#adambriel

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"Naw," Gabriel simply states, "Your philosophy professor is screwed, no clue what he's on about."

"Yeah?" Adam asked back. "I mean, he's the professor."

"Do better. Out research him. I got sources galore on Christian values and philosophies." Gabriel spits back. Sources being living through them being solidified. Those are veritable enough, he could make some books about it. Fake publishing dates.

"I've read the bible already." A hint of a laugh. "What else is there?"

"Well, for one, the older versions. There's a few."

"Like hell I can read Hebrew or Latin."

"I could translate.”

“You?”

“Well duh. C’mon, I’m not pullin’ your leg, Adam.”

A snort of laughter. “Sure thing, Gabriel knows Hebrew and Latin. The Gabriel with a brain half dead on weed and sex.”

“Amharic and Greek too.”

“How?”

“Took some courses when I was abroad.”

-/-/-/-

Gabriel tries his best not to get stuck on the little things, he really does. He’s a trickster. He’s gotta be swift and cunning and never stay stationary for more than a few months at a time.

Since he ditched out on heaven, his whole thing is wreaking havoc and disappearing before anyone can trace it.

But, it’s hard to not get caught up on the small details when he’s sitting next to Adam Milligan. Not because he’s hot. Not because he’s a genius. Not because he’s destined for great things.

Because he’s just... normal.

He’s a first year in pre-med and he’s taking philosophy as a minor for the heck of it. He gets passing grades, nothing too outstanding though (Gabriel knows it isn’t on purpose, nobody sabotages their grades when they could do amazing). He has no oddities about him except that he’s a little bit quiet. He doesn’t even know that his blood is special beyond it being AB.

He’s normal.

So, fucking, normal.

There’s nothing to exploit. Nothing to dig at. Nothing at all. He’s an open book and the hidden pages Gabriel already knows about because he’s Gabriel. Somebody had to keep an eye on the third forsaken child when heaven refused to do so.

Adam snaps his fingers in front of Gabriel’s face. “Are you paying any attention, at all?”

A hum. “Sure am.”

“Good. Cause I’m not repeating myself.”

“I could give a better spiel with my mouth duct taped shut than any of your teachers in any of your course.”

“Yeah, but can you actually help me with the work?”

A beat.

“Mmmaybe.”

-/-/-/-

“Did you hear about Brandon?” Adam asked as he skimmed over the notes Gabriel had written for him.

He represses a grin. “What about Brandon?”

“Got swirlie’d and lost all of his hair.”

“Bet he deserved it.”

“He was a dick but all of his hair? It looks good on him, man.”

“Looked,” Gabriel corrected.

“Weirdo, of course you think he deserved it.” Adam rolled his eyes. “You got anymore translations for me?”

“Depends, which one do you want?”

“Hebrew.”

“I could whip some out for you in an hour, or.”

Gabriel holds a pause.

Adam spins his chair around to give an exasperated look. “Or?”

“Or I could teach you.”

“You could teach me how to read Hebrew?”

A shrug. “Don’t see why I couldn’t.”

-/-/-/-

Gabriel spikes Adam’s grade in philosophy, just a bit.

It’s easy enough to mess with the entire system from their dorm. Just a flick of the wrist and an intent and it’s golden. Everyone’s grade goes up by five percent, except the ones already in the top ten. That’d be too suspicious.

Nobody in college gets 100% percents unless they earned it or conned their way into it.

And Adam, Gabriel doubts Adam has done either.

-/-/-/-

Gabriel doesn’t actually get high unless he lets himself. It’s easy enough to hold the smoke in his mouth instead of drag it into his lungs. Hold it and release it and let the slightest buzz wash over him after a few more drags.

“Open the window.”

“Already open.”

“Open both windows,” Adam pushed. “You’re gonna give me a headache.”

“You could always try some if you wanted too,” Gabriel spat right back, a playful bite on his tone. “It’s high grade, tastes like strawberries.”

“Sure it does.”

“Really man—” He exhales out the window, rain drops catch on his nose “—It tastes like fruit.”

“It smells like trash.”

“Your loss.”

-/-/-/-

Adam’s normal.

Gabriel knows that.

It’s still jarring to see how perfectly human he is.

He’s exactly what was planned and plotted out. Normal proportions. Normal train of thought. Normal everything. Human all the way down.

There isn’t even a hint of animal in him, unlike his brothers. His brothers he doesn’t even know about. It’s better he doesn’t know about Sam and Dean though. He’s not part of the big plan, and it’d probably ruin his normalcy if he was aware of it. It’d smear his state of being the perfect specimen.

And, for the record, no Gabriel is not studying Adam to look more human.

He’s already got it figured out how to disguise himself perfectly. Just run. Nobody will ever blow his case if he never stops running. Not heaven. Not Odin. No hunters either. So long as he keeps running.

He’s studying Adam just because he can.

And because he’s never had a human be equal with him. Not act lower or higher, just equal. It’d be addictive if it didn’t leave him floundering because he’s not human and starting to suspect that Adam can tell.

-/-/-/-

“Daddy had a lot of money when he left, and I got all of the real riches,” Gabriel simply said.

A lie beyond lies.

But it works.

He was the one who got the leftover shard of humanity in his head, that’s plenty riches for him. A horrible flaw, one that he knows God wishes never happened to any of his sons. It’s one he holds onto as tight as he can regardless. If he loses his humanity he loses everything he clawed away from heaven for the sake of.

“So you went to Italy or something?” Adam asked.

“Norway first,” Gabriel corrected. “They really liked me over there.”

“Huh. Never thought you’d go there.”

“I’ve been everywhere.”

Except hell.

He probably could’ve gotten away with dipping into hell for a brief moment if he tried hard enough to disappear the grace in his body. Maybe. Or he could’ve crashed it.

There’s a non-zero chance he would’ve shattered into a million pieces if he did, so he didn’t.

“Even Japan?”

“Come on, Adam, give me something obscure. Of course I’ve been there.” He bites his tongue before he can spill about the trickster foxes being his doing. One of his finer works.

“I don’t know man, I’m not an expert on geography. I’m in pre-med.”

“And? I’m in cooking course and I know more about philosophy than you do, worst excuse I’ve heard from you yet.”

“Yeah, yeah, shut up, asshole.”

-/-/-/-

Gabriel doesn’t date people.

He does make out with them when it’s so dark that they can’t tell whether they’re kissing a guy or a gal.

It’s more fun that way, especially when he sticks around for them to wake up and realize what they’ve done. He gets lucky with a Catholic boy whose just committed “the ultimate sin” more often than not. Always fun to deal with those in the morning.

-/-/-/-

Adam doesn’t hold Gabriel’s hand on request.

He agrees to the notion that it’s better to just fuck sometimes and call it a day at that instead. It’s easier too. More convenient.

And finally, fucking finally, Gabriel’s found something Adam is an outlier in: sex. Or if not the sex itself (he is rather pedestrian there, very flexible though), then the aftermath. Pizza, and, “Dude,” and, “Hold on I think I have my old SNES somewhere,” and nothing but that. Not even a single petname.

Gabriel’s almost more relieved that Adam doesn’t expect anything out of this than he is exhilarated that he’s found something abnormal about Adam.

Normal to his bones except for this. Or maybe this is normal. It’s not often enough he gets chances for dynamics like this to form to tell.

Well.

Back to the drawing board.

He shifts to get up.

“Man, don’t move.” Adam’s voice is muffled in the crook of Gabriel’s shoulder. “Don’t.” He slings an arm across Gabriel’s torso to hold him down and keep him from leaving to do whatever.

“We’re sleeping together?” Gabriel asked, shock on his voice. “Scandalous, Adam, and before marriage too.”

A half snort of something like laughter. “Just keep playing, ‘s not like we’re missing anything if we sleep in.”

“If you drool on me I’m throwing out your notes.”

“Naw, you wouldn’t.”

Adam’s right.

Gabriel’s here to prank people, not destroy their lives. Sometimes he’s there to destroy lives, that usually happens as collateral though.

It’d be a shame to ruin Adam’s though. He’s got nothing big going for him otherwise. No fate. No destiny. No angel on his shoulder. Just what he carves out for himself.

“Whatever.”

-/-/-/-

“You know, I think you’re the first guy I’ve ever had sex with,” Adam idly mused over a shared plate of grilled cheeses.

Gabriel nearly chokes.

“Still haven’t kissed one though.”

There’s almost a challenge on Adam’s tone.

Another normal thing about humans. So much subtext. Enough that Gabriel could suffocate in it if it didn’t come to him like second nature.

“I wouldn’t wanna set the bar astronomically high.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “Yeah. You would totally set the bar too high for anyone else to surpass.”

“Is that a request, Adam? Do you want me to kiss you?”