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When Sam is five, his three favorite heroes are his older brother, Batman, and the ten year old on the playground named Gabriel, although Sam doesn’t learn that his name is really Gabriel until late in the year. The boy goes by “Loki”, and all the little ones look up to him, because he’s just the coolest. He ensures a form of justice within the time of recess by making sure no one hogs the swings or cuts in line for the slide. He sits on the jungle gym instead of the picnic benches with the other ten year olds. He leads them into battle against invisible enemies that seem to come to life as Gabriel describes them- his excited eyes and never-at-rest hands weaving pictures of the fearsome hordes the band of heroes is up against. He gives anyone who wants to play a name from the myths he’s learning about in the fourth grade, which makes the whole thing even cooler. On the battlefield, he only responds to ‘Loki’, and Sam can still remember drawing a rather poor rendition of Gabriel as Loki from the comics and shyly giving it to his hero, who accepts it with dignity. In short, Gabriel, like Dean and Batman, is unbreakable and utterly perfect.
Which is why Sam is at a loss for even the simplest words his five year old mind knows when he finds Gabriel crying under the most distant playground fort.
The others have accepted that Gabriel isn’t at recess today and are banding together under an eight year old named Charlie who’s setting up a game of knights and princesses with herself as queen. But Sam is worried, because he’d seen Gabriel in the lunch line, and he’d seen Gabriel at his usual table, alone in the far corner. (“Because a trickster god needs time to plot out his schemes,” Gabriel had told them. “Can’t be with the mortals all the time. No, you guys aren’t mortals. You’re my warriors, right? My warriors…” -a quick headcount- “seventeen?”) So Sam had searched behind the gym, and wandered over to look at where the other fourth graders sat by the basketball court, and finally found the courage to crawl under each play fort, even the ones that weren’t used as dungeons because they were so dirty and full of spiders, until he found Loki.
“Why are you crying?” Sam finally asks.
The older kid tries to turn so quickly he falls onto his side, and brings his hands up to wipe frantically at his face. “m not crying.” One hand streaks dirt down his cheek.
“You’re crying.” Sam’s little face furrows up in concern. “What’s’a matter?”
Loki sniffs. “Nothing, kid.”
Sam know exactly what ‘nothing’ means. He’s seen Dean tell him that ‘nothing’ is wrong whenever Dad’s drunk and passed out again, or when he doesn’t know what they’re eating for dinner. Dean fixes it, but it doesn’t mean nothing is wrong. Sam puts down his fruit snacks in the mulch and crawls under the fort with him to settle into Gabriel’s lap and wrap his little arms around his leader’s neck. “I’s okay. You can fix it.”
Loki shudders a little with held-back tears. “No, I can’t. All the other kids in my grade think I’m a big loser a-and they don’t let me sit with them or play kickball or anything. I’m just a dumb kid without friends who’s too short to be in fourth grade.”
Sam is quiet for a minute, then picks his fruit snacks back up and offers them consolingly. “Dean got ‘em for me.” Loki shakes his head, and Sam eats them himself, slowly and musing on how he can make Loki feel better if even fruit snacks can’t. “What’s your name? Your real name?”
“Gabriel.” He says softly. “They call me Gabriel.”
“I’m Sam.” He’s not that much smaller than Gabriel, because Sam’s the tallest in his class and Gabriel is the shortest, but he still has to tilt his head up a little to look into Gabriel’s face earnestly and say, “I can be your friend, if you want.”
Gabriel slowly wraps his arms around Sam’s little body and lets out a shaky breath. “Yeah, okay. You can be Thor, if you want. You can be Thor with me every time.”
Sam’s eyes widen. Previously to this, the position of Thor was a rotating one, going to anyone who wanted it, but only for one recess period. And while a few kids, like the chubby little girl who was Aphrodite, or the first grader who was Hercules, preferred their own titles, everyone else was eager to have a turn being Loki’s right hand man, Thor.
“Yeah! I wanna be Thor every day. I wanna be Thor forever.” Sam nods.
“Sounds good, kid. In the myths, Thor and Loki are brothers, and they go on all kinda adventures together…” Gabriel and Sam spend the rest of the recess period telling stories about Thor and Loki of Asgard, tucked away under the play fort.
When Sam is eight, he learns that it’s not normal for his Dad to be drunk as much as he is, that all energy comes from the sun, and that Gabriel lives just a few houses away from his. He walks through the vacant lot behind his house for a little way and cuts through a row of trees, and there’s Gabriel’s house. He doesn’t go inside often, because Gabriel says that he’s got mean older brothers, but they play in the yard in the afternoons. Gabriel doesn’t go to elementary school anymore, so they don’t get to play Thor and Loki on the playground like they used to. Here, though, they can play whatever games they want together. Gabriel still tells the best stories.
But then Sam decides to walk over as the sun is going down during the first week of summer, and finds Gabriel sitting in the vacant lot and crying.
Sam rushes over and wraps his arms around his friend, says urgently “What’s the matter?”
Gabriel gingerly wipes a few telltale tears off his face, and Sam can see in the last rays of fading light that Gabriel’s got a split lip and a trickle of blood under his nose. “Nothing, Sam. I’m just…” he shrugs. “I’m just being dumb.”
“What happened to your face?” Sam feels almost hurt himself, looking at the injury.
“I ran into a wall.”
“No, you didn’t.” Sam’s only eight, but he’s already very good at calling lies when he sees them. He’s even starting to catch Dean on some of his more obvious ones.
It’s tearing Gabriel up to say it, but he finally gets out “Lucian hit me.” His eyes are downcast in shame.
That’s wrong, Sam thinks. Big brothers are supposed to look out for you, and make sure no one else even thinks of hurting you. He knows because that’s what Dean does for him. Sam doesn’t say anything, just keeps hugging Gabriel and letting him tremble into his own hands. They sit out in the lot for a long time, watching the sun’s light fade away and the moon slowly rise between the spattering of clouds over Lawrence, Kansas.
When Sam is eleven, Dean is starting to get into girls, the world is starting to seem a much bigger place, and Gabriel is starting to finally hit his most desired part of puberty- the growth spurt. He’s still only five foot seven, but he’s excited about it. Sam knows the other kids call him babyface and angelboy, and that the way they say them sounds mean, but he has to struggle to see the insult in the second one. Sometimes he looks up at Gabriel and sees the light shining through his blond hair like a halo, and thinks of Gabriel as some sort of angel. He always has kind words for Sam if they meet on the walk home.
And then one afternoon Sam stumbles on Gabriel huddled up on a tree stump along the way home. The older boy isn’t crying any more, but it’s easy see that he was.
“Hey. Are you okay?” Sam asks.
Gabriel shakes his head. “Kali asked me out in front of everyone.”
Sam frowns, remembering the admiring way Gabriel spoke of Kali. “But I thought-”
“As a joke.” Gabriel spits out bitterly.
“Aw, Gabriel.” Sam drops his backpack and bends down to wrap his arms around the teen. Gabriel keeps his arms around his knees and doesn’t move to hug back, but he does lean his head down to rest it on Sam’s arm.
“I’m gonna get out of here, Kid. I’m gonna go so far away, no one’s gonna even remember me.”
Sam knows he’s never going to forget about Gabriel, but he doesn’t say anything. He lets Gabriel dream.
When Sam is thirteen, Dean drops out of high school to work in the shop, the high school builds a new theatre that Sam is eager to perform in, and Gabriel makes good on his promise, going off to a college on the east coast. His grades are only mediocre, but he gets in on a scholarship for underprivilidged kids and another one for music. The summer before he leaves, Sam doesn’t see much of him, and he wonders where their neighbor is spending most of his time when he’s not at work at the local ice cream place. Sometimes Sam comes in at closing time, and Gabriel scoops him the bottoms of the bins and they talk. Sam feels simultaneously grown up and very young, talking with Gabriel about real-life problems, even though they understand each other, on some wavelength. Gabe’s dad has been acting on edge and strange ever since Gabriel graduated, and Sam is thankful more than ever that he has Dean to watch over him where Gabriel’s brothers have failed.
Late one mid-summer night, he comes in to find the place all neatly closed down, but Gabriel not behind the counter. Instead, he’s hunched over one of the tables with his face in his hands.
“Hey. Gabe. Everything… okay?”
Gabriel lifts his head slowly, face haggard and tear streaked. “No. It’s really not okay, Sam, and I’d appreciate you leaving me to it.”
“Gabe, I’m not gonna just leave you here to-”
“I said fuck off.” Gabriel drops his head back into his arms.
It’s certainly not the first time he’s heard the word, but it’s the first time it’s been used against him- even in Dad’s drunken rages, even when Dean tells him off, even among kids at school- and it stings. Sam slowly turns and pushes the door back open, the cheerful bells tinkling above the door doing nothing to lighten the atmosphere.
Gabriel jerks back up to look at him. “Wait, Sam. I never meant-” Sam pauses in the doorway. There’s an unfamiliar emptiness in Gabriel’s face as he says quietly, “Dad left.”
The younger boy gazes at him for a moment, taking in how utterly broken Gabriel looks, and realizes there’s no way he can leave Gabriel sitting here alone. Sam backtracks, slides into the booth next to his friend, and lets Gabriel sob into his shirt while he runs his hands gently over the older boy’s back. When Gabriel finally pulls himself together, he apologizes again for ‘everything’, and manages a misty-eyed smile. He spends a little longer telling Sam about his father, and it’s only through the lens of Gabriel’s affectionate stories that Sam begins to understand the grief. They walk home side by side. It’s only after Sam’s tucked into his own bed, the low rumbles of Dean and Dad’s voices in the other room comforting him, that he realizes: for the first time, Gabriel has gone home to an empty house.
When Sam is sixteen, he realizes that he’s into girls and guys, that he wants to be a lawyer, and that he has a complete, total crush on Gabriel Novak. Said Gabriel has just returned from college with half a bachelor’s degree in music and a new tattoo, and Sam is smitten. He doesn’t know why, because he knows dating Gabriel would be a horrible idea- Gabe’s too old, and Sam’s leaving in a few years for Stanford. Gabriel had sworn to get out of Lawrence, but for now, he’s working at the ice cream place part time again, along with a full time job at the record place in town. Sam’s managed to score a job helping out in the new theater in the high school, so he doesn’t have a lot of free time. Still, they manage to meet up on a few weekends, sitting on the picnic table by the fire pit in Gabe’s backyard.
Once, Sam makes the mistake of asking why Gabriel hadn’t stayed to finish his degree, and immediately regrets it when Gabriel answers seriously instead of with his usual jokes.
“I just… couldn’t take it, I guess.” His eyes reflect the firelight a little too brightly. “Lucian was right about a few things, and I was one of them.”
“What did Lucian…?”
“That I’m just a loser with nowhere to go in life.” Gabriel grumbles bitterly. He tosses his paper plate into the fire and watches the flames eat away at it. “Turns out I am.” Sam puts his soda can down on the table behind him to wrap a comforting arm around Gabriel, who keeps looking down into the fire. “I’s just smoke in my eye,” Gabriel sniffs. “I’m fine.”
“I don’t think you’re a loser, Gabriel.”
“It’s smoke, Sam.” He leans into the embrace anyway, for once not protesting Sam’s new “ridiculously unnecessary” height.
They sit together by the fire until it dies down to embers. Sam is kicking himself internally for how much he really likes feeling Gabriel against his side. This isn’t about him and his overeager dick. This is about reminding Gabriel that he’s got someone who thinks he’s worthwhile, even if that someone is just a kid on his way out of Lawrence.
When Sam is eighteen, he’s leaving Lawrence, he’s leaving being a kid, and he’s leaving Gabriel. Dean pulls together a little graduation party for him, which basically means a small herd of neighbors in the backyard eating pizza. A few of Sam’s friends drop in to wish him well, but somehow, there’s a weird separation thing going on. They’re all staying, settling down. Sam’s moving on. Gabriel is the only one in his family who shows up, and even when most everyone is gone, he’s sitting under the big tree with Sam, drinking a cheap beer Dean had bought and talking about things he’s learned in college that you don’t learn in class. Maybe it’s the fact that Gabriel’s had three or four of those beers, but when he finally gets up and decides to walk back home before it’s daylight again, he hugs Sam tightly.
“Kiddo, ‘m really gonna miss you.” He detangles one arm from Sam’s embrace to rub at his eye, and clumsily lets his damp hand brush over Sam’s bare arm.
Sam doesn’t want to let go. This- sitting with Gabriel on the warm summer nights with Dean stoking the campfire in the distance- is the piece of Lawrence he doesn’t want to let go of. He’ll keep in contact with the people here, he knows he will, but keeping in contact doesn’t take the place of being in contact with Gabriel’s warm body and his soft hair brushing his neck, or hearing his slowly-reaching-tipsy voice tell Sam about his late night escapades in dorm kitchens with friends and horrible cooking, or-
Gabe’s pulling away now. “Gonna miss my warrior one.” He reaches up to tap Sam’s nose, as though doing a tiny headcount. “Heh. Warrior won. I like puns,” he slurs.
“You okay getting home?” Sam asks.
“You’re gonna do good at college, if you keep asking people that.” Gabriel answers. “I’m peachy.” That’s probably another pun, because he’s been drinking some weird fruity ale that Dean only gets a few cans of because Gabriel’s the only one who drinks it. “You write to me, Sam Winchester,” is his final goodbye as he walks into the vacant lot and back home. Sam watches him go, and then watches the stars, and the distant glow of the town lights, and the tall grass moving lazily in the night wind, until Dean finally calls him to help clean up pizza boxes.
Sam keeps in contact with Dean, with a few friends who are more Dean’s friends than his own, and Gabriel. Dean’s kind of taken on a parent role- since Dad doesn’t want to hear from him- telling Sam he’s proud of him for his studies and for “being such a nerd”, and Sam appreciates it. Dean’s also incredibly pleased about some of Sam’s best shenanigans, and the fact that Sam had a girlfriend for a year or so. (“Little Sammy’s gonna settle down one of these days?” “Shut up!”) Gabriel’s the one who reminds him to take care of himself. (“Make sure you don’t stress out, kiddo. You end up procrastinating on stuff you know how to do.”) There are also things he doesn’t want to tell Dean about that he ends up telling Gabriel- like the fact that he sometimes sleeps with guys, which slips out when he’s home for Christmas his junior year. Gabriel accepts it without much for comment. Years pass quickly, and before Sam knows it, he’s back in Lawrence with his pre-law degree, opting to work a few years before figuring out where he wants to go from there.
When Sam is sixteen days past his twenty-second birthday, Dad is dead, Dean is in intensive care, and it’s all his fault.
It’s all his fault. The words spiral through his head and seem to weave in the air in front of him, in the swirl of tears spread over his eyes. The living room floor is cold and the sun won’t rise for a few more hours, so he’s lying there in the dark, ignoring instructions from the ER nurse about being gentle on those bruises. If he’d just turned the right way to begin with, if he hadn’t been distracted by his argument with Dad, if he hadn’t been driving...
Someone knocks.
He drags a throw blanket off the couch and buries his face in it. It’s at least two in the morning by now, and whoever it is should fucking understand that he can’t talk right now, he can’t put on his brave face like he always does- not now.
The knock is repeated, and then he can hear the door easing open. The kitchen light clicks on.
He wants to say words, preferably words that will tell whoever it is (Bobby, most likely, because he knows Bobby is Dean’s emergency contact instead of Dad) that he’s okay and will talk in the morning, which is half true. He will definitely talk to Bobby in the morning.
What comes out instead is a muffled sob and “Bobby ‘m fine. Le-eave oka-ay?”
The living room floor creaks, and the hand that rests on his back is too light to be Bobby’s. “Bobby said I should check in on you, Kiddo.” The next thing he’s aware of, Gabriel’s kneeling next to him, gently nudging at his shoulder so he’ll roll over. Sam complies shakily. “Although I don’t think he expected this either. You need to get into bed, Sam.”
“Don’t wanna,” Sam manages to get out, voice cracking with emotion.
“Sam. Lying here on the floor alone won’t fix anything. I know that. I’ve tried it, okay? Floor and bed’ll both get you to morning, but one’s gonna hurt a helluva lot more.” Sam cracks one eye open. Through the haze of tears, he can see Gabriel, illuminated from behind by the kitchen light and making his hair glow around the edges. Like a halo.
“I don’t care.” Sam pushes himself up a little and blinks to clear the tears. “They’re dead and it’s my fault- why should I care about sleeping at all- it’s my fault Gabriel-”
“Hey, you stop that,” Gabriel orders. He pushes Sam with a little more force this time, knocking him to his back. “This is bad, Sam, I know it is, but there’s no point making it worse. It’s not your fault.”
“You don’t know that.” Arguing has stemmed the flow of tears, giving his mind a direction other than the spiral of blame. Sam tries to roll stubbornly away from Gabriel and his logic, but the bruises on that side aren’t a fan, and he finally gives up and decides to sit and prop himself against the armchair. “You weren’t there.”
“Will it help to tell me?”
Gabriel settles right next to him and listens as Sam describes it- he was driving them home that night because Dean had had a few beers- He and Dad had gotten into an argument- Sam didn’t even remember what about- he’d taken a wrong turn because he was focused on making his point- Dad had yelled for him to turn around- the truck hadn’t stopped- hit the passenger side at full speed- Dad was dead on impact- Dean was dying in the hospital-
“Don’t you say that.” Gabriel orders, gently but firmly. “Dean’s gonna pull through, you watch him. He’s more stubborn than the rest of the family put together.”
“If I hadn’t been arguing with Dad, if I hadn’t missed the turn…”
“You could have just as easily gotten hit from the other side. Not your fault.”
“But if we had,” Sam chokes out, tears starting again, “Dean would be in better shape. Dad would be alive-”
“Instead of you, Sam!” Gabriel suddenly reaches up and grabs Sam’s head and pulls him down so their foreheads are almost touching. “You know damn well that’s not what Dad or Dean would have wanted,” he almost snarls. “That’s not what anyone would have wanted, Sam, and it’s sure as hell not what I would ever want.”
“What you would…?” Sam asks shakily.
“I wouldn’t trade you,” Gabriel says quietly, “for a single member of my own rotten family, let alone your old man. I’m sorry, kid. Personal preference.”
Sam slowly leans forward and rests his forehead against Gabriel’s and lets his eyes slide closed. It’s too much energy to think about what Gabriel’s just said on top of everything else. Gabriel continues. “Now you listen. None of this is your fault, and no one wanted you to… to sacrifice yourself to prevent it. Your brother is going to be okay with time and the magic of modern medicine, and you, Sam Winchester, are alive. That’s good and I’m not letting you cry yourself to sleep alone on the floor. It’s too sad for someone who just survived, and walked away from a car wreck.”
There’s been a whirlwind of hurt and guilt inside Sam’s chest for the past several hours, and Gabriel’s arrival had calmed it down somewhat, but now, while the storm spirals meaninglessly but still present around the outer edges of his ribcage, something else is blooming into existence in the storm’s eye. Love. Love for the silver-tongued Loki who has been telling him stories and comforting him as long as he can remember. Love for a child who couldn’t find a friend in his own year but built entire worlds for the younger ones; love for a teenage boy desperate to leave because he thought he wasn’t wanted but sticking around to assure Sam how wanted he was; love for the man who hadn’t made it through college but had supported Sam emotionally while hegot his degree…
Mostly though, it’s love for the guy huddled next to him, telling him his father’s death wasn’t his fault and how wonderful it was that he was alive. Sam wonders, suddenly, if there was ever anyone there to tell Gabriel that his father leaving, his brother hurting him- none of it was his fault. And how wonderful it is that he’d made it through that. That he was alive.
All that love is pooling and overflowing in his heart, and Sam needs an outlet. Gabriel is still holding the sides of his head, but lightly enough that Sam can pull back, open his eyes just long enough to find Gabriel’s lips, and kiss him. Gabriel draws a soft, surprised breath- air from Sam’s lungs, gladly given- but lets his hands slip to cradle Sam’s face and kiss back. For a handful of seconds, Sam has this.
Gabriel pulls back, but his mouth is still close enough that Sam can feel his breath when he speaks. “I can’t, Sam. You’re an emotional mess; I’d be taking advantage-”
Sam kisses him softly. “Wanted this,” he assures, and peppers Gabriel with more kisses as he continues, “wanted this since I was sixteen.”
Gabriel draws away for real this time. “Sixteen? Shit, Sam. I think we need to discuss that later.”
“Later,” Sam insists, leaning in further for more, and for a few minutes, they kiss softly and lovingly.
Comforting as it is, Gabriel seems to think he shouldn’t be making out with a guy in emotional distress, and eventually makes Sam crawl up onto the couch. “I won’t make you leave the room, Sam, but you’re getting some sleep.”
Gabriel sits there with him, pillows Sam’s head in his lap, and strokes his hair soothingly. Sam falls asleep to the sound of Gabriel’s voice, telling him stories about the places Thor and Loki visited in their adventures. He doesn’t know how much of it comes from mythology, and how much of it Gabriel had created for the adventures on the playground, but it’s all beautifully familiar. The fingers combing peacefully through his hair, though, are new, but welcome all the same.
-----
Sam wakes up to Gabriel’s phone cheerfully blaring an eighties tune he’s too sleepy to identify. Sunlight is pouring in the living room window, illuminating a half-dozing Gabriel fumbling for the phone without so much as opening an eye. It’s actually a little impressive.
“’Ello? No, I’m still with him.” There’s a long pause. “I’ll let him know. Thanks Bobby.” He hangs up and drops the phone to the living room floor. “Sam?”
“I’m awake.”
Gabriel leans down to look into Sam’s eyes, appearing upside down from Sam’s angle. “Dean’s gonna be okay. We can come see him in a few hours, alright?”
It takes a few seconds for the importance of those words to sink in, but when it does, Sam nearly starts crying again. “Thank you so much,” he whispers.
“Hey, no need to thank me. I’m just the messenger here.”
“I mean… thank you for being here with me.”
Gabriel shifts a little. “About that. You’re gonna need to let me up for a bathroom break, Samson. Your big skull is pressuring the bladder a little too much.”
“Okay, okay,” Sam mutters as he sits up. “But hurry back.”
“I’ll do my best,” says Gabriel wryly. “The way to the bathroom is perilous.”
When Sam is twenty-five, his brother is recovered and happily settled down in Lawrence, he’s about to begin a new job with a private investigation company and move into a new house, and Gabriel Novak, amateur songwriter, sleeps by his side every night. Granted, sometimes it’s more like sprawled on top of him, or clinging to him like a sloth, but Sam has zero complaints. Besides, sometimes they end up pressed just right, and Sam can feel the warm gold of Gabriel’s engagement band touching his bare skin, and his heart swells. A few weeks after the accident, Gabriel had admitted that while he’d always cared for Sam, very much, he’d started liking Sam somewhere among the visits home from Stamford. Sam admitted that he’d been doomed the minute Gabriel came back from college. And now, here they were, engaged, buying a house, and the proud parents of two dogs.
As they unpack and sort the piles of lower-priority boxes, Sam finds Gabriel holding a piece of paper in trembling hands, obviously moved, because he’s stopped singing Blondie for more than twelve seconds.
“Everything okay, love?”
Gabriel nods as he blinks to clear his eyes and passes the piece of paper up to Sam. “Remember this?”
The paper is creased and yellow with age, at least twenty years old, but has clearly been treasured. It’s a childish drawing of comic book Loki, but with golden blond hair and brown eyes. “I drew this,” Sam says, flipping the paper over to see a crude “S.W.” written in green crayon on the back.
Gabriel looks up from his perch on a box of blankets. “Yeah,” he says reverently. “You drew it for me.”
“I adored you,” Sam agrees with a grin. “I had no idea it would lead to…” he gestures around at the pile of boxes and the still blank walls of the house- their house- and then looks back at the paper. “You were there for me, right from the beginning.”
Gabriel stands up with a little frown. “Sam, you were the one who comforted me. You’re the one who sat with me when I cried like a baby after Dad left. You’ve… always been here.”
Sam doesn’t bother trying to argue about all the good Gabriel’s done for him. He wraps his fiancé in a tight hug, the paper fluttering to the ground. “I always will be.”
Gabriel leans into the embrace and Sam hears him sniff a little. “Aw, Sammitch, you’re stirring up the dust with all that sentiment. It’s getting in my eyes.” Sam smiles and kisses the side of his head before pulling him closer. Everything is definitely okay.