((Supernatural AU)) Happily Ever After (or The Wild Goose Chase That Wasn't A Wild Goose Chase)
Title: Happily Ever After (or The Wild Goose Chase That Wasn't A Wild Goose Chase)
Word Count: 5200
Rating: PG
Canon spoilers: None
Pairing: Gabe/Sam
Summary: That's how these things end, right? The Price marries the Princess, and they live happily ever after. Sam is nostalgic, Dean enlists the help of his own small army, and Gabe is dragged along for the ride.
Notes: Part of the 'One More Miracle' 'verse. I highly recommend reading that before reading this. ( Masterpost, AO3)
“Are you sure you're not gonna come?” Gabe asked, and Sam shrugged as he tried to coax Loki down off of the magazine rack by the front window. “It’s the Avengers. I thought you loved the Avengers.”
“Sure I'm sure,” he said. “I've seen it twice already.”
“Yeah, you nerd.” Sam shot him a look, and Gabe arched a playful eyebrow, smirking. “And you sure you can close up okay?”
Sam finally managed to nudge Loki off the shelf, and he turned, striding toward the counter with his hands shoved in his pockets. “You know, Ihave orked here a while. I close up at least once a week. I think I can handle it.”
“I wouldn't trust him,” Dean chimed, the bell above the door jingling as he let himself in. “He'll probably burn the place down.” He winked at Sam, who tried his best to glare.
“Clearly I can't turn off the lights and lock the door without committing accidental arson.”
“Clearly.”
“Aw, you won't burn anything down, will you, you big moose?” Gabe crooned. He rested his palms on Sam's chest, ignoring the way Dean rolled his eyes.
“Do you wanna go, or should I leave so you can keep making goo-goo eyes at each other?” Gabe threw a balled up receipt at him and leaned back against the counter, absently petting Loki when the cat hopped up and started nudging his shoulder. “Sure you don't wanna come, Sammy? Thought you loved the Avengers. Hell, you used to have Iron Man on your underwear.” He grinned.
“Says the guy who still has the bat symbol on his boxers,” Sam countered, and the slightest tint of red crept onto Dean’s cheeks.
“It’s just one pair...” he muttered to the floor boards.
Sam chuckled. “I'm sure.” He fidgeted a moment, his hands tucked away in his pockets again as he rocked on his heels. “Slightly worried you guys’ll drive each other crazy.”
“Nah!” Gabe exclaimed as he hoisted an arm around Dean's shoulder and held him close. “It'll be fun! Just two manly men watching a superhero movie together. Male bonding. Can't get enough.”
“As long as it's better than the last movie we went to see with Sammy,” Dean sighed.
“What was wrong with that?” Gabe asked.
“Dude, yo cried Les Mis. All through the credits, and on the way home too! Sam looked like he go rained on rom all the sobbing you did into his shirt!”
“Is it my fault if Anne Hathaway's performance moved me to my very soul?”
Dean rolled his eyes again, more pointedly this time before teasing, “Could yo be ny more gay?”
“Let's see...” Gabe mused. “I could be having sex with your brother right now-”
“Alright! Geez, that's enough.” Dean shoved him amiably, Gabe laughing all the while. “Don't worry, Sam. I'll try not to kill your boyfriend.”
“Please,” Sam said. “I was kinda starting to like him.”
Gabe drew his hands up to his chest, fingers pressed against his palms as he bounced up and down, smiling widely. “He likes me! He really likes me!”
Dean tugged on his shoulder. “Come on, we'll be late. I don't wanna miss the previews.”
“Alright, alright, I'm coming.” He rushed over to Sam, stood on his tip-toes and kissed him on the chin, winking before brushing past Dean and heading to the Impala.
Dean turned to Sam. “And ah...good luck,” he said. Sam flushed red, and the shade of his cheeks turned even more vibrant when Gabe poked his head through the door again.
“Good luck with what?” he asked.
Sam floundered a bit, searching for words that weren't there before Dean piped up: “With not burning the shop down, idiot!” and pushed him out the door with a grin. He winked back at Sam before striding over to his car and getting in.
As they drove off, Sam turned to Loki, sighing magnificently and running a hand through his hair. Loki's tail swished back and forth across the counter, and he meowed as Sam scratched the top of his head between his ears. “Hope Dean can pull this off,” he said to the cat. “Guess I just gotta wait and see, huh?”
Loki purred, hopped off the counter and jumped up onto the top of the magazine rack again.
A few days earlier...
As Sam sat at the corner booth in McLeon's, jammed between Dean and Jo with Ellen grinning proudly at him from across the table, he couldn't decide whether the overwhelming swell of emotion he felt welling in his chest was happiness or just sheer disbelief. Maybe it was a little of both.
The lights were dim, the restaurant closed for the night, and he had to admit that the atmosphere was a soothing one. It had been Dean who had convinced him to come and have a drink with them after closing, of course, and Sam should have known that he'd had something up his sleeve from the way he'd fidgeted and smirked at him all the way there, but he never could have anticipated this. This was just too much, in every way, and he couldn't quit smiling.
“You'd really do that?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“Course we would!” Dean assured him, patting him on the back. He leaned back in his seat and pointed a thumb at his own chest, looking pleased with himself. “It was my idea.”
“It was group effort,” Jo corrected, reaching over Sam’s chest to shove Dean in the arm.
Ellen tilted her head toward the bar, saying, “Actually, most of it was Cas' idea.”
Sam looked over at Cas, who shrugged as he cleaned out a glass behind the counter. “That's generous,” Cas said, waving the compliment off.
“Ah, shut up. We all know you're a hopeless romantic at heart,” said Benny as he clapped Cas on the shoulder, pushing past him to wipe down the counter.
“I try and do what I can to help my friends,” said Cas, and Benny chuckled softly.
“Point is,” piped Ellen again, bringing Sam's attention back to the table, “No matter how you wanna go about it, I'm proud of ya.” She winked, and Sam laughed, looking down at his fingers lying limp in his lap.
“Thanks,” he said. “But geez...All that...”
“I got it all worked out, Sammy,” said Dean. “It'll be perfect. No problem.”
“Every time you say that, I worry.”
“You worry about everything.”
“Yeah, and I'm nervous as hell as it is, and you're not helping.” Even as he spoke, Sam still grinned, nudging his brother in the shoulder.
“Come on, this i me, we're talking about!”
Jo laughed. “Which is probably why he's worried!”
Dean half-glared at her and sipped his beer. “Shut up.”
“You better watch it, Dean,” said Ellen. “That's my daughter you're talking to.” To Sam's endless entertainment, Dean shrank back a bit uncomfortably, gaze trailing down to the grain of the wood on the table. His mumbled, half-hearted apology got lost on the rim of the bottle pressed to his lips.
Cas walked around the counter, taking off his apron and balling it up in his hands as Dean slid over to let him sit beside him. “I think it's noble, Sam,” Cas said sincerely. “Doing this, I mean.”
“Aw, you are a hopeless romantic, aren't you?” Dean teased.
“You don't agree?”
Dean looked offended. “O course agree! You should get a knighthood or something from this, Sammy.” Sam rolled his eyes.
“Hey,” Benny called from across the room, and they all looked over at him. “Let's see it!”
“See what?” Sam asked.
“You know what.”
“Yeah, can we?” Jo asked with a toothy smile. “Come on, you gotta have it on you.”
“You kidding? Guy never lets it out of his sight,” Dean said.
Sam shot him a look, reaching into his pocket. The box was smooth and felt familiar against his fingers, and he bit the inside of his cheek as he pulled it out and set it on the table. When he opened it, Jo let out a gleeful noise beside him, Cas hummed his approval, and Ellen smiled wider, pride gleaming in her eyes that was rivaled only by that in Dean's.
Benny whistled, apparently impressed, and Jo put a warm hand on Sam's shoulder, squeezing. “You know he's gonna say yes, right?” she said.
“You got on your knee and gave me that,” Benny added, “I'd probably say yes too.”
Present...
The Impala rumbled in the back parking lot of McLeon's, and Gabe's eyebrows knitted together in confusion as he pushed up on the dash to get a better look, as if he was missing something important just out of his line of sight. “What are we doing here?” he asked. “Unless this crappy grill joint got a movie theater installed in the basement without anyone noticing.”
“Just something I gotta take care of real quick. Won't take long.” Dean parked and took the keys out of the ignition.
“But it's not even open on Sundays-”
“Hey, could you get me some gum?”
“What?”
“Some gum. In the glove compartment? You mind?” Gabe rolled his eyes a bit, but opened the glove compartment and immediately stared in confusion at what he found: a small folded yellow note with his name on it, taped to the inside.
He plucked it off and stared at it without reading it. “What's this?” he asked, the slightest hint of accusation in his tone as he turned slowly to glance at Dean. Dean was trying his best to look innocent and oblivious, but it wasn't working.
He scratched the back of his neck as he replied, “No idea.” Gabe just lazily arched one eyebrow, and Dean shrugged. “Hey, it's got your name on it! Might as well open it!”
After another moment's silent judgment, Gabe sighed unfolded the note, reading aloud from the message scrawled on it in blue ballpoint pen: “I take it you're at McLeon's, meaning Dean held up his end of the deal.” Gabe cast another questioning look at Dean, and Dean made his best attempt at acting like he had no part in whatever was going on. “Bet you're wondering what the hell's going on. Well, I'll give you a hint: you'll have to go inside to find out.”
“Well we're here,” Dean offered, one hand on the door handle already. “Might as well.”
Gabe folded the note and shoved it into his pocket. “Fine. But if we miss the previews, it's all your fault.”
“Fair enough,” Dean said, and they headed across the parking lot to the restaurant.
They were barely half a step inside when Gabe came face to exuberantly-smiling face with a very excited Jo, who was beaming at him as she extended a menu in his direction. “Evening, Gabe,” she asked, “Like a menu?”
Gabe stared at her, barely glancing down at the menu as the corner poked him in the chest. Jo rolled her eyes and planted a hand on her hip before drawling, “Are you gonna take it or am I gonna have to bean you over the head with it first?”
“Alright, alright!” Gabe finally relented, taking the menu, but not opening it. “What the hell is going on, anyway? This place is closed, isn't it? What are you guys still doing here?”
“Just helping out a friend,” Jo said, smiling at Dean, who winked back.
Gabe glanced at each of them and blinked at them both in turn. “Oookay...Is there something in the air that just hasn't hit me yet? What's with you guys?”
“Maybe you should open it,” Ellen suggested as she tapped her fingernails on the table by the door, watching them with a ghost of an amused smirk. “Funny thing about menus, there's more stuff inside.”
Gabe eyed it warily. “It's not anything that's gonna leap out at me, is it?”
“Just open it already!” Jo commanded, and Gabe shot her an appeasing glance before finally doing so. What he found made his eyebrows arch upwards, but maybe it shouldn't have surprised him much: another note scrawled on yellow paper was taped to the inside of the menu, covering half of the appetizer selection.
He could feel three pairs of eyes on him as he pulled the note off, unfolding it, barely aware of Jo taking the menu from his hands and prompting him, “Read it!”
“Looks like you made it inside. Congratulations! You'll be one step closer to answers when you think back to the first night we met. When you do, you'll find your next clue. Don't go wandering off. It's closer than you think.”
He let his hand fall to his side, the paper crinkling in his grip. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I think it means someone wants you to get a little nostalgic,” said Ellen.
“And by 'someone,' you mean Sam. It's obviously him. But we didn't meet anywhere near here! And why does he want me to jump through all these hoops anyway?”
“Oh, so reading love notes is jumping through hoops for you, huh?” Dean teased.
“They're not love notes, Dean. They're cryptic messages sending me on what could very well be a wild goose chase.”
“It just says to look for a note,” Jo said on a chuckle. “It's not like he's sending you off on a bus to Milwaukee. What happened the night you guys met anyway?”
“He just showed up in my store one night,” said Gabe as he made his way toward the doors in the back. He peered through the circular windows at the darkened kitchen beyond. “Bled all over my floor too. You don't have any books in here, do you?”
“Not besides the Yellow Pages,” Ellen said, and Gabe huffed.
“Well obviously he wants you to remember something specific,” Dean pointed out, and by the look on his face, Gabe had a suspicion that he himself was the only one here wh didn't now the answer.
“Nothin happened! e staggered in, I cleaned him up, we talked-” He froze, realization pouring over him like a wave, and he whirled around to face Ellen. “Where's your first aid kit?”
Ellen grinned, and he knew he was right. “In the kitchen, top cabinet in the back past the stoves.” He turned, running into the kitchen and turning on the light with a flick of his wrist. The fluorescent bulbs flickered to life and he squinted at the brightness, making his way to the back and rifling through the cabinets until he found what he was looking for a tugged the dusty plastic case onto the counter top.
Ellen, Dean and Jo made their way in, the latter two shoving at each other lightly as they did. They watched him expectantly from across the room as Gabe opened the case, and there wedged between a box of band-aids and an EpiPen was a neatly folded yellow note.
“What's it say?” Jo asked, but Gabe ignored her, reading over the note with a mix of growing excitement and trepidation.
“Pretty good memory,” he read to himself. “But it's kind of hard to forget that night, head injury aside. Anyway, you're closer than you were before, but you've still got a ways to go. Next, get a little nostalgic and think back to our first date. See you soon.”
Dean was looking at him expectantly as Gabe shoved the note into his own pocket and rushed up to him, the first words out of his mouth before Dean could even manage a single questioning syllable, “I need to get to Blind Saints Cafe!”
They piled into the Impala, Ellen and Jo in the back seat while Gabe rode shotgun. Dean tried valiantly to hide his own self-satisfied, excited smirk, and Gabe couldn't tell whether to let it make him uneasy or not. Knowing Dean, he thought maybe it should, but he couldn't stop the bubbling sense of curiosity and elation.
“I always thought you were making up that story about how you guys met,” Jo said, and Gabe felt like he'd just been snapped out of some kind of trance.
“What? Oh. Nope. It's one-hundred percent genuine. Pretty sure he's still got the scare to prove it if you look hard enough under all that hair.”
“Sure made a good start to that book of his,” said Dean.
“You read it?” Gabe asked in mild disbelief.
Dean looked somewhat offended. “Course I read it! I read every essay he ever wrote all through high school. You think I wouldn't read his first novel?” Ellen smiled warmly at that, patting him on the shoulder.
They pulled into the parking lot of Blind Saints Cafe, and it wasn't terribly crowded, from what they could see. The dinner rush was just dying down, so finding a spot wasn't anywhere near difficult. Gabe was the first one out of the car, rushing for the entrance and stepping inside before even registering Dean commanding him to wait up.
He looked around, ignoring the host who approached him and asked how many were in his party, and he wondered where the next note would be. Just as Dean, Ellen and Jo followed behind him, a familiar voice caught his attention: “Looks like you all took your sweet time, didn't you?” He turned to face Benny, who sat at a nearby table - the same table, he realized, that he and Sam had sat at when they had come here for their first real date, by the window overlooking the street. He was finishing up the last few bites of a very rare steak and picking at his teeth.
“What are you doing here?” Gabe asked out of habit, and Benny shrugged.
“Just helping a friend,” he said, glancing over at Dean. He balled up his napkin and tossed it onto his plate before standing. He flagged down a waitress, handed her the check with a twenty dollar bill and wink and said, “Keep the change, darlin'.”
“You guys are all conspiring against me, aren't you?” Gabe asked, addressing all of them in turn before turning again toward Benny. “Where's the note?”
“What note?” Benny asked innocently, smirking all the same.
Gabe rolled his eyes. “Yo know hat note. Come on, gimme. We're gonna get kicked out or something.”
“We ain't gonna get kicked out. They love me here, don't you Vick?”
The host who'd been eying them since they walked in nodded noncommittally.
“See?” Benny said.
“Yeah okay. Whatever. Where's the note already?” Benny said nothing in reply, but extended his hands toward the table, inviting him to look to his heart's content. Gabe rolled his eyes; obviously they were gonna make him look like an idiot searching around the restaurant for a damn note that could be anywhere. He lifted the tablecloth, glanced under it, saw nothing beneath it and frowned. But something caught his eye, sitting on the chair opposite where Benny had sat: a DVD case.
He grabbed it, took one look, and flushed red.
“You find something?” asked Jo, suppressed laughter spilling over into her voice. Ellen cocked an eyebrow at him while Benny grinned knowingly and Dean looked like he was going to give himself an aneurysm from trying to keep a straight face.
“Let's go before we get banned for life from this place,” Gabe said, and he rushed out of the restaurant, DVD still wrapped in his arms and out of sight.
It wasn't until he was standing by the Impala and had a moment to himself before the others caught up that he dared get a closer look at the case. The cover o Casa Erotica XIV tared back at him, and he suppressed a blush as he opened it cautiously. The DVD was gone, but another note fell out into his waiting hand. When he heard the others approaching, he tossed the case under the car and unfolded the note:
“Before you ask, this was a bitch to track down, but not as impossible as you might have thought. Yeah, I am just that good.” Gabe rolled his eyes at that, but found himself smiling warmly. “Next stop on this little trip down memory lane is the first Christmas we spent together, or at least what you can remember it. You never could hold your eggnog.”
He turned beat red when he skimmed over the last line: “PS, the video really didn't do you justice,” and that shade only deepened when he heard Dean snickering at him from over his shoulder.
“Where'd you find the note?” Dean asked knowingly. Gabe whirled around, crumpling the note in his hands in his effort to hide it.
“In the restaurant, duh! Now let's go, okay?”
He ignored their snickering as he turned and climbed into the Impala.
It was a tight fit in the car with Jo sandwiched between Benny and Ellen in the back seat, and Gabe mulled the whole situation over as they headed for Dean's apartment. Dean glanced at him, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as they waited at a red light. “Hope you're not took broken up about missing the movie,” he said.
“Oh, absolutely heartbroken. But I'll get over it. For now I'm just trying to figure out what the hell's going on.” He turned to face the three conspirators in the back seat. “What are you guys doing this for anyway?”
“Hey, Sam's the brains behind this,” Jo said. “We're just giving him a hand.”
“Wit what?” Gabe pressed.
“Don't you think you'll find out soon enough?” Ellen asked. “This is Sam we're talking about. Sure he's got some grand scheme behind this.”
“Yeah, one that nobody will tell me about!”
“Will you quit whining?” Dean said, though he was still half-smiling. “We're here anyway. Kinda wonder how many more notes are-”
Gabe was already out of the car the second Dean stopped in front of the apartment.
Gabe could hear the others trying to keep up with him as he hopped up the stairs two at a time. The apartment door was unlocked, which for some reason, didn't surprise him. The face staring back at him, eyebrows slightly raised in surprise, belonged to Cas, and behind him, the apartment was the same as ever, but it looked like the clock had been turned forward several months and it was Christmas again. A tree was up - albeit slightly lopsided - in the far corner, and there were tinsel and Christmas lights strung up over the windows and doors.
Gabe shot Cas a curious look, and Cas was the picture of innocence. “The hell is this, Cas?”
Cas shrugged. “Just doing what I can to help a friend.” He nodded back at the others, who had caught up and were standing in the doorway behind Gabe.
“The last note did mention something about Christmas, right?” Dean asked. “Guess Sam's letting his nostalgic side show.”
“Yeah, this whole evening has been one big sap trip,” Gabe said thoughtfully, though he caught himself smiling as he did.
“Shouldn't you be looking for something?” Cas prompted.
“Yeah, yeah, I'm getting there.” Gabe pushed his way past Cas and strode through the apartment, drifting toward the couch and coffee table. A familiar book sat on the table, its gold-leafed pages somewhat worn and folded in places. There was a yellow sheet of paper sticking out of it, and he picked it up and opened it to the marked page.
Barrington Bunny.
Gabe's gaze softened, and he held the book in his hands wordlessly for a few moments, feeling the others' eyes on him. “Aren't you gonna read it?” Jo asked. Gabe blinked down at the note in his hands before reading:
“Nice memory. You'll find the end at the beginning of the story. Bring tissues.”
Gabe's brow furrowed. The beginning of the story? What could that possibly mean. It clicked without him really realizing it, and when Dean asked him if he knew where they were headed next, he nodded slowly.
“My shop,” he said, and then he turned to face them again. “You guys...go on ahead. I think I'll walk.”
Dean looked genuinely surprised. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Gabe said with a shrug. “It's not really cold out, and I doubt your car would fit all of us. Besides I don't mind the walk...Kinda wanted to clear my head, you know?”
“You alright?” Ellen asked, a vague, creeping sense of concern on her features, and he made himself smile.
“I'm good,” he assured them. “Seriously, go ahead. I'll...meet you there.”
He waited until they were out the door before looking back at the note. Damn, Sam could be a real sap when he wanted to be. A freaking cryptic sap.
Outside, Ellen turned to Dean and said, “We're waiting to make sure he actually heads there, right?” It was a statement, not a question.
Dean nodded. “Hell yeah we are.”
The walk wasn't a long one, and the slight fall chill in the air wasn't completely unpleasant. He was shivering just a bit by the time he made it to the shop, but barely enough for him to notice. What he did notice, however, was that, for some reason, his heart was racing as he pushed the door open and heard the familiar jingle of the bell above his head.
He noticed several things one after the other: first, Loki weaving between his feet as he stepped inside, purring loudly; second, Florence + the Machine playing on the computer, barely loud enough for him to make out the words t Heartlines; third, the lights dimmed so that the only luminance came from the fading sunlight streaming through the windows; and finally, Sam, leaning against the bookshelf in front of him, a self-satisfied but somehow sheepish smile gracing his features. He opened his arms, as if looking for some semblance of approval from Gabe.
The first words out of Gabe's mouth came in a breathy tumble: “What the hell are you on, sasquatch?”
Sam smiled, laughing to himself. “Sorry I made you miss the movie.”
“Screw the movie, kiddo.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled notes. “What's with the love letters? And the trip down memory lane?”
“I just kinda felt like being nostalgic. So sue me.”
Loki leaped up on the counter and meowed, and Gabe reached out to scratch under his chin on a reflex. “So you corralled your brother and his friends to drag me around to all those places, for what? To get me back here?”
“Hey, I had help coming up with it. Actually it was mostly Cas' idea.”
“Yeah, I knew the guy was a hopeless romantic,” Gabe said. Sam took a step toward him, and Gabe glanced up. “So what now, kiddo? You just feel like making me relive our greatest hits for the fun of it?”
“Well...” Sam took a breath. “No. Why don't you, ah...sit down.”
Gabe hopped up on the counter, letting his legs swing over the side. Damn, why was his heart still galloping in his chest like it was? He couldn't work it out.
“So...” he said. “The first aid kit Barrington Bunny?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Casa Erotica?”
Sam chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. “Got your attention, didn't it?”
“Sure did. And I'm pretty sure Ellen will never look at me the same now. So thanks for that.”
Sam silenced him by reaching out and grabbing his hands, so small in his own, and Gabe glanced down at their entwined fingers. “Gabe...” It was barely a breath, shaky and unsure, but somehow determined. He looked up, met Sam's gaze.
“Yeah?” he asked, his own voice suddenly almost gone, just like that.
“I just...I wanted you to think about all that...everything we went through...Everything you did for me.”
“Well, you did plenty for me too, you know.”
Sam smiled warmly. “Yeah, I know...”
They fell silent, Sam looking down at the floorboards, his hands still grasping Gabe's. Loki's tail flicked against Gabe's knee. The song shifted, and the beginnings o Cosmic Love rifted through the shop. Gabe closed his eyes and felt a smile creep onto his lips. “Mmm...love this song.”
Sam's hands slipped from his, and when Gabe opened his eyes again, Sam was on one knee on the floor on front of him.
Oh.
Oh.
The only thing Gabe could think to utter numbly was, “Wh...what are you doing down there, sasquatch?” Sam smiled at that. His hands shook a bit as he reached into his pocket and drew out a smooth velvet box.
...oh.
It took him a moment to realize he'd let the syllable of realization slip out from between his lips, and Sam chuckled. “Making a little more sense now?” he asked.
Gabe nodded mutely, then shook his head. And then Sam opened the box, revealing a simple silver ring, and any semblance of breath he'd had left in his lungs left him completely.
“I just...you gave me something precious once,” Sam continued, his hand brushing against his chest where he knew part of Gabe's Grace was still nestled, deep behind his ribs. “I just figured I'd give something back, you know?”
Gabe stared at him. There were no words for this. Not in all the books in the world.
“So...” Sam took a deep breath, and Gabe found himself doing the same, holding it until it burned. Sam glanced up at him again, their gazes locking. “Marry me?”
“Kiddo...”
For once he was speechless. He stared at the ring, and it took him a moment to realize that it was unshed tears making his vision so hazy. He blinked them back, and in the moment of visual clarity that followed, he noticed the engraving on the bit of silver tucked inside the box in Sam's hand: there were no words, but in their stead was a gently crafted pair of angel wings, flowing down over the polished surface.
He realized Sam was holding his breath about the same time he exhaled: “Sam...” and Sam's eyes sparked hopefully.
He caught himself smiling again, and he nodded. Sam's megawatt grin was one that Gabe resolved to commit to memory forever.
“Yes?” Sam asked, a bit cautiously. And Gabe scared the hell out of Loki when he jumped off the counter and tackled Sam to the ground, the box still clutched in Sam's hand and trapped between their bodies.
“Of course, you moron.” Sam smiled so wide Gabe thought he might strain something, and he pushed Gabe up gently, easing the ring onto his finger before cupping the side of his face, brushing his hair back.
Gabe grabbed Sam's collar, pulled him close, and kissed him, hard and possessively. Sam laughed against his mouth, gripping the back of Gabe's neck like he didn't want anything to pull him out of this. When they finally did part, Gabe's hands planted firmly on Sam's shoulders and their noses just barely brushing, Sam turned his head toward the door and smirked.
“Guys?” he called, chuckling. “He said yes.”
The sound of several familiar voices cheering drifted in from just around the corner outside.