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Sam sometimes thinks he needs to sit everyone down and remind them that he and Dean are not the same person. Dean eats junk food, all the time; Sam does not. Dean is obsessed with classic rock and classic cars; Sam is not. Dean has to be handed a clue on a silver plate about how someone likes him or cares for him; Sam does not.
He ought to be annoyed by this; he ought to put a stop to it. But he doesn’t, because frankly, it’s fun and it’s cute and he doesn’t get enough of that in his life. So he plays his part and acts like he doesn’t notice. And it happens a lot.
-- The first time, of course, is during that first Rookie Training session, when Gabriel orchestrates an educational moment for the newest hunters in the bunker, by turning Sam and Dean into demons that attack Charlie and Kevin, and there’s a horrifying moment of uncertainty, when Sam doesn’t know if Gabriel will really make him harm Kevin. Because the archangel-turned-trickster has done real damage before. But the moment is over quickly when Sam’s pinning Kevin down easily and tickling him everywhere, and Kevin – dour, angry, miserable Kevin, always exhausted and worried and paranoid – Kevin just falls apart, dissolving into helpless and delighted giggles, wriggling around uselessly under Sam’s hold. He laughs the whole way through trying to recite the exorcism, and it’s the cutest, happiest thing Sam’s ever seen in his life.
--There’s a case in Pennsylvania, and Dean and Sam are prepping up to go, when suddenly there’s a flutter of wings accompanied by a sensation of gold color, and Gabriel’s there, making noise and hustling the other available members of the Bunker Family around the car, alternately ignoring or outshouting Dean’s protests. The others, which happen to be Cas, Jody, Kevin, and Charlie this time around, are all milling around looking bewildered and/or annoyed. Jody’s holding a book, Charlie’s got a hairbrush in her hair, and Kevin is still in his pajamas, so this looks like it was 100% Gabriel’s idea, further confirmed by his loud explanations that there’s a Thing they all need to go see in the area, so road trip!
He herds everyone into the Impala according to his own design, leaving Cas, Jody, and Charlie in the backseat, while Gabriel squeezes himself in between Dean and Sam and forcibly tugs a furiously protesting Kevin onto Sam’s lap, since there was “no more empty spots, and any seat with the Sammich is gonna have the most leg room.” Dean insists that Gabriel trade spots with Cas, which happens with a poof and sensation of feathers. Kevin sits quietly perched on Sam’s lap, looking horrified but not saying anything. Gabriel cheerfully spends the entire trip driving everyone crazy in equal measures, so there’s no sense that he did this ENTIRELY to embarrass Kevin, but the blush never leaves Kevin’s face and one of the road trip games involves tickling Kevin whenever they see an out-of-state license plate, so it’s certainly entertaining.
--Sam’s in the library with a few books around, transcribing his notes. Dean would call him a triple nerd for this, but Sam finds it peaceful and meditative to spend a free evening organizing his hastily jotted notes from previous cases, or working on his electronic database, or checking cross-references. It’s satisfying and gives him a tangible sense of accomplishment, and a feeling that he’s leaving something permanent and good in the world, when everything else he does seems futile and transient at best. Kevin rushes in abruptly, looking nervous and excited, and draws up short in front of the table where Sam’s working, stammering out that Gabriel said Sam had asked for his help?? Kevin’s breathing is just heavy enough to tell Sam that he probably did run to the library, and the look of excited hopefulness is juuuust starting to fade from his face as he belatedly takes in the scene and sees that Sam does not appear to need any help. Sam responds smoothly with the practice of years of lying to cops and witnesses alike.
“Yeah, well, I’m working on sorting all these sources – see this stack?” He gestures to a pile of old tomes mixed with modern tabloids and hand-written notes. “I’m trying to find everything related to non-humanoid monsters. See, I’ve been making a library to save to the cloud. Between this bunker and Bobby’s collection, there’s a lot of stuff here, and one accident will lose it all. Charlie said she could help set up a secure network for hunters to use, but, well…” he grimaces with a shrug of self-deprecation. “I mean, actually transcribing this stuff is, well, tedious work. I don’t mind it so much, since it’s still easier than the classwork from Stanford, and I thought maybe you…” He trails off, making his voice sound uncertain, like maybe Kevin wouldn’t want to help, but Kevin’s already sitting down and chattering, almost babbling, about how he did a semester as a TA for his history teacher and he did the same thing for her and Sam smiles and half-listens as they both get to work.
--Another case. This time it’s in a town in Florida, and they take Kevin because he’s never been, and he’s delighted. When Kevin was just an AP student in Michigan, his extracurriculars had landed him opportunities to go a few places to play cello or participate in student leadership conferences, but according to him, it hadn’t been to anyplace “cool,” and nowhere as exotic as Florida. He marvels at the palm trees and pelicans and they go to the beach at one point but he declares that the sand dunes near Ludington, MI are better. Sam has never had one place be “home” long enough to feel nostalgia for it, but he recognizes homesickness when he sees it and agrees with Kevin, as does Dean.
They do their interviews and research while Kevin hangs out by the car in his own suit that Gabriel had snapped up for the occasion. They fail to find the elusive Muck Monster that Dean was interested in, but they do locate the shapeshifter who was terrorizing the locals while disguised as a cop. It turns out to be a very easy hunt – actually suspiciously easy, even more so when the shifter somehow manages to cuff Sam and Kevin together before Dean can get the kill in, and especially suspicious when neither Sam nor Dean can figure out how to pick the lock on the cuff. Kevin wouldn’t know this, but Sam and Dean both know that there are no standard cop’s cuffs in the world that they can’t remove in eight seconds by now. Cas and Gabriel both fail to answer their prayers for assistance or texts, so it’s a full two days of being attached before the cuffs randomly fall off on their own, about four hours away from the bunker. A text from Cas comes immediately on the heels of that – he apologizes for missing their messages, but Gabriel had brought him and several other of their angel allies to an alternate universe for “angel training.” He asks if they still need help. Dean glances into the backseat, where Kevin is still slumped against Sam, napping, unaware that the cuffs are off. “Nah, we’re good,” Dean texts back – while driving, which isn’t safe, as Sam points out without any conviction.
--There’s the time when Garth and Benny are there at the same time the Sheriff Clan stops by – that’s Jody and Donna with Jody’s adopted daughter Annie and Cas’s “daughter” Claire. They have a party and Sam is pleased to see Kevin at least trying to make friends, even if he clearly looks like he feels out of place. The girls think he’s adorable, though, and certainly know what it means to be trying to adjust to weird shit, so they’re patient with his awkwardness. There was some minor tension when Annie met Benny, but he’s pretty far removed from what she’s used to, and he’s made dessert for the occasion and Donna makes a raunchy remark about sexy bears that makes everyone laugh and things are pretty cool after that. Dean’s walking around beaming at everyone and Sam knows he’s on Cloud Nine because this is what he wants, so badly, to have all his family here under his roof and playing trivia games and watching old scifi and eating pizza.
Gabriel’s pleased too, delighted to expand his collection of humans to play with, and that first night he starts slow, testing his new audience with harmless fun like making everyone speak in auto-tune for a while, or summoning dozens of kittens that clamber over everything and make a spectacular mess; but after a while he declares it’s “Rookie Training Time!” and he splits everyone up into teams to perform a rescue mission. This is one of his favorite games and Sam’s accustomed by now to both rescuing and requiring rescue, and so is Kevin. So neither of them is totally surprised when they find themselves stuck in a tiny doorless bedroom together, with a note in Gabriel’s handwriting telling them to make themselves comfy because they were gonna be there a while, so they should relax, cuddle, tickle, whatever!
They sit down next to each other on the bed with resigned sighs and start chatting about the guests and enjoying the snacks Gabriel magnanimously left. There are some cuddles and tickles thrown in, because both of them have been drinking and no else is in the room so why the hell not.
There are many more times, and Sam enjoys them all. Kevin’s a sweet kid, really, and adorable when he blushes, and Sam’s having fun. But it isn’t until Gabriel zaps Kevin into Sam’s closet and leaves him there tied up, and Sam finds him and proceeds to toss him on to his bed and tickle the merry crap out of him until Kevin’s squealing for mercy, and then Kevin falls asleep literally in Sam’s arms in his bed, that Sam starts to wonder if he hasn’t gone in over his head.
------------------
It’s complicated. Isn’t it always?
There’s Jess. There’s Madison, there’s Amelia.
There’s Ruby, and Lucifer, and Hell, and Gadreel.
And there’s so much more.
Some days Sam doesn’t know what he feels for anyone. Sometimes the thought of being intimate with someone is repulsive to him because of all the violations he’s suffered, physical and emotional, over his life. Sometimes it’s terrifying because look at what happens to the people he loves. But sometimes he aches for the feeling of holding someone in his arms while they sleep. Kevin was the first person in a long, long time that he did that with.
And Sam enjoys playing around with Kevin, too. Holding him down and tickling him senseless is a blast and he knows Kevin secretly has a Thing for it, which is perfect. But Sam doesn’t know exactly what Kevin wants out of this.
He worries about it for a while, but nothing seems to change. Kevin blushes and tries not to act like he’s got a hugely obvious crush on Sam; Gabriel keeps unsubtly trying to push them together. Sam would wonder about the archangel’s motivations in all of this but he’s long ago learned that’s an exercise in futility. He does believe Gabriel isn’t trying to set Kevin up to get hurt. Inasmuch as the archangel cares about any human, he seems to have a soft spot for the prophet. So maybe Sam’s worrying about nothing. Maybe they’re all just having fun.
It’s still cute, too, even with his fretting. Today is another Rookie Training Day, but with just Sam and Kevin out in the woods, practicing marksmanship. Sam instructs Kevin and is actually impressed that Kevin seems to be taking in the words, given how red the prophet’s face is while Sam circles around him and touches his elbow, his face, his lower back, adjusting his posture and scruffing his hair when Kevin hits the target.
Kevin’s beaming as they return to the bunker, looking immensely proud as he goes to return his weapon to its hiding place in his room.
Sam flops onto the couch in the main room and suddenly Gabriel is next to him, grinning and holding the remote control out of his reach.
“So! A little manly bonding going on? You and Kev are hitting it off like the proverbial house on fire.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “You’re not subtle, you know,” he says, grabbing for the remote, but Gabriel’s suddenly not there. He’s perched on the back of the couch behind Sam.
“Whatchu talkin’ bout, Sammis?” Gabriel says loftily, twirling the remote.
“You. Trying to get me and Kevin together.” Gabriel frowns and Sam takes advantage to flip the Trickster’s legs off the couch, toppling him over backwards onto the floor.
Gabriel allows it, landing heavily on the rug and peering up at Sam, still frowning. “Cottoned on then, eh?” He makes an oof noise as Sam drops a pillow on his face, leaning over the back of the couch.
“Just like the aliens, alligators, and TV shows. No subtlety whatsoever. Never takes too long to figure out when the Trickster is involved. So what’s the deal? You trying to moonlight as some kind of matchmaker now? Thought that was a cupid’s job, not an archangel’s.”
“Nah.” Gabriel looks uncharacteristically sheepish. “Just messing with him. Didn’t think you’d actually notice – maybe subtlety’s not my bag, but you Winchesters ain’t exactly famous for your emotional refinement.”
“That’s Dean you’re thinking of,” Sam informs him, dropping another pillow on him for fun. “And even without you shouting into a bullhorn that Kevin’s got a crush on me, he’d be making it pretty obvious himself. It’s cute.”
Gabriel snaps his fingers, and both pillows that landed on him vanish and drop on Sam’s head, along with about thirty others of various ugly design. “You really weren’t supposed to know,” he says, and his voice is a little more serious than it usually is.
Sam shifts the mountain of pillows off him and gives Gabriel an exasperated look. “Obviously I knew. Give me a break, Gabriel.”
Gabriel looks like he wants to say something, but Kevin returns at that moment. The prophet flops down onto the other end of the couch, raising his eyebrow at the pillows, before taking a hit to the face with a bright purple pillow adorned with a dog in sunglasses playing guitar.
Sam laughs and is in turn pelted with a pillow bearing an “I <3 Geoduck” design. A pillow fight ensues, naturally. Sam allows Kevin to take the lead at first so that the older hunter can cheat, tickling him into submission. Kevin throws his head back and shrieks The prophet is rescued as a Cookie Monster pillow takes Sam by surprise – Charlie and Cas have entered the fray, with Charlie looking enthusiastic and Cas looking confused. The war rages on, and it’s a while before Sam realizes that Gabriel never took part, having vanished without a word at some point.
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The secret gets out the very next day.
Sam’s walking back with Kevin to the bunker - at Kevin’s request, they go out for jogs/walks as often as possible, because Kevin is trying to overcome his fear that there are demons or leviathans or something else hiding behind every tree and parked car. Today they went into town to rent a movie. Kevin’s doing better, but he still gets nervous and tense when he can’t immediately see Sam. He starts relaxing much more as the bunker comes into sight.
It was Sam’s turn to pick for movie night, but at the store he let Kevin choose for him and now as they walk Kevin is gushing about the lead actor, who’s in some show Sam hasn’t seen but which is supposed to be hilarious, and this actor, Chris Pratt, is the most hilarious one, and he used to be kind of chubby but he got ripped for this new movie and they made a joke about it on his show.
Sam’s smiling to himself as Kevin rambles on, until he finally plucks the DVD from him and pretends to peer suspiciously at the cover while Kevin lets them into the bunker.
“Sounds to me like you have a massive crush on this guy. This is him, on the cover? This is my competition?”
Kevin hesitates inside the door. “Competition…?” he asks uncertainly.
Sam curses inwardly but then braces himself. “Yeah, you know, because you… like me. Right?”
The prophet stares at him, face slowly turning a mottled mix of red and pale. “You – knew? This whole time??”
He looks horrified. Sam tries again. “Well, I mean, yeah, I sorta figured it out, but it was sweet – Kev, c’mon – “ He raises his voice uselessly as Kevin turns and begins fleeing down the hallway, towards his room.
Sam chases after him immediately, on reflex. Other people, he’d leave them to have their space, but Kevin – if Kevin is left to brood, there might be no coaxing him back. And putting that aside, he feels like a dick for calling him out so bluntly like that.
“Kev. Hey.” Kevin’s trying to run for his room, but Sam catches up to him easily – longer stride, plus he’s been moving fast for three decades now. He catches Kevin by the shoulders and debates for less than an instant before steering them both into one of the spare rooms nearby. If this conversation goes badly, he doesn’t want it taking place in Kevin’s room, ruining his sanctuary.
“Kevin. It’s fine. This is okay-“
“You let me look like a stupid asshole for months, Sam!” Kevin’s looks mortified, and it’s hard not to notice the hurt in his voice.
“Kevin, no – listen, it’s not like that,” Sam says a little desperately. “It’s just – I don’t know if I feel the same way.” That’s the wrong thing to say, too, it makes it sound like he was humoring Kevin, so he plunges ahead. “I don’t know how I feel about anyone most of the time, Kev – sometimes I think, I should just do it, because I like you, and you obviously like me, but then – look, Kevin, I’m just fucked up, you know? I don’t want to cry about it, because God knows you’ve dealt with your share of bullshit, but it’s just that I don’t know anymore. I like you, I like this flirting thing we do, but when I think of how all my relationships turn out – when I think of – Hell – I didn’t want to lead you on. But I was enjoying it all, so I didn’t stop. You know?”
Well, there. He showed a lot more of his hand than he meant to – but, at least Kevin’s listening.
Sam clears his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel stupid. I honestly just – don’t know what to say. But it’s okay. I mean, it’s okay that you like me. I think it’s sweet. And maybe someday I can – “
“Sam, fuck, shut up already,” Kevin finally says, and Sam feels like he could almost dance with relief at the amusement in Kevin’s voice. The prophet turns his face up to him, and the red is slowly overcoming his face again. “You really are the feelings queen, I swear.”
Sam grins at last. “Well, I didn’t want to fuck it up. You’re important to me.”
“I get it, you know,” Kevin’s looking embarrassed still, but mollified. “We’re all pretty – messed up, here. You and me both.”
“That’s putting it lightly,” Sam says, steering them over to sit on the bed in the room. “I meant it though. I don’t know if I’ll ever really be able to reciprocate. I don’t want to screw you over.”
“It’s fine,” Kevin says, looking away again. “Really, it’s fine. My, uh. Preferences. Priorities? Have changed, the last couple of years. I don’t care now if we never. Uh. I mean, I’m okay with this, just – “ He crosses his arms over his chest and stammers. Sam’s grinning widely; Kevin looks so embarrassed, and Sam knows he should be taking it very seriously, but he’s so happy that this seems to be going okay, Kevin’s not mad at him for being unable to feel exactly the same and in fact maybe Kevin feels the same way that Sam does. And maybe they can do this, intimacy on a level they both can handle, an understanding between both of them…
But for now, he decides he needs to rescue Kevin from his own embarrassment before he actually bursts into flames, so he leans down and wraps Kevin up into a hug, effectively shutting up the stammers.
“So, like this,” he says, squeezing Kevin a little. “Hugs are okay?”
Kevin laughs a little, tension melting out of his body as he works his arms out to return the hug. “Definitely okay.”
Sam leans back, flopping them both onto the bed. “And cuddles? Are cuddles all right?” He nuzzles under Kevin’s chin, grazing his neck and making the prophet laugh again.
“Yup. Down for cuddles, any time.”
“And tickles, for sure, right?”
Kevin freezes. “Uh…”
Sam flicks his temple lightly with thumb and forefinger. “Kev. It’s fine. I know you like it… aw, Kevin!”
He laughs as Kevin rolls away, hiding his face in his hands. Sam tests, pulling Kevin back so that they’re spooning, and Kevin doesn’t tense up or make an effort to escape, just makes an adorable strangled noise of embarrassment.
“For what it’s worth, I love tickling you,” Sam says into Kevin’s hair. He tries tugging at Kevin’s hands but meets resistance, so he moves down to wrap his own hands around Kevin’s midsection instead. Kevin just grunts and tries to further bury his face into the sheets.
“I think it’s fun. And so totally cute,” Sam continues, smiling as he hears Kevin start to giggle into his hands. “The way you wriggle around… the way your voice starts to sound like a little girl’s…”
“I do n-nah-hat!” Kevin tries to object but it comes out as a squawk as Sam tweaks his waist.
“So-o-o-o cute. I could tickle you all day, Kev, it’s that entertaining. Just watching you squirm around, when I do this - !” Sam starts tickling Kevin’s tummy, and the results are immediate as Kevin starts to writhe, snapping his hands away from his face at last to grab at Sam’s.
“Yeah, that’s your weak spot, isn’t it?” Sam lets the mischievous delight in his voice come out, locating Kevin’s belly button, and Kevin responds beautifully, wriggling backwards into Sam’s grip while giggly denials squeak out.
Sam works his fingers under Kevin’s shirt and drinks in the sounds of Kevin’s happiness as Kevin chortles and hiccups and flails around but never tries to get away.
They carry on like this for a while until Kevin’s tired. Sam leaves his hand where it is, under Kevin’s shirt, fingers spread over most of Kevin’s abdomen, and he talks softly into the crook of Kevin’s neck, murmuring the story of when he watched Star Trek for the first time and had a major crush on Bones, and keeps talking until Kevin’s asleep.
Coda
Gabriel doesn’t let this kinda shit bother him. Not silly human issues, transient and frivolous and changeable. So the latest prophet’s crush is Gabriel’s brother’s vessel, and they’re both emotionally wrecked and he (Gabriel) played both of them for his own amusement. So what? They’ll get over it. Dad knows they both could use a little thrill. And in less than a hundred years they’ll both be dead anyway. It’s not like Gabriel hasn’t done worse things before, and probably will do worse again in the future.
So he’s hanging around near the garage one day, waiting for the screams of rage that will let him know that Dean found his surprise, and feeling in no way guilty about anything, when Kevin wanders up. Gabriel raises his eyebrows and swivels around, prepared to start snarking as per usual, but pauses at Kevin’s appearance. The kid’s got a weird expression on his face, a clash of dreamy happiness combined with a grim determination, a squared-shoulders look, as though he’s about to face down a dragon or something.
It looks promising, so Gabriel waits to see what the prophet’s going to do, and is genuinely shocked when Kevin marches over and gives the archangel an enormous hug.
“Thanks,” he says, “I mean it.”
Gabriel flashes away, out of the embrace, not sure what to make of this. “Uh – for what?”
But Kevin’s already walking away, no explanation, just a happy grin on his face. So, that’s good, Gabriel guesses. He’s considering chasing after him to pester him for details but at that moment Dean starts caterwauling and Gabriel is sufficiently distracted that he puts Kevin out of his mind for now.
The answer reveals itself that night, anyway. It’s one of their movie nights, one of Queen Charlie’s best decrees. It’s Sam’s movie choice and Garth showed Cas how to make jalapeno popcorn and Benny brought drinks. Spirits are high, and no one says anything when Kevin voluntarily sits next to Sam on the couch this time. Zero comments from anyone. Normally Gabriel has to invent a reason to shove the two together but this time they sit right there. They both look slightly tense and awkward, like they’re waiting for someone to say something, and Dean looks like he’s about to, but Jody and Garth both elbow him hard and that’s that. They both relax fairly quickly as the movie starts and Gabriel resolves to keep his own damn mouth shut and not look into either of their minds, even though the curiosity is eating him alive.
By the end of the movie, Kevin’s asleep in Sam’s lap, and Sam is lightly playing with Kevin’s hair. The credits roll and the others get up, stretching, and putting everything away. Charlie keeps glancing at Sam and Kevin, and Gabriel doesn’t even need to read her mind to picture her squealing “CUUUUUUTE!!!!!!” internally.
Sam takes the remote and turns on the extra features, clearly planning to stay put for a while. He glances over at Gabriel and smiles, mouthing the words “thank you.”
Well, then. Looks like everything resolved itself here.
Frivolous and transient though they are, Gabriel’s pleased to have contributed to this. He graciously decides to hold off on the teasing until the next day. For now, he just smiles back, nodding, before vanishing with a flutter of feathers and gold.