"hey listen I know I just technically broke into your apartment house but believe me I was actually trying to fix your window because look at how easy it was for me to get in here, imagine if someone else tried that" college AU /Megriel??😘
A/N: So, I tweaked the prompt a bit, but I’m pretty pleased with how this came out; hope you like it!
*****
Meg should have counted the windows more carefully. She could have sworn she’d gotten it right: sixth window from the left on the back of the building. But no, she realized, cursing under her breath as she did a frantic recount, she’d just removed the outer screen from the fifth window, not the sixth...and a very amused Gabriel was now peering back at her from inside his apartment.
Meg sighed and let the screen slip from her grip to the grass with a soft thud. “Aw crap...”
“But soft!” declared Gabriel, flourishing a hand as he stepped forward. “What light through yonder window breaks...and enters?” He waggled his eyebrows and flashed a grin, hand coming down to settle over his heart. “It is the east, and Meg Masters is the sun!”
Meg rolled her eyes: leave it to a theater major to go for the dramatics. “Can it, Romeo: this isn’t what it looks like.”
“Really.” Gabriel leaned forward to rest his elbows on the windowsill and propped his chin up on one hand. “So it’s not you trying to sneak into my bedroom? ’Cause that’s kinda what it looks like.”
Meg narrowed her eyes and pointed down at the screen she’d dropped. “It’s ripped.”
“So I’m aware.”
“So I thought it was mine, jackass, because mine’s ripped in the same spot, and I was trying to fix it!” She pulled a screen patch from her back pocket and held it up directly in front of Gabriel’s face. “See?”
Gabriel’s gaze flickered from the patch to the screen, then back up to Meg, and his grin widened. “Sure do.” He tilted his head and winked up at her. “And while I’m flattered as all get-out that you’d come up with such an elaborate scheme to get me alone in my bedroom, I gotta say, neighbor-mine, all you had to do was ask.”
“Ugh!” Meg threw down the patch and turned away, crossing her arms. “You’re...you’re…”
“Endearing? Adorable? Something you can no longer live without?”
Meg scoffed and kicked ruefully at the grass. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Glad to hear it. Say, you hungry?”
Arms still crossed, Meg turned around to see that Gabriel had straightened and was now looking at her with a curious expression. “What?”
“You hungry?” Gabriel repeated, gesturing over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. “‘Cause I was just about to whip up a batch of my world-famous chocolate chip banana pancakes, and they taste lots better with company.”
Meg gaped at him. “You’re for real, aren’t you?” she said.
“I’m always for real when it comes to you.”
The complete sincerity in his voice caught Meg off guard. She considered him for a moment, then gave what she hoped came across as an indifferent shrug. “I could eat.”
Gabriel quirked a smile. “Well, all right then. So, you wanna come in through the window, or...”
ADDITIONAL TAGS: Fluff, and um... more fluff?, Insecure!Gabe, Soft!Meg, Idiots In Love, Background Sam/Ruby, Background Destiel, Tons more fluff.
_____________________________
His thumbs hovered over his phone's keyboard, front teeth chewing on bottom lip.
Gabe typed out a reply.
Hey there yourself, Ms Troublemaker No.1 (Pink has nothin on you, babe). Gotta do some mind-numbingly boring admin. Wanna help? Jk :D Seriously tho, leave the Jager at home but bring Chinese/Japanese/anything with noodles? That is if you're sure you want a fucktasticly exciting Friday night in with your friendly neighborhood Baker-boy?
Man, he should really just tell her he's busy. Not that Gabe actually wanted to be left alone to be able to get on with his much-less-entertaining-than-watching-paint-dry work. But because why in Chuck Norris' name would the hottest thing on two legs be interested in a Friday night in with a baker's spreadsheets and fucking caffeinated drinks made with icky coffee-mate instead of boozy shots? Meg had only text in the first place because she was bored and couldn't change the channel and lived just around the corner so his place was just obviously just a convenient option and…
Gabe's thumb added and bring milk before hitting send >>
Because fuck it, he could be her friend. He'd been her friend for almost a year now, so what had changed? It didn't matter that he was so much more invested in their relationship than she was. Didn't matter that he was in love with her clever, delicious-looking mouth and her snark and her hidden softness that he wanted to hold onto tightly and yet gently and never, ever let go… because Meg wanted a friend. So, let there be friendship. And let his desires for more go wanting. She was worth the heartache.
His phone beeped again.
<< be there in 15 doofus
Gabe's smile reappeared, brighter than an angel's halo.
_____________________________
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Tags: Alternate Universe, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship
Summary: A financial challenge leaves Meg feeling stressed. Thankfully, Gabriel's got a plan to help her unwind.
*****
Meg glowered down at the paperwork as though trying to set it ablaze. Her dream of quitting her dead-end job hinged on her ability to convince the bank to approve this loan request: it was the only way she’d be able to start her own business. She clenched her jaw and snatched up the pen she’d thrown down moments earlier. People do this every goddamn day, she thought, hunching forward over the kitchen table. You want this? Then figure it the fuck out.
“You coming to bed, babe?”
She looked up to see Gabriel standing in the kitchen doorway. He was wearing a faded green tee and a pair of boxers featuring rubber ducks, an aesthetic that over the course of their relationship had somehow gone from annoying to endearing, although Meg couldn’t remember when. She felt her anger ebb a bit and shook her head. “Nah. Gotta get this done.”
“Pretty sure it’ll still be there tomorrow,” said Gabriel. “Besides, you’ve been bent over that table for hours. Change of position’ll do you good.” Winking, he added, “And, as luck would have it, I’ve got a few suggestions in mind.”
Meg scoffed. “You’re impossible.”
“Who, me? Never. Kinda lonely, though.” Gabriel’s expression softened, and he crossed the kitchen, stopping next to her and holding out a hand. “Come on, come to bed. I’ll even throw in one of my world-famous massages.”
Meg arched a brow. “That your plan, lover boy? Come in here and try to seduce me?”
Gabriel shrugged. “Is it working?”
She regarded him, with his goofy grin and his outstretched hand and those ridiculous rubber duck boxers, and knew that resistance was futile. Gabriel was a dork, yeah, but he was her dork. And she loved him for it.
“Hell yeah it is,” Meg replied, breaking into a matching grin as she took Gabriel’s hand and allowed herself to be led to the bedroom, the loan application left forgotten on the table.
Tags: AU, Oh my god they were roommates, established friends(?) with benefits, cuddling
Rating: T
Wordcount: ~1.4k
*****
Come Monday, Meg decided, she was going to kill Sam Winchester.
It was only fair when you thought about it, and she’d had all last night to think about it as she’d coughed and sneezed and not fucking slept due to being unable to breathe through her nose, all thanks to Sam “I-Come-to-Work-All-Week-Even-When-I’m-Sick” Winchester. The fact that he’d shown up at the office on Friday smiling and looking ninety-five percent back to normal just added insult to injury: while she spent her Saturday bundled miserably on the couch watching reruns of CSI Miami, Winchester was probably out enjoying himself, running six marathons or whatever the fuck someone who ate a kale salad for lunch every day did for fun on their days off. Bastard.
It didn’t help that it was the middle of winter and the building’s heat was out, and Meg had lived there long enough to know that it wasn’t getting fixed any time soon. Chuck wasn’t an asshole the way some of Meg’s previous landlords had been, but he was flaky as hell and seemed more interested in drafting his weekly newsletter than actually managing the property. The only plus side was that he often forgot to collect rent until mid-way through the month, a notable perk when you were living paycheck to paycheck.
Snatching a tissue from the box at her side, Meg blew her nose for what felt like the hundredth time and tugged her blanket closer. The living room got a bit more direct sunlight than the rest of the apartment and was therefore slightly warmer than her bedroom, but even so, she was practically shivering. For a moment, she actually contemplated relocating to Gabriel’s room, which was usually the warmest in the apartment, before ultimately deciding she was better off staying on the couch.
Gabriel had been her roommate for the past four months, ever since Meg had broken things off with her cheating ex and subsequently found herself unable to afford rent on her own. After interviewing what felt like half the city’s psych ward, she’d settled on Gabriel Milton, who was new to the neighborhood and looking for a place close to the soul food restaurant he’d just gotten a job at. Meg’s first impression of Gabriel was that his perpetual lopsided smile would get real old real fast, but he’d been the first person she’d met with who had both a steady job and no police record, so she’d figured what the hell and told him to move in his stuff.
And if they had hooked up since then, well, that was neither here nor there.
It was a one-time thing, she’d said; of course, he’d agreed. That it had been a one-time thing three times now was something Meg refused to think too much about and which Gabriel thankfully never seemed to feel the need to remind her.
Her stomach rumbled, and she was just contemplating dragging herself to the kitchen to see what she might be able to scrape together this late in the month when the front door unlocked with a click and Gabriel entered, a few errant snowflakes still clinging to his clothes. He took one look at her, wrapped up from head to toe in her bed’s thickest blanket and surrounded by a nest of used tissues, and grinned.
“Well hey there, Sleeping Beauty,” he said, turning to hang his beanie and scarf on the rack by the door, “finally managed to slay that dragon you were fighting last night?”
Meg gave him a withering glare. “Yeah, and I’m still in a killing mood, so go ahead, keep talking.”
“Fine, fine, have it your way,” replied Gabriel, still smiling as he set down his messenger bag to strip off his coat. “I mean, I was going to tell you that I brought us dinner, but if you’d rather I keep that bit of information to myself…”
Damn it. Well, no point in giving in easy. She gave a dismissive shrug. “Depends what you brought.”
“Fried chicken, mac and cheese, and enough cornbread to use as a pillow.” Gabriel held up a finger in a gesture of “but wait, there’s more!” and pulled a small plastic container out of his messenger bag. “Even whipped up some peach cobbler for dessert.”
Meg arched a brow, grudgingly impressed. “Aren’t you worried they’re gonna fire you one of these days for all the free food you take?”
“Eh, not really,” said Gabriel, picking up his bag and moving to the kitchen. “Missouri loves me, says I’m the best cook she’s ever had. Besides, she’s the one who tells me to take it.”
“Really.”
“Swear to God! Apparently, I look ‘underfed’.”
Meg scoffed, twisting to look over the back of the couch as Gabriel bustled about the kitchen. “Well, you are kinda short.”
“I prefer ‘fun sized’,” said Gabriel, throwing her a wink as he spooned food onto two plates. “And anyhoo, you try saying no to her. Pretty sure she’d just stash food in my bag when I wasn’t looking.”
They ate on the couch, Meg doing her best to appear indifferent about how good the food tasted even as Gabriel gave her that annoying pleased look that made her feel like saw right through her. He told her about some of the more interesting customers he’d seen at work that day, such as the mother-son combo who had bickered like an old married couple (“But man, she was a looker! Had an accent, too.”) and the friend of Missouri’s who had stopped by for lunch (“A blind palm reader, believe it or not.”) and the two men in suits who had apparently spent more time looking at each other than eating their food (“I swear, I was this close to sticking my head through the food window and telling them to just kiss already: that was some serious eye-fucking they had going on.”). Meg rolled her eyes at the last one, wondering how anyone could be that oblivious to something right in front of them.
“So how’re you feeling?” Gabriel asked as they finished their cobbler. “Heard you coughing lots last night. You actually get any sleep?”
Meg sighed and shook her head. “Couldn’t get comfortable.”
“Make up for it today, at least?”
“No, but I did come up with about fifty ways to kill the idiot who got me sick.”
“Fun!” said Gabriel, standing and collecting their empty plates. “Care to share the highlights?”
“Current favorite involves shoving him into a giant salad spinner and cranking it until the Gs get him.”
Gabriel nodded in approval as he disappeared into the kitchen. “Creative, I like it.” Meg heard the sound of plates being put into the sink and soaked; a moment later, Gabriel emerged and resumed his seat on the couch. “What else you got?”
Meg shrugged, tugging her blanket tighter. “Could just stick him in here and let him freeze. Maybe that’ll be enough to make Chuck fix the fucking heat.”
Gabriel peered over at her. “You cold?”
“No, genius, I’m shivering from murderous excitement,” she deadpanned, but Gabriel just laughed.
“‘Genius’, huh? You know, I think that might just be the nicest thing you’ve ever called me,” he said wistfully, and before Meg could respond, he’d shifted to sit with his back against the arm of the couch and was extending a hand in her direction. “All right, Murder Queen, bring it in.”
“What for?”
“Because the murderous excitement part might have been a lie, but the shivering part wasn’t, and you know I tend to run hot. Probably due to my sunny disposition.”
“That, or you’re just full of hot air.”
“It’s charm, actually, but hey, points for trying,” quipped Gabriel, before tilting his head to regard her with a more earnest expression. “Seriously, though, come ’ere.” He waggled his eyebrows and added, “Promise I won’t bite unless you ask me to.”
Meg rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She crawled forward, shifting with Gabriel until she was lying between his legs with her head tucked under his chin, the blanket now wrapped snugly over them both. Gabriel wrapped his arms loosely around her waist, and Meg closed her eyes, suppressing a contented sigh at how good the warmth felt.
“There, see?” came Gabriel’s voice, and she knew without looking that he was wearing that damned pleased-with-himself smile. “This is nice.”
Meg gave a sleepy, noncommittal grunt. “Yeah, well don’t get used to it,” she mumbled, feeling herself start to drift off. “This is a—” yawn “—a one-time thing.”
Gabriel chuckled. “Of course,” he said, and if she felt a little extra warmth at the soft kiss he pressed to the top of her head, well, that was neither here nor there.
