#SABRIEL
tags: Drabble ×Slow Burn ×Alternate Universe - High School ×High School ×Alternate Universe - College/University ×Alternate Universe - No Supernatural ×Pre-Law Student Sam Winchester ×Artist Gabriel (Supernatural) ×Painting ×Domestic ×Friendship/Love ×Friendship ×Hurt/Comfort ×Unrequited Love ×Not Actually Unrequited Love ×Pining ×Pining Gabriel (Supernatural) ×Nerds in love ×Coffee Shops ×Pre-Stanford Era (Supernatural) ×Stanford Era (Supernatural) ×Stanford University ×Stanford Student Sam Winchester ×Songfic ×Title from a Gigi Perez Song ×I Wrote This While Listening to Gigi Perez ×
Gabriel never noticed when it started. Maybe it was always there, threaded quiet and harmless between hallway glances and the way Sam tapped his pencil during study hour. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. Not when Sam sat three chairs away, all long limbs and ambition, muttering something about pre-law and scholarships with his hair falling into his eyes. Not when Gabriel was just passing time before graduation, slipping out of chemistry to sketch in the stairwell, smelling like acrylic and lemon gum.
Sam was younger. And straight. And so very serious.
Gabriel liked soft boys with sharp mouths, liked loud girls with fast cars, liked people who looked like neon signs when they laughed. Sam didn’t laugh much. He smirked, sometimes. He talked like he had somewhere to be, something to prove, and he looked at Gabriel like he was trying to figure out what didn’t fit.
It should’ve been annoying.
But Sam asked questions no one else did. He watched Gabriel paint once, said nothing for twenty full minutes, then told him the color looked like a bruise. Like something healing. Like something honest.
Gabriel had looked away too fast. His fingers had gone still, and the silence had pressed too close.
Sam never brought it up again. But the next week, he gave Gabriel a book on modern art movements with a sticky note tucked between the pages:
"I think you'd like this. Thought of your stuff on page 63."
He had. Gabriel flipped to that page a lot more than he meant to.
Gabriel flipped to that page a lot more than he meant to.
It was dumb. It was just a book. Sam had probably done the same thing for a dozen other kids—he always carried too many books, always had notes tucked into margins like breadcrumbs. Still, Gabriel found himself glancing at that stupid yellow sticky note every time he saw the book on his nightstand. He hadn’t taken it out. He hadn’t moved it.
Now, the library was quiet except for the gentle hum of the heating vents and the occasional scratch of pencils. Gabe had ducked into the corner table near the back, sketchpad open, but nothing was coming out. Just spirals and half-faces and a smudged fingerprint where he’d rubbed too hard at the charcoal.
He almost didn’t notice Sam sliding into the seat across from him.
“You’re in my spot,” Sam said, not looking up as he pulled a thick binder from his bag. His voice was calm, but Gabriel could see the flicker of amusement around his mouth. A barely-there smile.
Gabriel raised a brow. “Didn’t know we were getting territorial now.”
“You’ve sat here every Tuesday for three weeks. I figured that was a declaration of war.”
Gabe smirked. “Guess I’ll just have to fight you for it.”
That made Sam look up. Not all the way—just enough that their eyes met, and Gabriel felt it like static. Something unspoken moved between them, familiar and strange.
Then Sam glanced down again and shrugged. “I’d win.”
“You think you’re stronger than me?”
“I think I’d bore you into submission with legal jargon.”
Gabriel laughed, genuine and short. It startled them both.
Sam tilted his head, just slightly. “You should laugh more.”
And Gabriel, heart caught somewhere between a smile and a breath, couldn’t think of a single damn thing to say.
There are things you don’t notice while they’re happening.
Like how often you start memorizing someone else’s routine. The sound of their footsteps coming up the stairs. The way their laugh changes when they’re tired. The little things they do when no one’s looking—like how Sam chews the inside of his cheek when he’s thinking too hard, or how he always taps twice on the lid of a coffee cup before taking a sip.
Gabriel told himself it didn’t mean anything. You could learn anyone like this, if you saw them enough. If they let you in enough.
Still—there were parts of Sam that Gabriel didn’t know how to unsee.
“Hey, genius,” Sam muttered, nudging Gabriel with the corner of a textbook, “your toast is burning.”
Gabriel blinked. He’d been standing in front of the toaster, staring blankly at the counter. He glanced down at the toast—well, carbon square now—and groaned.
“That was my last piece of bread.”
Sam didn’t even flinch. “I brought muffins.”
“Did I ever tell you you’re my favorite person?”
Sam smirked, pulling a crumpled paper bag from his backpack. “Only every other day.”
They ended up sitting on the Gabriel’s kitchen floor, backs against the cabinets, sharing chocolate muffins and cold coffee.
The conversation drifted—school, finals, college, the annoying new librarian who hated teenagers. Gabriel wasn’t really listening to what he was saying anymore. He was too busy watching the way Sam’s hand curled around his paper cup, the way his head tilted slightly when he laughed. There was a muffin crumb at the edge of his mouth. Gabriel wanted to brush it away, and that thought hit harder than he expected.
He looked away fast, heart skipping in that terrible, familiar way. It was happening. It had been happening.
Worse—Gabriel was pretty sure Sam didn’t even think of him that way. Not really. Not the way Gabriel did, not with this low ache in his chest and a thousand words he couldn’t say.
“Gabe?” Sam asked, voice soft.
Gabriel forced a smile, too sharp at the edges. “Just thinking.”
Gabriel shrugged. “How badly I want a second muffin.”
Sam laughed. “You could just ask, you know.”
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