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Books piled around Sam like a fortress, his laptop settled on a small square of spare space in the middle. No one had warned him that pre-law would include so much philosophy and for the most part he was enjoying it, but Kant was a bastard and he was pretty sure he was going to fail. He’d spent the last three hours with the main text and endless interpretations.
Which was why, despite years of hyper alertness, he startled hard enough to send his pen flying when someone said,
“You look like you could use a break.”
“Shit!” The pen arched upwards and a thousand angry eyes turned on him. Or well, probably only a half dozen, but it felt like a hundred.
“Hi.” The voice apparently belonged to a man with longer hair than Sam and a smirk that spoke for itself. He had slid into the chair across from Sam, face cut in half by the laptop screen.
“Hello.” Sam rescued his pen from the floor. “Do I know you?”
“Nope! And that’s the point.” A hand reached over the screen and Sam shook it out of pure confusion and ingrained politeness. “I’m Gabriel, doctoral student in social psychology.”
“Oh. I’m Sam. Undergrad. Pre-law.”
“Well, Mr. Undergrad, you look like you’re about to blow a fuse, so how about you take a break?”
“Um.” Sam looked at his bulleted notes in Word. They swam a little. “I kind of have to-”
“Look, it’s for the good of science.” Gabriel pressed a hand forward, closing Sam’s laptop with an audible snap.
“Hey!” Glares again, but this time Sam ignored them. “I could’ve lost work.”
“Doubt it. You’ve been staring at the screen since the last time you saved. And no, don’t get paranoid, I wasn’t staring. I’m just good at noticing stuff. So here’s the deal, my friends there,” he pointed to a table of stressed looking women, “found this study that I think is bullshit. They dared me to replicate the experiment impromptu. You know. Money where my mouth was.”
“I’m not interested in guinea pigging.” Sam told him stiffly.
“I’ll split my winnings with you. Fifty bucks for both of us.”
“But only if you’re right.” Sam pointed out. Fifty dollars did sound good right about now. His scholarship didn’t cover food and there was only so many hours in the week for him to work.
“I’m definitely right.” Gabriel held up his hand in a deformed boy scout pledge. “Swear to God. If I’m wrong, I’ll buy you dinner. How about that?”
“What do you need me to do?” He’d had a banana for lunch and a bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast that tasted like nostalgia and ash.
“We talk for thirty minutes, gotta be about deep personal stuff. And at the end of the thirty minutes, we look each other in the eye silently for four minutes.”
“Personal stuff?” Sam swallowed hard. “I-”
“C’mon, it’ll be fine.” Gabriel kicked at Sam’s shoe under the table. “We’re in entirely different orbits. Doesn’t matter if we know a few of each other’s secrets.”
“I don’t really-”
“Great!” Gabriel propped his hand on his chin. “I’ll go first. Makes it more fair, right? Let’s see....I was born in upstate New York, I’ve got four brothers, one sister. Mom died when I was pretty young, so my Dad raised us up. You?”
“It’s sort of...” Sam trailed off. Gabriel looked at him expectantly from across the table and suddenly, Sam was sick to death of not talking about it. “My Mom died when I was little too.”
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Gabriel gave him a tight smile.
“Yeah, it really does. I don’t even remember her.” He had a picture, tucked in his wallet. Just her and him, three months old and a little cross eyed.
“I have a few. Sort of hazy though.” Gabriel frowned. “Siblings?”
“Older brother. Dean.” Sam hunched forward a little, not willing to let the words stray away from the tight tunnel the books made between them. “I was closer to him than my Dad.”
“Was?”
“Bit of a family falling out. Dad didn’t want me to go to college.” He could recall every word of that night, glass shards they shoved into each other. Dean’s loyalties tore him in two, kept him silent. It hadn’t been the first time they’d played out that drama, but Sam had decided it was the last. “Sort of walked out on the family business.”
“What kind of business?” Gabriel prompted.
“It’s...” Sam hesitated, then figured in for a penny, in for a pound. “My Dad’s a bounty hunter. He got into it after my Mom...she was killed. The guy got caught then jumped bail. Dad got out of car repair after that, made a profession out of finding the guy and learned the trade along the way.”
Gabriel whistled low and soft, “That’s some story.”
“Yeah, it sounds more dramatic than it really was. Mostly just a lot of changing schools and living out of cheap motels while Dean tried to raise me.” It felt weird to say it all to someone else, especially a stranger. The messy tangle of his past usually hung at the back of his throat, blocking so much else from coming through.
“My brother Michael was like that. Taking charge, sorting everything out. Got into fights with Luke though.” Gabriel’s smirk softened into something more neutral. “They’re the two oldest and they went at it all the time. I choose a college all the way across the country to get away from them.”
“If we had someplace stable to live, I would have done the same thing.” Sam said ruefully. “Stanford offered me the most money. Not that best selection process, I guess.”
“Could be worse. Do you talk to your Dad?”
“No. And it’s weird, you know. I mean, he was away all the time. So sometimes I forget everything because it’s more like he’s just on a long trip. I miss talking to Dean though.” Sam finally started closing some of the books around him, settling into the conversation for good. “I’m not actually sure if he’s not talking to me or if he’s just waiting for me to make the first call. He can be stubborn that way.”
“My brothers have no idea where I am.” Gabriel picked up Sam’s highlighter, tumbling it between his fingers. “Dad checked out, then so did I. Ran across the country without a forwarding address. Even changed my last name.”
“Really?” Sam digested that. “Why?”
“Without Dad, the whole family sort of fell apart. Mike and Luke couldn’t even be in the same room without tearing pieces out of each other. Literally. The cops got called a few times.” The highlighter ran faster and faster, blurring gold between Gabriel’s fingers. “I waited until I was sure Cas and Anna would be ok on their own. They’re the youngest, but they got hard pretty quick. And then I was out of there. Clean break.”
“That’s...” Sam swallowed down judgement. “Must’ve been hard for you.”
“Is hard.” The highlighter tumbled to the table with a soft clack. “Family is a gaping wound, isn’t it? Every time you think it’s healed up, you turn the wrong way and it starts bleeding all over again.”
“Yeah.” Sam picked at one of his cuticles. “So. Why psychology?”
“Social psychology.” Gabriel corrected. “Most of my research is in cognitive dissonance.”
“That’s what happens when you believe two things that don’t make sense together, right?”
“Basically, yeah. Mostly, I run a lot of weird experiments on undergrads.” Gabriel winked at Sam, the atmosphere lightning considerably. “I think how people resolve their anxieties is pretty fascinating. And if we know how and why we do stuff, its easier to get people to act in a prosocial way. That’s what I want to write my dissertation on. How to correct antisocial behaviors without obvious punishments like jail.”
“That’s pretty cool.” Sam propped his chin on his hand. “What will you do once you get your doctorate? Teach?”
“Hell no.” Gabriel wrinkled his nose. “Hopefully I’ll come up with something so brilliant in my research that I can consult with governments on crime prevention.”
“Is there money in that?”
“Who knows? Not really a lot of money in teaching either. What about you? Gonna become a big corporate lawyer?”
“Nah.” Sam snorted. “I mean, it sounds good in theory, but there’s only so far you can go from your roots, you know? I’d like to be a criminal prosecutor.”
“Still putting the bad guys behind bars?”
“Yeah, that’s for now though. I’m told going through law school can change your mind about a lot of things.” He hesitated. “There’s the money thing.”
“Ah. The money thing.” Gabriel nodded slightly. “Run away from home and you can’t take much with you, right?”
“Yeah. Exactly. I want to do the right thing, but I don’t want to be broke forever doing it, especially with school debt.”
“Bright boy like you? Gotta be some kind of scholarship.”
“Maybe, but there’s a lot of bright boys like me.”
“Oh.” Gabriel lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t know if they’re quite like you. For one, I’m reasonably sure you’re part giant.”
“Only because you’re on the wee side.” Sam lifted one right back.
“I assume we all look like ants to you up there, so I won’t take that personally.” A finger ran over the edge of one Sam’s books. “So, gay or bi?”
“Excuse me?”
“Simple question. Unless you’re still making up your mind?”
“No.” Sam frowned. “Bi. Why didn’t you think I might be straight?”
“My secret.”
“Thought we were doing the honesty thing.”
“Takes one to know one, how about that?”
“Good answer.” Sam wasn’t entirely sure when he’d stretched out his legs, but that was definitely Gabriel’s calf pressed to his. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”
“Can you tell with anyone except for the ones positively on fire?”
“Well. No, actually.”
“How long have you known?
“Last year.”
“Ah, college. So educational.” Gabriel grinned. “I met a boy my freshman year...well. There was a great deal of alcohol involved.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Classic story. I believe our thirty minutes are up by the way.”
“Already?” Sam looked up. The room was unchanged, a few more people succumb to sleep perhaps. The clock had advanced though. “Oh.”
“Time flies.”
“So now what? The staring?”
“Not staring. Well. Ok, it’s staring. Anything else sounds a bit too Hallmark.” Gabriel fiddled with his watch. “Timer set.”
“Four minutes?”
“Four minutes. Now. Shh.”
The last time Sam had maintained eye contact for even a fraction of that length of time, he had been seven and Dean was desperate for a distraction on a seemingly endless trip from Austin to Bay Harbor. Epic staring contests had gotten them over three state borders until they were both able to prevent blinking until their eyes dried up. All Sam learned about Dean was that his eyes were nearly brown just around the pupil.
It was entirely different with Gabriel. The intense interest leveled on Sam could have blazed a fire. He could have cracked open his chest and felt less exposed. Gabriel’s eyes were a curious green-grey that went nearly gold when he tilted his face up to the light. They bore into Sam’s with single minded focus. They never wavered, blinking for the briefest amount of time possible. Slowly, Sam relaxed into it as if it in meditation. He watched the dilation of Gabriel’s pupils and the quick green-gold shift. His breathing slowed and all the small noises of the library disappeared. They were alone here, caught in a tiny bubble that allowed for no intrusion.
The tiny beep of Gabriel’s watch didn’t penetrate right away. When Gabriel looked away, Sam nearly lunged across the table to bring him back. He wondered if it was a sign of just how lonely he was that this was the deepest connection he’d felt since he’d left Dean and Dad behind in a shitty hotel room in Des Moines.
“Hmm.” Gabriel glanced back at him, the smallest of looks and it thrilled through Sam like a lick of lightning. “I think I lost this bet. How do you feel about Thai?”
“I’m ok with it.”
“Now good for you? I could eat a horse.”
“Um. Yeah, ok.” He knew studying was a hopeless cause. He’d just be replaying the last half hour over and over in his head. Packing up took a minute or two. Gabriel didn’t return to his friends, just watched and waited for Sam to finish. “Where is this place?”
“Not far. I can drive. My car’s out in the lot.”
“Sounds good.”
They walked out in silence, Sam fumbling for something to say. Gabriel punched a button on his keys and a yellow VW Bug flashed its lights.
“I’m not sure I’ll fit in that.”
“Don’t hate.” Gabriel popped open the passenger seat. “Seat goes far back enough for your giraffe legs.”
“Yeah, breaking the laws of physics.” Sam did manage to jam himself inside. It wasn’t until he was buckling his seatbelt that he realized Gabriel had held the door for him and shut it with a polite click when Sam was inside.
“See?” Gabriel got in on the other side, then tucked his arm around the back of Sam’s seat while he pulled out. “Marvel of engineering.”
“Better than my car.” Sam admitted.
“You don’t have a car, do you?”
“Nope.” Sam said cheerily.
“Smart ass.”
“So what was the experiment for anyway?”
“Hm?” Gabriel pulled into traffic with a disturbingly wicked expression.
“Holy shit! Watch out for that girl.” Sam grabbed at the side door handle and didn’t let go until they got the restaurant. “How the hell did you ever get a license?”
“I’m an excellent driver.” Gabriel said mildly. “Never been in an accident.”
“Because you scared everyone else off the road?”
“Wuss.”
The hostess beamed when she saw Gabriel coming.
“Hey, Jeannie.” He leaned in to brush a kiss on her cheek.
“Dinner for two for once?”
“Yep. I owe Sam here a dinner.”
“I'll make sure you repay your debts in full.” She ushered them to a table for four by a window.
They never ordered. Plate after plate of food arrived peanut, fish oil, cilantro and heat filled Sam’s mouth and occasionally brought tears to his eyes. He drank the mango lassi that never went empty. Gabriel told him stories of undergraduate mishaps and a prank that ended up with a very pissed off flamingo.
“My brother and I used to have prank wars. But it was all kid stuff you know? Crazy glue and warm water in your sleep that kind of thing.” Sam laughed. “Man, Dean would love that one.”
“Yeah?” Gabriel dug into the fried bananas. “Sounds like a man of excellent taste. Some people get their just desserts, you know?”
“Not up to us to deliver it.”
“Not yet, Mr. Prosecutor.”
“Point.”
The bill came and Gabriel put down a credit card without even glancing at it.
“Thanks for dinner.” Sam ducked his head. “It was amazing.”
“No problem.” Gabriel’s smile hung a little crookedly.
“Uh, I guess-”
“You should come home with me.”
“What?” Sam froze.
“I said you should come home with me.” Gabriel reached across the table, his fingers circling Sam’s wrist. His hand was cool and steady. “I like you and I think you like me, so why not?”
Because Sam had an exam to study for. Because he’d never gone to bed with someone on the first date. Because he was terrified of how very much he wanted to do just that.
“Ok.” His mouth had gone dry.
“Good.” Gabriel rose calmly and Sam trailed after him as if on an invisible string. Outside, Gabriel turned on him and in a few wide steps had Sam pinned against the Bug. It should have been impossible given their size difference, but Sam felt trapped. His skin tightened. “You’re ridiculously pretty, do you know that?”
“I like to think I’m ruggedly handsome.” Sam breathed shallowly.
“Pretty.” Gabriel corrected and then he was kissing him with all of that single minded intensity.
Sam wasn’t entirely sure how they made it back to Gabriel’s shabby apartment. One moment it seemed they were making out against the car, frantic and panting and the next they were slamming the doors behind them. He practically chased Gabriel up the three flights of stairs and took in not a single detail.
“Welcome to my home.” Gabriel shoved Sam’s t-shirt up and off by sheer force of will. “My bedroom is on the right”
“Great.” Sam ran his hands down Gabriel’s back and started walking him backward through the bedroom door. They never quite stopped kissing. Gabriel was all teeth and nails, nipping and clawing as they fell to the bed. Sam writhed artlessly over him, caging Gabriel beneath him while trying to get them both blissfully naked.
“Fuck, thought you’d be scrawny under all those baggy clothes.” Gabriel ran an appreciative hand over Sam’s hard stomach.
“Layers.” Sam wiggled downward taking Gabriel’s pants with him. “Can I suck you?”
“Who says no to that question?” Gabriel’s eyes went a little cross. “Have at it.”
Sam was no expert, but he took Gabriel into his mouth and worked him until hot little moans broke over them both. Gabriel sank his hands into Sam’s hair and never quite pulled. When he came it was with a messy groan. Sam smeared his lips over the back of his arm and swallowed the rest.
“Dirty boy.” Gabriel gave a punched out laugh.
“You’ve got no idea.” Sam crawled back over him, licking into his mouth without hesitation.
“You should fuck me.” Gabriel suggested, legs splaying open in easy suggestion. “Prove you know how to work that bit of art you’ve got hanging between your legs.”
“Yeah?” Sam grinned. “Condom and lube.”
A half-hour later, Gabriel sagged against the sheets wide-eyed and covered in sweat,
“Christ, I think I’ve gone numb from the waist down and lost fifty IQ points.”
“Happy to oblige.” Sam stretched out beside him.
“You’re not human.” Gabriel bitched, already draping himself back over Sam. It should have been disgusting with sweat and spunk coating them both liberally. Instead it felt kind of good. Sam put an arm over Gabriel’s back and drew him in closer. “Demon, maybe.”
“Sure.” Sam yawned. “I’ll made a deal for your soul in the morning.”
“What would you give me for it?”
“All the sex you could want?”
“Tempting.” Gabriel spread his hand over Sam’s chest just where his heart was starting to slow back down to a normal rhythm. “But I think you’d give that to me for free.”
They fell asleep like that. Sam hadn’t shared a bed in years, but he didn’t wake until well after dawn. Gabriel wasn’t in the bed, but Sam could hear someone knocking around in another room. He spread out in the stray sunbeam streaking across the bed.
“Goddamn.” Gabriel said from the doorway.
“Hey.” Sam propped himself up on his elbows. He waited for the awkwardness to take him, but it never came. Gabriel crossed the room and straddled Sam’s lap. He’d put on loose pajama pants, but he still smelled like sex and sweat. Green-gold eyes sparkled wickedly.
“Tell me you don’t have class today.”
“Got an exam at two.” Sam slid his hands up Gabriel’s thighs.
“Good enough.” Gabriel grinned, lazy and far too pleased.
They showered together, another new arrangement for Sam. It was a bit of a dance with Gabriel weaving around Sam like a petit boxer. Yet when Gabriel pressed his slick body to Sam’s and wiggled just so, it was definitely worth it. They ate Trix over the sink, fucked out and still damp from the shower.
“I need to get back.” Sam said with no little regret.
“There’s a classic sci-fi fest at the downtown theater tonight.” Gabriel tossed his bowl into the sink. “You should come with. Meet me outside the library around six.”
“Oh.” Sam stared into his bowl grinning like an idiot. “Yeah, ok. I can do that.”
Gabriel dropped him off at his dorm, but before Sam could get out of the car, grabbed him by the collar and dragged him in for a last scorching kiss.
“Seven. Library.”
“I’ll be there.” Sam said dazedly.
“Good boy.” Gabriel winked and then he was pulling out, burning rubber.
“Who was that?” Brady was standing outside their building, eyebrows raised. “Better question. Why are you still wearing yesterday’s clothes?”
“None of your business.”
“Dude.” Brady shook his head. “And here was me about to hook you up with the hottest blonde on campus.”
“I appreciate it.” Sam slapped him on the back. “But I think I’ve got this.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” Brady pointed to Sam’s neck. “Guy maul you or something?”
“Or something.”
With only an hour left on the clock before the exam, Sam dedicated himself to some speed cramming. He didn’t let himself think of the growing bruises under his clothes or the way his cock rubbed raw against his boxers. Instead he headed to class, took his exam and tried not to chew his pen to pieces during the essay part.
Just as he was finishing his phone buzzed in his pocket. He waited until he turned everything in to check it. Apparently Gabriel had stolen his phone at some point and programmed in his own number under the ID ‘World Rocker’.
Lecture is boring as hell. Would spitball lecturer, but is rather harm to aim for self.
Sam grinned and texted back,
Perhaps you should add some flamingos to the act.
Another shower and change of clothing later saw Sam still too early to the library. He headed to the computers, checked his email and impulsively sent a short message to one of Dean’s dummy accounts. Dean rarely checked his email addresses, so it was a chicken shit way of going about things. Maybe by next year he’d work his way up to a phone call.
Something else occurred to him. It took a little finagling to get Google to cough up the results he wanted, but it was worth the effort. He read it over twice to make sure and then thought over a few things.
When he stepped out at six fifty, Gabriel was already waiting for him on the stairs. Sam walked up to him companionably.
“I’ve got to admit, it’s a novel way of picking someone up.” Sam said mildly. “Dr. Aron would probably approve. Did you even know those girls from yesterday?”
“No.” Gabriel’s smile faltered for the first time. “I’d seen you around and I’d just read about it. Thought I couldn’t lose, really.”
“Apparently, four of his subjects wound up getting married. Little chat, little eye contact.” Sam looked him over carefully. “Get sick of one night stands?”
“I like coming home to someone. I figured if we weren’t compatible, nothing lost right?”
“Well, you’d be out fifty bucks.”
“Worth the risk.” Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck. “You gonna bail?”
“That depends.” Sam stepped in close. “You gonna treat me to popcorn?”
“What do you take me for?” Gabriel’s grin found its footing again. “Popcorn is mandatory.”
“Good, just one more thing.” Sam slid his arms around Gabriel’s waist and put a rusty skill to use.
“What’s that?”
“I’m driving.” Sam dangled the keys in front of his face then took off running.
“I’m gonna get you Winchester!” Gabriel whooped and the chase was on.
When Gabriel managed to leap on his back, Sam dropped to his knees and rolled them both through the grass. When Gabriel laughed, low and dark with promise, Sam had to kiss him. Months from then, Sam would whisper in Gabriel's ear in the middle of the slow glide of a long fuck just how much he loved him. It would matter then, the melting look Gabriel gave him and the throaty reply. It would matter, but not as much as this tussle in the long grass when Sam saw all the potential rolling out before him.
It might not have been love at first sight or experiment, but Sam figured twenty-four hours was nothing to sniff at.