[fic] Waves Break (Sabriel)
Title: Waves Break
Author: youaregonecas
Wordcount: 1.833 words
Written for: otpfic_a_month
Theme: Romantic/Romance
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sam/Gabriel, Sam/Jess
Tags: grief, minor character death (canon), mentions of depression,
Summary: The beach is the first time they meet and the last time they parted.
Gabriel met Sam Winchester for the first time on a windy, cold beach, drawing circles in the sand with his fingers. He sighed as the water washed them away. The boy didn’t seem to be older than fourteen and buried in his own thoughts. The look in the boy’s eyes, of sorrow and hopelessness, was one that he wouldn’t forget. Not anytime soon.
Gabriel knew that he shouldn’t watch from the distance, that it was creepy, but he couldn’t help it. The boy was fascinating. As he watched, the boy crumped up the piece of paper on his lap and wiped the tears from his eyes.
“Oh fuck you!” he yelled to the wind, throwing the piece of paper to the sea. Wind swept it up and twirled it around before letting it fall to the beach “It’s all just a lie.” He caught Gabriel looking at him, snapping something at him that he couldn’t understand before stalking off.
Gabriel spend weeks wondering if the boy okay and if he should have said something, but eventually forgot. After all, he was seventeen he had other things to do. There was Kali to hang out with and finals to study for. However, the boy stayed in the back of his mind. It was stupid, because he had only seen him once, but Gabriel seemed to care for the boy regardless
********
Gabriel saw him a second time a few weeks after turning twenty-seven. He’d started his first job at the hospital off splendidly by tripping over somebody’s abandoned shirt and landing on his knee in the locker room six months into. Twenty minutes later, he sat in the waiting room with a knee he could barely use. A college had eventually heard his cuss and went to check up on him, see if he was okay or not. And yeah, he really wasn’t okay.
The boy - now a man - looked a lot better than he had done that day on the beach. He was on his way outside, with a newborn in his arms and a grin on his lips. Behind him, a blonde girl walked with the boy or girl’s twin brother or sister in her arms. Even though it had been eight years since the day on that beach, he still remembered the puppy like boy.
Just seeing the other boy happy made his heart warm up a little bit. It had been a crap day for him. James Novak was the first patient that died under his supervision. He had just told the news to the parents of the five year old, that he hadn’t pulled through even though he was rushed off into surgery.
They wouldn’t need him for a few minutes, so he could sit there in the cold waiting room and let his thoughts run free. The first loss was one that had been the roughest and this kid, he knew his parents. Amelia and Jimmy were amazing parents, he had seen how happy they were when James had seemed to be pulling through. Claire had just arrived too.
He really was too invested in this. But James was his first and it, hurt.
********
The third time they met, they actually spoke. It was only a half a year later and Gabriel had been told to contact the family of a car crash victim - or at least, to go fetch them in the waiting room. Something about the woman was familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. It was something about her hair and the face.
It was with distance that he called Winchester in the waiting room, waiting to tell the family the bad news. Jessica Moore had died on the operation table from internal bleeding. Gabriel had never felt so detached from a person before, as he saw the man’s expression fall.
He had to detach himself because he knew who that was. It was the man on the beach, the person that not even a year ago had walked out of the exact same hospital with a smile on his lips and a baby in his arms. The same person that had yelled how unfair the whole thing was.
“A doctor will be here to tell you more about what happened,” he said, feeling part of himself break as the other man burst into tears. “I am very sorry for your loss sir.” He saw his knees buckle. “Let’s get you to a chair.”
Manhandling the Sasquatch of a man to one of the chairs was probably the hardest thing he had to do so far. But eventually, he got him to sit down and drink a little bit of water.
“Can I see her?” he asked, his voice thick with tears.
“I’ll go fetch the doctor.”
Two hours later, the boy sat in the hospital cafeteria with a cup of coffee in front of him and the stroller next to him, the two kids sleeping soundly. Gabriel lingered a little while, wondering if he should say something to the man or not. It was almost out of bounds, he didn’t want to intrude.
But the man looked lonely, like that night on the beach. Now, the loneliness was heartbreak, loss. The sadness in his eyes went deeper. The man, he looked shattered, as if everything in his world had been attacked with a sledge hammer.
Gabriel contemplated saying something, but instead just got the man coffee and put it down on the table. He had written his number down on a napkin with the words ‘if you’d ever need to talk’, knowing that he wouldn’t call. People never did. He went back to work, his appetite completely gone.
********
Two weeks later, his phone rung at four am. Gabriel was this close to mass murder. He’d only managed to fall asleep a half an hour ago after getting off of work an hour ago. If this was somebody from the hospital calling, god help him, he would just hang up.
Gabriel Novak isn’t here right now…Leave a message after the beep. That was incredibly tempting really, but it wasn’t work. He had all their numbers in his phone and it only showed a number. He really debated not answering.
“Gabriel Novak,” he said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice as best as he could.
“It’s…it’s Sam Winchester?” The voice was all too familiar by now. Gabriel was surprised that he called. After all, he was the first to do so in all these years. “You told me that I could, uh, call? You’re still up for that, right? I wouldn’t want to…” Gabriel couldn’t be annoyed for long when hearing that voice, that vulnerability in it. “Did I wake you up?”
“No,” he lied, “I just finished my shift. Don’t worry about that. How are you feeling Sam?”
“Not good.”
They talked for almost two hours, at first on the phone and then later through Skype. The poor man was so incredibly broken that he didn’t even care about his sleep anymore. He had a few hours to sleep before his next shift and it wasn’t like he had anything planned either.
Sam seemed to be so happy when he was talking about Jess or when one of the twins started crying and he brought the little girl to the computer with him. Mary seemed to be such a curious little thing. After her crying eventually stopped, she just stared at that silly man on the computer screen as Sam referred to him with a tight smile on his lips.
And seeing him light up at least a little bit felt good.
Talking at five AM when Sam couldn’t sleep became a biweekly thing. Gabriel could actually see the improvement in how Sam felt in his eyes. After talking for hours, he was exhausted but it always made him feel better. Especially after a rough day at the hospital.
********
Oddly enough, the next time they saw each other in person again was on that same beach they met. Gabriel had the day off for a change and damn, did he need it. The past weeks had been incredibly hectic. Hectic enough for him to be called in three times to back up the others.
He had expected to have a calm and hoped that there wouldn’t be anyone else there. One of the downsides to working in a hospital was that it was never completely silent, not even at night. There was always coughing, beeping of machines, the rustling of sheets and other nurses doing their rounds. There was always something happening. Especially on his floor, NICU.
He spend entire days working with babies and it was, well, it was a wonderful job really. He loved seeing babies arrive that were born premature and see them leave with their parents months later, or babies that had to go through surgery or just had breathing problems, anything really. He just loved seeing the looks on the parents’ faces when they got to hold their precious baby girl or baby boy.
So yes he was hoping for a quiet day of burying his toes in the sand and reading. You know, avoiding all other people and relax.
That plan failed miserably when he suddenly heard giggling behind him and the scuffle of feet. He should have known, it was after all a beautiful day. Gabriel should have known that people’s first thought was going to the beach whenever it was an agreeable temperature outside. Oh well. As long as they weren’t too noisy, it was okay.
Gabriel actually managed to block them out pretty well. It wasn’t like they were making that much noise after all.
“Unca? He looks lonely.”
“Who does sweetheart?” The voice seemed oddly familiar, even though he couldn’t put a face to it immediately.
“That man!” Gabriel automatically looked for whoever they were looking at, but found the beach empty of other people except for the group and him. “The one with the book.”
“Oh. That’s Gabriel.” The man actually seemed to be amused. Gabriel looked up at that, only to look directly at Sam, who was grinning at him. “Gabe! Join us!”
Gabriel hadn’t felt as relaxed in ages as he buried his toes in the sand, letting Mary crawl over his body. She was such a little adventurer when she wasn’t sleepy. He did get sleepy after a while, debating crawling to her father before planting on Gabriel’s chest, her dummy half in half out of her mouth.
“She’s even more adorable in real time,” Gabriel said, shifting her in his arms. The Winchesters were leaving, and that included Sam and the kids. They needed to go home to eat something. She looked up at him grumpily, seemingly asking herself why the hell her pillow was moving.
“Uh, Dean said that you’re welcome to join us, if you want.” Sam almost seemed nervous as he took Mary and strapped her into her infant’s seat. “You don’t have to, but it would be fun.”
“I’d love that.”
********
Gabriel didn’t stop smiling that night, or the months after, when he woke up next to Sam with the twins sharing their bed with them. Sam was still broken, but he was getting better, happier.