that you've all given me blankets and pillows. They're all different colors and they're all warm and soft and I love all of them."

"Really?" Crowley asked, looking dubious.

Sam nodded sagely. "Mhmm. So you should come here and show me what color you picked out."

Crowley walked over, a stack of bedding appearing in his own hands as he approached. "I thought you would appreciate this color."

Sam grinned sappily. This blanket and pillow set was an amber whiskey color that matched Gabriel's eyes and they were absolutely gorgeous. He hadn't been lying about how nice all of the archangel bedding was, but this set, this set was the best color.

He allowed himself to take another sip of his wine. There was a warm feeling in his belly that could probably be attributed to the wine, but he was also happy, and the only thing missing was Gabriel. Where was the love of his life?

"Gabriel?"

"He's not back yet. Do you want to help me finish sorting the books?" Aziraphale asked.

Sam shook his head. He liked the golden amber bedding, but it wasn't what he wanted to look at right that second. He wanted Gabriel.

He blinked and the room seemed to tilt sideways. Had he'd had more to drink than he'd thought? "Gabriel."

Why was he sad? He wasn't alone. Aziraphale and Crowley were here. Gabriel would come back, or so Aziraphale kept saying.

"I'll put the bedding in your duffle for you," Crowley said, sidestepping around Sam.

"Okay…" Sam's voice sounded far away to his ear and the glass in his hand felt much too heavy. Was he drunk? It had been a good long while since the last time he'd been drunk. He associated the loss of control with the feeling of having been possessed and he didn't like it.

What if Gabriel wasn't coming back and the archangels had plied him with alcohol so he would forget?

He sniffed. He wanted Gabriel.

There was a hand on his elbow, and he found Crowley guiding him back to the bed. He didn't resist. Maybe he should? He wasn't sure.

"Please sit down, Sam. Gabriel confirmed that he's on his way back. But I'm not sure why you're all worked up."

Sam wasn't sure why he was either. But the alcohol probably had something to do with it. Why had Gabriel told Samael and Aziraphale that he was on his way back and not Sam?

The stuff toy golden retriever ended up in Sam's lap. It was so soft, and Sam thought it smelled exactly like Gabriel.

Sam lost track of time, but Gabriel's arrival in the room was far from quiet. "There you are, Sam! I was wondering where you'd gone."

Sam tilted his head, which made the room rotate even more. "Aziraphale wanted to steal the Library of Congress and said this room was your idea." His lip quivered as he recalled that Azi had used the word insisted. "I'm sorry the bug infested rooms Dean rents aren't good enough for an archangel."

Sam's voice was honest. Any significant other he might have had deserved better than what he could provide, but Gabriel was an archangel. One who deserved so much more than he capable of providing.

"Sam…" For a moment, the archangel's vessel seemed to age ten years, this was it, but then he squinted. "Sam, are you drunk?"

"Don't know," he slurred. "Hope not," he added. He didn't want to be drunk. Not after everything he'd been through. "Dad was a drunk. A' mean drunk." The expression on Gabriel's face looked like pain. "'M not!" he added hastily, wondering if that's why Gabriel's expression had looked worried. "Imma sad drunk." He blinked. "Is that why I'm sad?"

"That's… not unlikely." Gabriel sighed. "Sam, do you want me to take you back home?"

Where was home? Sam wondered idly. He grew up sleeping in the impala on the road, but it was more Dean's home than it was his. Dean remembered the home Mary had raised him, but he remembered nothing more than her burning on the ceiling. That wasn't a home either.

Maybe home wasn't a place. Maybe it was family. Gabriel, Castiel, and Dean.

He was so lost in his thoughts that Sam didn't even notice that they were flying until they landed in the motel room Sam had started the day in. Gabriel was holding the duffle bag that presumably contained the new bedding and the books.

"Are you okay?"Gabriel asked. "Would you like some water?"

Now that Gabriel mentioned it, he was thirsty. "Yes please,"he said. What was okay? He must be, he was always fine. "I'm fine,"he said, sitting on his bed. Or at least the one with all of his grace bedding on it. He reached for the calming gray pillow Raphael had given him.

"I don't like getting drunk," he told the pillow. It would be a good listener. "Don't like any loss of autonomy. 'Minds me of Ruby. Dean dying. Downward spirals."

Gabriel brought him a glass of water and then urged him away from the pillow so he could drink it. "I love you, Sam Winchester," he said as Sam drank the water. "Do you think you'd be able to sleep?"

"Maybe."

Sam wouldn't let Gabriel help him get ready for bed until after the new blankets and pillows had been added to the collection on his bed, and then they curled up under the covers. Gabriel was snuggled around Sam, who was holding onto the golden retriever body pillow.

And they slept. Nothing needed to be harder than that.