Taming of the Shrew - Secret Lovers Exchange Fic
Title: Taming of the Shrew
Author: gedry
Recipient: arialyre
Rating: PG-13
Genre and/or Pairing: Gabriel/Sam
Spoilers: none
Warnings: none
Word Count: 2113
Notes/Prompts: - Sam/Gabriel, Gabriel is shy/reluctant/overthinking. Sam wants him.
Summary: Sam’s new roommate in college has a lot of layers; not all of them are pleasant but Sam wants what’s underneath.
Thanks to moonofblindness for all her hard work. Originally posted as part of the secret lovers exchange at team free love.
Taming of the Shrew
Sam likes to categorize people he meets into the kind of animal they would be.
Gabriel, his new roommate, is a shrew.
Shrew - closely related to the rodent family, have sharp spike-like teeth. Very small in stature they are very active animals, with voracious appetites and must eat 80-90 % of their own body weight in food daily. Shrews are fiercely territorial often believed historically to behave aggressively and with cruelty, and to have a venomous bite.
Yeah, Gabriel is a shrew in every aspect. Sam’s dorm room is littered with paper wrappers from the candy the guy almost constantly ingests without working out or gaining a pound. Gabriel’s always twitching or shaking something when he sits still, to the point where Sam’s been tempted to grab him and toss him out somewhere.
The guy’s just nasty too. He snarks, and snaps, and teases without mercy. Gabriel has this way of knowing every horrible feeling or thought you have ever had, and turning it back on you in public, and making you feel stripped bare and terrible.
Sam barely speaks to him just to avoid potential conflict. He would hate to have to hit the guy. The poor girl down the hall actually left school and moved back home to her parents after an altercation with Gabriel.
Granted she was a bitch who totally deserved the dressing down, but Sam had never seen anything like the uncaring turn of sarcasm and venom Gabriel had turned on her one afternoon.
But the guy never messes with Sam and keeps his stuff on his side of the room so Sam doesn’t get involved. It’s like they have some kind of truce.
The semester passes quickly for Sam as he looks forward to winter break and a trip away from school to catch up with his brother. Dean’s been working at Bobby’s garage for almost a year now; and between Dean saving his money and Sam working part time at the dining hall they finally have enough saved up for Sam to fly out for a visit.
It’s been a long time since they’ve been together just the two of them. Sam’s never asked why Dean quit talking to their father. He just knows his father told him if he left to never come back and he plans to follow those orders to the letter.
Sam’s wandering back from his shift at work hoping for a shower when he stumbles into the room and hears Gabriel in the bathroom talking to someone over the phone. Whoever it is, they’re yelling. Sam can’t make out much of it but catches a few words like ‘disappointment, ashamed, no son of mine.’ He pauses because it sounds for all the world like a conversation he’s had over and over again with his father only instead of screaming like Sam usually does Gabriel’s begging, “Please Dad don’t say that. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I’ll do better. I’m sorry.”
It sounds like his roommate is crying but Sam’s pretty sure Gabriel doesn’t even have tear ducts. He should have been paying more attention because the door is suddenly yanked open, and a wet cheeked Gabriel freezes in the doorway holding the now closed cell phone, and staring at Sam with a face full of accusations.
“Are you okay?” Sam questions and for the life of him he has no idea why.
“What the fuck business is it of yours?” Gabriel snaps.
Sam grits his teeth and shoves past his roommate into the bathroom and slamming the door behind him. “Fuck you too,” he mutters to himself in the mirror while the water heats up.
*****
Sam spends his fall break laughing at Dean’s obsession with this beat to hell 1967 Impala. “Shut up,” Dean barks at him. “She’s going to be beautiful when I’m done with her.”
“Sure she is,” Sam mutters with a shake of his head. Dean’s a weirdo; but he’s Sam’s weirdo.
“So,” Dean comments on Sam’s last day before going back to school. “Are you going to tell this roommate of yours that you have the hots for him?”
“Dude!” Sam exclaims. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Come on Sam,” Dean chuckles. “You talk about him all the time. Most of it’s bitching, but you always liked the guys you had to work for. Nothing’s ever easy for you.”
Sam gives Dean a warning glare and changes the subject. But now that his brother’s mentioned it Sam can’t get the thought out of his head. It’s something he ponders on the long trip home.
Gabriel’s already settled back in like he never left for the week, and Sam takes a minute to ponder that maybe he didn’t.
“Have fun with your family?” Sam asks trying to strike up some kind of conversation.
“I stayed with my brother,” Gabriel offers after a moment’s hesitation. “He’s got a stick up his ass a mile long but it’s better than getting screamed at all the time.”
Sam blinks. If he answers this might be the longest conversation they have ever had. It’s an opening; a small one. He digs through his bag until he comes up with the chocolate bar he bought on his layover, but never ate, and turns offering it up to his roommate. “I bet it is. Always better to be bored than harassed, though I think my brother managed to do both to me this week. You want this? I’m not hungry.”
Their fingers brush as Gabriel reaches out to take the chocolate bar. Sam feels a spark of something and flounders to say something that would keep Gabriel talking. It turns out he doesn’t need to worry.
“You never said anything about that night I was in the bathroom,” Gabriel comments while he unwraps the bar.
“Not my business,” Sam shrugs. “Look, I got enough problems with my own dad. I’m not going to comment on anyone else’s issues. Hell my father and I haven’t spoken since I told him I was leaving for school.”
Gabriel stares at him for a minute before blurting, “I have season three of True Blood on my laptop. You wanna watch it?”
Sam’s never even seen the first two seasons but he’s not going to turn down an offer to get a little further up under the wall Gabriel has built against the world.
He takes the piece of chocolate Gabriel holds out for him too as they settle down side by side.
*****
It takes them a week to finish all of the season, and when it’s all said and done Sam’s discovered a number of things about his roommate, now friend. Gabriel’s anxious. Not like ‘I have a big test tomorrow’ anxious, but ‘Get the hell away from me you scare me to death’ anxious.
The sarcasm and hurled insults are just a defense to keep people from getting too close and finding his sensitive underbelly.
Sam’s seeing a little more of it every day and he likes what he sees so when the last episode ends, and Gabriel bites down on the inside of his cheek like he has no idea what to do now, Sam offers: “That was cool. Do you want to show me the first two seasons now?”
Gabriel hits him with a pillow and they both laugh. It makes a lot more sense after Sam watches the rest of it.
By the time they finish the other seasons Gabriel’s graduated their relationship to outside the dorm room. Sam finds him hanging around the dining hall during Sam’s shifts and finishing up with whatever he’s working on just in time to walk with Sam back to the dorm. They catch lunch together when their schedules permit and even see a movie together every so often.
They end up at a frat party one night when one of Sam’s co-workers invites them both; saying something about Gabriel being less annoying when Sam is around. It turns out much to Sam’s shock that Gabriel actually does have a filter about what he says to people when he’s sober.
When he’s drunk….not so much.
There’s a particularly nasty altercation at the party which someone informs Sam started because one of the guys insulted Sam. Gabriel ends up getting punched in the face and kicked in the chest after rounding out a tirade with, “I’m sorry did you miss that? You must have been too busy fucking your mother.”
Sam breaks it up and helps him home. Gabriel stumbles to his bed with a pained groan and covers his eyes until Sam dims the lights. He sits down on the bed next to his friend, and runs a careful hand over Gabriel’s face to see if anything’s broken. Gabriel flinches but he’s just bruised.
He jerks away as Sam tries to pull up his shirt, but then hisses in discomfort and allows Sam to slip it off over his head. Gabriel’s chest is scraped and red from where the guy kicked at him. Sam makes a noise of irritation in his throat and goes to dig his first aid kit out of his closet.
“I don’t think you need a bandage,” Sam comments as he cleans the scratches. “But if you have trouble breathing tomorrow or anything we’re going to the ER.”
Gabriel shifts against the bed and keeps his eyes on the wall while Sam works on him. When he goes to ease away Gabriel holds his hand for a minute and whispers, “Thanks for taking care of me Sam. You’re a good guy.”
“So are you Gabriel,” Sam offers but his friend chuckles darkly.
“I’m really not.”
*****
More and more often he catches Gabriel watching him. Sam will turn from digging a shirt out of his closet and see his friend’s eyes darting away like they weren’t just giving him the once over.
It’s cute. It makes Sam feel good. Most of his life he’s been too lanky or too tall but he’s starting to level out now, and even though Gabriel’s a lot shorter than he is already Sam figures he’s still going to get a bit taller.
The size difference would make their romantic relationship seem a little weird; if they were actually having one.
It’s near the end of the year when Sam stumbles back into their dorm room after an evening class and then having to walk one of the female students back to her dorm. Gabriel’s staring out the window in the dark with his arms crossed and his jaw tight.
“What’s wrong?”
“My dad sent me an email and told me I wasn’t welcome to come home this summer.” Gabriel mutters. “He said I’m no longer their son. What the hell am I going to do when school lets out?”
“Come home with me,” Sam offers. “I’m just going to stay with my brother but he won’t mind. Or we can get an apartment off campus. No big deal.”
“You’re not serious?” Gabriel questions. “You’d do that with me? You didn’t even think about it.”
“Maybe I’ve been thinking about it for a while now and just didn’t know how to ask,” Sam mumbles.
“Oh.”
“Gabriel,” Sam hesitates but then presses onward. “What’s the deal with you and your family anyway? What did you do that was so bad?”
“I didn’t do anything. I came out,” Gabriel sighs. “I’m gay.”
“No your not,” Sam comments and at Gabriel sharp angry look he adds. “You’re grumpy, and hostile, and irritable. You’re nasty, and self protective, and you bitch about everything. There isn’t a bone in your body that matches the dictionary definition of the word Gay and I refuse to believe it.”
“I like fucking men,” Gabriel clarifies.
“Now that I believe,” Sam says with a nod.
They bust out laughing.
“You are such a weirdo,” Gabriel snorts.
“You love me,” Sam teases.
“I just might,” Gabriel answers shyly. Sam looks up and sees the blush creeping around his cheeks.
“Want to find out for sure?” Sam offers and holds out his hand.
Gabriel slides their hands together with trembling fingers that Sam drags to his mouth and presses his lips against.
It’s the first of many kisses.