It started – as did most things with Gabriel – completely out of the blue.

Sam woke up slowly. Usually he woke up fast, but not today. He felt his mind crawling reluctantly back up into consciousness, but before it was all the way there, a deeper instinctual part of him became aware of another weight on the bed. He turned over, fast. Gabriel was on the bed next to him, his face now about two inches away. Sam's eyes crossed involuntarily, trying to focus, even as his heartbeat was returning to normal. He heard a soft chuckle.

"Hi."

"Hi," Sam answered automatically, uncrossing his eyes and blinking in confusion at the still far-too-close archangel.

Gabriel's gaze sank a few inches and his eyes got that warm glint of mischief in them. Before Sam's brain had caught up with any of it, the angel moved forward precisely, like a small bird pecking, and kissed Sam, short and strong and sudden.

"Bye." And he was gone.

"Bye?" Sam repeated stupidly. His brain finally cranked into gear, and he sat up in bed. Too fast. Dizziness hit him. He sank down onto his pillow again, staring at the water-stained motel room ceiling. Did Gabriel really just––was he really––was that maybe a dream? Probably. Yeah.

Sam glanced over at the small clock on the bedside table. His heart sank when he saw it was already a quarter to nine. Too late to allow himself to fall asleep again and dream a new dream to replace this one. The other bed beyond the clock was empty, and Sam became belatedly aware of showering sounds from the bathroom. Dean was already up. Yeah, there was no way Sam was going back to sleep.

With a heavy frustrated sigh that he allowed himself only because Dean wasn't present to comment on it, Sam slung his legs out of bed and sat up again, more carefully this time. He had a headache. This place had the worst pillows he'd slept on in months.

When Dean emerged from the bathroom, he was in an abrasively good mood. "Mornin', Sleeping Beauty! Did your prince finally come kiss you awake?"

Sam felt like the bottom of his stomach had just dropped out. "What? Uh... what?" Did his brother know? Had he seen something? Damn it, what had happened before Sam woke up?

Luckily, Dean was rubbing his hair with a hand towel and didn't notice Sam's dismay. "Too bad you're already up, I had a nice wet sponge waiting to do the job." Dean chortled, probably at the mental image of an angry and dripping Sam, and hoisted his duffel bag onto his bed. Only upon straightening again did he notice that Sam was still sitting, half-tangled in his sheets, and staring across the room at nothing. "Hey c'mon, up and at 'em, Sammy! We wanted to hit the road early today, got to make it up to St. Louis by nightfall."

"Yeah. Yeah, right." But instead of standing up, Sam cautiously brought his hand to his mouth. It was tingling a bit, that sparkly feeling as if he'd just eaten an orange.

He became aware that Dean had paused, his towel half-stuffed into the net pouch of his duffel. "Sam. You didn't have, like, one of your weird dreams or anything, did you?"

"No." Sam shook his head – gotta snap out of it – and met Dean's eyes. "No, I told you that doesn't happen any more."

"Okay, whatever." Dean clearly dismissed it without a second thought, and Sam tried to follow his example, stretching casually and heading into the bathroom himself. That had definitely been one of the stranger ways he'd woken up recently, and he still wasn't sure if it had been a dream or not. He really hoped it had... but then again, what would that say about his subconscious? Why was he dreaming about being kissed by an archangel? What if it hadn't been a dream after all?

He stuck his head out of the bathroom door. "Dean? When you woke up, was there, uh, anything... funny?"

Dean's eyes got wide. "Yeah, it was freaky! There was this giant drooling monster asleep in the other bed!"

Sam gave his brother a dirty look and withdrew into the bathroom again, closing the door on Dean's laughter. He should have known better than to ask. The best thing now would be to forget it and focus on the new case.

***

In the car half an hour later, Sam was reviewing his notes when Dean climbed back behind the wheel, two greasy paper bags in his hand. "Sammy, gotta get your priorities straight. Eat first, then we can go over the case. We got an eight-hour drive ahead of us, there's plenty of time."

"Um, yeah," Sam muttered distractedly, turning a page in his notebook.

"C'mon, man. Egg McMuffin."

Sam wrinkled his nose but accepted the bag. Despite his brother's emphasis on prioritizing, he was a multi-tasker himself and preferred to review the facts of their new case while eating. Not that there were a lot of facts to review.

"So... 20-year-old Hannah McMurtry, junior at Maryville U, vanishes while on a long-weekend trip out of town with her boyfriend. Boyfriend later finds her up a tree... or, well, what he believes to be her."

"What he believes to be her?" Dean repeated through a mouthful of English muffin.

"Yeah. She wasn't exactly... recognizable."

"Eww, dude, I'm eating here!"

Sam managed to restrain his smirk to the side of his face that Dean couldn't see. Continuing as if to himself, he mumbled "Sounds like her body was ripped apart, kind of shredded actually... they said it looked like she had been attacked by an angry bear."

Dean spat his mouthful of sandwich back into his bag and chucked the whole thing in the back seat. "Great. Now you've put me off my breakfast." Annoyed, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a minute. "What kind of bear leaves its meal up a tree anyway?"

"No bear that I know of," Sam answered. He flipped his single page of notes back and forth, as if hoping more information might have appeared when he wasn't looking, and sighed. "We haven't got a lot to go on. The way I see it, either she was killed before she was put in the tree, or after she got up there."

"Sheer genius. I knew there was a reason I keep you around."

Ignoring his brother's mockery, Sam doggedly continued. "If she was killed in the tree, that means she must have climbed up there for some reason. In which case we need to know the reason. Talking to the boyfriend would help."

"Yeah, and if she was killed and then put in the tree?"

"Then we need to know where she was and what she was doing when it happened. And if her boyfriend wasn't there at the time, why not. Either way, we should start with him."

"And while you two are at it, keep your eyes out for pretty pictures."

The car swerved dangerously and Dean swore, taken off-guard by the voice from the back seat. Sam started too, although he'd already been surprised by that voice once today. "Gabriel!"

"Me voilà." The archangel smiled brightly in the rear-view mirror and then popped a piece of chocolate into his mouth. Seeing Sam's glance, he held up a round object and explained "Chocolate orange. It's got slices just like a real orange! My favorite."

Dean, who had recovered from his shock, muttered darkly to himself. Feeling like he ought to say something, Sam commented lamely "Everything's your favorite, as long as it's sweet."

"Very true," Gabriel replied. "So stop making that sourpuss face. Aren't you pleased to see me?"

Sam found himself, unexpectedly, at a loss for words. Luckily Dean cut in at this point. "What did you say, anyway? Something about pictures?"

"That's right, Dean-o. You know, you boys work so hard, you never take time out to smell the roses. It's important to appreciate the finer things in life, such as art. I hope you still know how to have fun." His tone had become almost reprimanding. "If you see a pretty picture, stop to enjoy it."

Dean was getting confused, and a confused Dean very quickly became an angry Dean. "Listen, dude, did you seriously drop in to tell us to take a load off and go look at some art? Because in case you didn't realize, we have actual work to do. People are getting killed every day, and if you want to just swan around going to museums and being all cultural, you have fun with that, because we're going to be saving some lives down here. It's the freakin' Apocalypse, in case you forgot! And if your idea of useful advice––"

"Dean," Sam broke in before Dean could start outlining exactly where Gabriel could stick his useful advice. "He's gone."

"What a dick," Dean snorted. "Angels, man. Can never talk straight to you."

Sam caught a glimpse of color in the rear-view mirror and twisted in his seat to discover a single red rose in the middle of the back seat, where Gabriel had been sitting until a moment ago. He couldn't hold back a grin. "Stop and smell the roses, huh?"

Even though it took another seven hours to get to St. Louis, the rose didn't wilt, and while Dean was busy lugging their stuff into the motel, Sam surreptitiously tucked it into his own bag.

***