Work Text:
Gabriel had been minding his own business. No really! He’d been sitting at his usual table at Charlie’s café, working on his next book, minding his own business. Things were slow at the café that day so whenever people walked in the movement made him look up on autopilot. Which is why, when He walked in, Gabriel looked up at the counter.
Gabriel’s mind ground to a halt as the hottest guy he’d ever seen in his life walked up to the counter and placed an order. He was tall and broad in ways that made Gabriel want to be curled up against his chest, with long brown hair that almost reached his shoulders. He was dressed in an expensive looking suit and carrying a mess of important looking papers in one hand. He started to turn, and Gabriel got a glimpse of bright hazel eyes and broad shoulders before he caught himself and ducked back behind the screen of his laptop blushing furiously. He hunched in on himself and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, shoving his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose he forced himself to keep typing and not look over at the table next to him.
Time ground on and Gabriel found it almost impossible to focus on his work, so he opened his Tumblr account instead and messaged Charlie. He heard her phone ping with his furious messages but didn't look up to where she stood behind the counter. She was trying to convince him to go over and talk to the hot guy, and he was desperately trying to sack up and go over.
In the end, blushing furiously and purposefully not looking at the Adonis at the next table he went over to the counter to get a fresh coffee and stole some receipt paper and a pen from Charlie and, quickly scribbling a note, demanded that she deliver it with one of the oatmeal cookies he supplied the café with each week. Then he ducked back to his seat and kept his head down to try and get some work done, carefully not looking as Charlie headed over to the table with the cookie and the note.
Sam had been desperately trying to organise his notes in the recess of the trial to make sure his client had the best chance of getting off without jail time. The kid didn't deserve it, he'd been kicked out of home for being gay and wound up on the streets, the charges were a simple B&E and all he'd done was break in and sleep on the couch of a house he'd thought was empty because it had been below zero. Sam was pretty confident that he'd get off with a warning but he wanted to be sure, and he needed to go see Cas at the refuge after the trial so he needed to get the final arguments done and a verdict handed down as soon as possible. He'd ducked into a coffee shop for a veggie burger and a coffee while he scribbled counter-arguments to the other guy’s points. Faintly he noticed the guy at the table next to him tapping furiously away on his laptop, glasses perched adorably on a cute nose and golden brown hair swept back from his face, curling a little at the collar of his hoodie. He was packing up his notes to head back to the courthouse when the waitress came over with a cookie and a handwritten note on a scrap of receipt paper,
Hi, this is probably awkward and weird, but I think you're gorgeous and I'd like to buy you a coffee. If you're interested feel free to join me or not as the case may be.
He smiled a little and grabbed the waitresses attention,
"look I'm running late for court but, who was this from?"
She grinned at him and pointed to the writer in the glasses at the next table,
“from that idiot,”
“could you tell him I'm really flattered, and I feel terrible not coming over, but I really am running late."
With that, he dashed out of the café and up the street. At the door to the courthouse, he unceremoniously shoved the whole cookie in his mouth and instantly regretted not savouring it. It was the best damn thing he'd ever tasted, and it was gone. He patted his jeans pocket where de tucked the note. He'd have to go back tomorrow at lunch and see if the guy who’d given them to him wanted to buy him another. Grinning he pushed through the door
In his periphery Gabriel saw the guy get up, he refused to look up from his laptop. This was it. Yeh or Nay. He kept the guy in his peripheral vision and held his breath; he was blushing and trembling with nerves. Then, suddenly, he was gone. Gabriel wanted to cry, Charlie met his eyes and ran over.
A growl of frustration resonated in his chest,
“God I am so stupid! What was I thinking Charlie?!”
The next few minutes Charlie couldn’t get a word in around Gabriel’s self-flagellations. She let it go on for a little while and then when he paused for breath she closed his laptop and placed his coffee beside him,
“He didn’t reject you, dummy,”
Gabriel looked at her askance,
"He was running late, he asked who it was from, and I told him you, and he said to tell you he feels bad, but he's running really late, and he had to go."
Gabriel stared at her in disbelief, and then another thought struck him, and he wailed,
“CHARLIE! I AM A MORON!”
She blinked at him in shock, Gabriel almost never raised his voice, something to do with his brothers arguing growing up,
“I FORGOT TO PUT MY NUMBER ON THE NOTE!”
Gabriel finished up the chapter and notes he'd been working on and then packed up and headed to his car. Once he was there, he called his brother. The phone rang twice before it was answered,
“yo, Cassie,"
Castiel cut him off,
“Gabriel, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,”
he lied,
“why do you think something is wrong?”
Castiel didn’t even answer, he just waited. Gabriel sighed,
"Ok so something happened, and I'm on my way over to you so you can let me hit something."
Castiel hummed,
“and are you going to tell me why?”
Gabriel flicked on his indicator and pulled into the lot out front of the Queer refuge he funded, and his brother ran,
“yeah when I see you, I’m pulling up now.”
He hung up the phone and headed inside. Castiel met him at the entrance to the gym, Gabriel’s emergency gym bag at his feet. Gabriel stormed over, grabbed his bag and headed for the locker room; Castiel followed him.
“I’m an idiot,”
Gabriel told him as he ducked into a stall to change. He left his bag and clothes in the locker in the stall and went back out to his brother carrying some tape and his hand wraps.
“I asked a guy out today,”
Castiel raised an eyebrow,
“waaaay out of my league,”
he sat down beside the sparring mat and started taping and wrapping his knuckles,
“and?”
Castiel looked down at him expectantly, he was already warmed up and waiting on Gabriel,
“and I am a moron who forgot to put my damn phone number on the note!”
Gabriel snapped, standing up and going through the motions of his warm up in sullen silence. As he moved towards the mat and the pair took up positions,
“so you left him a note?”
Castiel sounded confused,
“yes!”
Gabriel dodged when Cas lunged, gently jabbing his little brother in the side with his elbow. Castiel scowled at him,
“a note? Really Gabriel?”
It was Gabriel’s turn to scowl, he struck at his brother with a quick combination, which Castiel ducked, and then backed off,
“yes ok?! Not all of us can have big, strong, confident mechanics like Dean freaking Winchester chasing after us ok? Some of us have to suck it up and punch above our weight class!"
Gabriel grunted as Castiel's next punch landed on his ribs and countered by striking out and connecting with his face as the disengaged and circled each other. Castiel lunged at him again, and Gabriel ducked into the open space on his left side and his fist connected with ribs making Cas grunt and spin to face him,
“did you give him anything else or just a note with no phone number?”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes at his brother,
“I gave him one of my cookies,”
he snarled as he lunged across the mat, Cas caught his wrist and, using his momentum against him, turned his arm neatly to flip him onto his back on the mat. Gabriel would deny the undignified sound that came out of his mouth to his dying breath.
“Yield?”
Cas rested his foot against Gabriel's throat. Gabriel nodded, and Cas dropped his wrist looking down at Gabriel where he lay panting on the mat,
“You weren’t focusing, I never beat you,”
he tilted his head at Gabriel considering,
“perhaps this man will go back to the café in search of more of your cookies,”
Gabriel perked up a little at that,
“you think so?”
Castiel smiled faintly at his brother,
“you never know.”
Gabriel laid there a second more, thinking. Before he could say anything more Cas's assistant, Alfie walked over,
“Castiel, your four o’clock is here.”
Cas nodded and looked down at Gabriel again,
"Go shower and go home, maybe he'll be there again tomorrow, and you can give him your number then."
Gabriel lay on the mat and watched his brother leave the gym and climb the stairs to the office. Tomorrow it would have to be then. He heaved his sweaty body off the mat and headed for the showers, he would go back to Charlie's for the day and try to get some more work done, and maybe the pretty hazel eyed god would come back in search of Gabriel and his oatmeal cookies.
Two weeks later Gabriel gave up hope, he'd been at Charlie's every day trying to work but mostly staring at the door, drinking too much coffee and eating too much cake. The hazel-eyed God Gabriel had embarrassed himself to hadn't returned, and by the end of the third week, Gabriel was a mess. Charlie found him that Friday night in his apartment, he'd been trying and failing again to write more of the new book and had ended up thinking about the guy from the café again. Before he knew it, he was curled up on the couch with his dog eating ice-cream out of the tub with chocolate sauce, and whiskey poured liberally into it. He couldn't work out why he was so hung up on a guy whose name he didn't even know. It was humiliating enough that he'd given the guy a note and been rejected without reacting like he'd been dumped. It was stupid. He told Charlie as much as she confiscated his ice-cream and poured him into bed. So what if he never saw the guy again, he was probably an asshole anyway. He said as much as Charlie peeled off his jeans and pulled the covers up over him, tucking him in. Except he probably didn't even have the good grace to actually be an asshole, dude looked like he helped old ladies carry their shopping to their cars for fuck sake. Charlie just nodded and tutted and patted his hand and told him to get some sleep and left some Tylenol and a glass of water on his side table.
Sam heaved a sigh and flopped down onto the couch next to his brother, the case he'd been working on had suddenly exploded when the kid's parents had turned up and started making all kinds of demands. For a while it had seemed like all Sam could do to keep the kid out of a conversion camp was to let him go to jail and for a while, the kid had been begging for it. Three weeks later though the kid was emancipated from his parents, had a restraining order, a place at Cas' refuge and he was out on good behaviour. He slouched down into the worn cushions of his brother's couch and stuffed his hands in his pockets fingering the folded scrap of receipt paper there and wondered if the cute writer hated him for running out and never coming back to the café. He shook his head and looked at Dean,
“pizza and beer?”
“Pizza and beer,”
his brother confirmed,
“Cas should be here soon with the food, wanna pick the movie? Celebrate the win?”
“Sure,”
Sam heaved himself out of his spot to browse the shelf of DVD's before settling on the most recent Thor movie, he'd missed it in cinema because of a case and hadn't seen it yet. He ended up missing half of it anyway because he fell asleep half an hour in and had to be shaken awake by his brother's partner Cas to drive home and get some sleep. When he got home he pulled out the note from his pocket, he wasn't sure why he'd hung onto it so long. The guy probably wouldn't be there again if Sam went in any way. Would he? He traced the scribbly handwriting with his fingertips. The person writing had either been nervous, in a hurry or both when they penned it. Sam pictured him, the scruffy writer who'd sent it to him, Golden brown hair and beard to match, dark-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, sliding down to the tip scribbling away at the counter on a scrap of receipt paper.
Hi, this is probably awkward and weird, but I think you're gorgeous and I'd like to buy you a coffee. If you're interested feel free to join me or not as the case may be.
Not for the first time he wished there’d been a phone number on the note so he could have called the guy or sent him a text. He dropped the paper onto his desk and changed out of his work clothes and crawled into bed. He’d go to the café tomorrow, he had the day off to write up his report and debrief anyway, he’d take it to the café and work there.
The writer didn’t show, Sam stayed till close hoping but no such luck. He sighed as he walked back to his apartment. It had been a long shot that the guy would still be there after three weeks. Sam looked at the note on his desk; maybe he'd drop by one more time tomorrow, on his lunch break. One more time turned into two, and before he knew it, Sam had a new regular lunch spot. He still hoped the writer would turn up and he always kept the note in his bag, but it was no longer the only reason he came. The owner, Charlie had become a friend, and the food was amazing though they didn't seem to have the same oatmeal cookies as the one he’d gotten that day during the court recess.
Saturday when Gabriel woke up it was to a rotten hangover and Nougat jumping on him and barking to go out. He moaned in agony and blessed Charlie for leaving him the Tylenol. He washed them down with the water and then heaved himself upright and tried not to vomit while the little corgi did his business in the courtyard. Once he was showered and equipped with a pair of dark sunglasses, he snapped a leash onto nougat and headed over to see his publisher.
"Look K, I need to get out for a while, I'm in a rut, and I'm not writing. A short tour is the best way to do that. Two weeks, that's all I'm asking,"
Kali shook her head and huffed,
“Fine Milton, but you’re going to fucking Canada.”
She scowled when Gabriel cheered and smacked a joyous kiss on her cheek,
“you’re the best K! a real gem!”
“Canada Milton!”
She shouted after him as he headed home to pack,
“Don’t fucking care K babe! I’m going on tour!”
He hadn't been lying to Kali, he was stuck, and he wasn't writing, and the tour was just the thing even if it would be freezing. If it happened to get him away from all reminders of the Coffer Shop God, then that was just a bonus now wasn't it?
He had been right; Canada did him the world of good. He smiled and shook hands, took pictures and signed thousands of books. The story started flowing again, and before he knew it, he was back in Kansas, sitting at his usual table at Charlie's minding his own business. That's when it happened.
Sam had been coming to Charlie's for over two weeks when it finally happened. He came in with his laptop intending to try and do a little paperwork during lunch, and he saw him. Over in that same far corner near the counter. Glasses on already sitting right on the tip of his nose, laptop open tapping away furiously at the keys there was the writer who'd written him the note. Sam sucked in a breath, from here by the door he could see the golden colour of his eyes and the adorable way he chewed his bottom lip and scraped his nails through his beard whenever he paused for a moment to think. Struck by a sudden idea, Sam dug through his bag for the note and headed over to the guy's table. Taking a breath to calm his nerves he put his hand out over the top edge of the guy's laptop screen so he would see the note,
“right now I am really hoping that the lack of phone number on this was an accident and not a hint,”
The writer looked like he'd been struck by lightning, he sat staring at Sam, open-mouthed and silent. Sam cleared his throat and offered his other hand,
“I’m Sam.”
That seemed to jolt the other guy into action, and he scrambled out of his seat and took the offered hand,
“Holy crap Sam,”
as the writer shook his hand a brilliant grin lit up his entire face,
“I’m Gabriel.”
Sam smiled,
"Pleasure to meet you Gabriel, how 'bout we have that coffee and I explain why I never came back?"
If at all possible, Gabriel’s grin widened even further,
"I'd like that very much, Sam."