Author's note: Thanks so much to Treeni for beta-reading!

It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm considering it was the end of October. Most other days of the year Sam would have been able to appreciate the nice weather to some extent. However, being it was Halloween, his stomach was in knots and he couldn't bring himself to find anything good about the day.

Only two years ago, the younger Winchester would have been able to just go for a nice long walk, soaking up as much sun as he could. Two years ago, Halloween had been a minor annoyance, just one of those holidays of the year he really didn't like, but that had been before the first… incident.

Technically, there had only been one of eleven incidences had happened on Halloween this far, but the last three of those eleven had happened exactly one year after the first three. Sam fully expected that Halloween would mark a repeat performance.

The younger Winchester had been tense the entire week, working himself up so much that his older brother had gotten the family doctor to prescribe Sam a mild sedative, so he could keep calm at all. That was in addition to all the freaking pills he had been prescribed to take every day, anyway.

The only thing that kept the younger Winchester from panicking even more was that the other eleven incidences had started in the morning just after he had gotten up, but it was already noon and nothing had happened. Maybe the last change of pills had finally helped. Maybe they had finally found the right medication that could keep Sam sane and would allow him to pick his life up again. Then again, maybe not…

"Morning kiddo," Gabriel greeted in an upbeat tone, giving the younger Winchester a quick once over, "Sorry, I'm late, but damn, if you had seen that nectar, you'd have stopped to…"

Sam hadn't even listened to the end of the statement before he ran out of the kitchen, grabbing the cordless phone as he went and dialing his brother's cell phone number. It was a small miracle that the younger Winchester's shaking fingers allowed him to get the number right, but it looked like he was lucky in that respect at least.

"Dean! It's happening again!" Sam yelled into the telephone as soon as his brother picked up while throwing nervous glances toward the kitchen. The younger Winchester thought that he should have tried to run further, but in the end it wouldn't help anyway.

"Okay, calm down, Sammy," Dean replied as calmly as he could, keeping his cell phone away from his ear just in case his younger brother intended to keep yelling, "What is it this time?"

The older Winchester had only left the house to pick up some Halloween candy for the kids of the neighborhood, in the hopes that the little sons of bitches wouldn't throw toilet paper on the house again that year. Things had seemed alright with his brother when Dean had walked out of the door, but apparently something had changed in the last thirty minutes. At least, the older Winchester was already at the check out line and about to go back home.

"It looks like a hummingbird," Sam hissed, his face burning from the embarrassment of having to admit that. His therapist was of the opinion that talking about the things he heard and saw while they were still happening might help, but the woman never had to say out loud that a freaking hummingbird was speaking to her!

"A big hummingbird," the younger Winchester added a little defensively, when his brother was obviously trying to hold back the chuckles that were trying to escape. Not that the size of the freaking thing made anything better. It wasn't the fact that it was a hummingbird that had Sam as terrified as he was, anyway.

"That's rich coming from you, Sasquatch!" Gabriel huffed, buzzing around the tall human. He was careful to keep enough distance between them so the Sasquatch wouldn't be able to hit him, even with his abnormally long arms. Not that Sam had ever tried to harm Gabriel before, but you never knew. Apparently, the younger Winchester was really losing his shit this time around. Then again, he had never been overjoyed to see Gabriel before.

"Did you take your pills?" Dean asked, trying to sound serious. However, the mental image of his brother speaking to a hummingbird made that very hard or rather, the hummingbird speaking to Sam, since Sam's therapists had agreed that acknowledging the hallucinations in any way wouldn't help with getting rid of them and leading a normal life in any way.

"Did I… did I take my pills? Of course I did! I take them every day, at the same fucking minute just to make sure… but it's come back anyway!" the younger Winchester yelled once more, fighting the urge to glare at the fucking hummingbird. Sam wasn't going to give in to his insanity, he wasn't! He was going to do what he had done since the first time this had happened and ignore the hell out of it! Then, as soon as possible, the younger Winchester was going to go to his shrink and tell him that they had to try something new, because the pills had completely failed him once more.

"Okay, okay, just… calm down, Sammy," Dean replied in a soothing tone. The way his younger brother was obviously panicking sucked every last little bit of humor right out of the situation. "Tell that hummingbird to fuck off and take a few more pills. I'll be there in a few."

Sam took a deep shuddering breath and reached for the bottle of antipsychotics. One more surely couldn't hurt. The younger Winchester contemplated adding a few of the sedatives to the mix, but he wasn't too keen on taking even more pills when Dean was already on the way. Usually, things got better when his brother was around. Sam was holding on to that thought as he swallowed the antipsychotic pill dry, something he couldn't have imagined doing less than two years ago, but he had gotten a lot of practice since.

"You really shouldn't take more of those damn things, kiddo, they're not good for you," Gabriel commented disapprovingly. The young man really was doing everything wrong he possibly could, but Gabriel couldn't explain that to him while Sam was still refusing to listen to anything he had to say. God knew Gabriel had tried. This was the twelfth time he tried, but it looked like they were going to need a thirteenth. All of Gabriel's friends and colleagues were already laughing at him for failing again and again, but he knew that he was going to succeed eventually. He had hung his heart on this one and he wasn't going to give up on it.

"Said my delusion," Sam mumbled before he could stop himself. The younger Winchester was mentally kicking himself for his slip up even before the hummingbird reacted to it.

"Oh hey, look at that, we're talking!" Gabriel replied happily, flying a little closer to the human's face to make it easier to talk to him, "This would be so much easier for both of us, if you'd just listen…"

"Leave me alone!" Sam yelled, basically jumping off the couch and running toward his room, "Leave me alone!"

The younger Winchester would just wait for Dean with the pillow wrapped around his head, so he didn't have to see or hear anything. That should take care of the problem for the moment!

Gabriel sighed deeply and made his way back to the kitchen to see if there was anything interesting standing around there. He felt like he really deserved a bit of the pie the older Winchester was most likely keeping somewhere for wasting his time once more. Then again, at least Sam had acknowledged his existence. It was a step into the right direction.

"A hummingbird, huh?" Dean asked as soon as he had lured his brother out of his room and back into the living room, "I'm not sure if that's better or worse than the raccoon, the Yorkshire terrier, the freaking bee …"

To tell the truth, the older Winchester simply had to make a joke out of the situation they were in, because the alternative was despair. It wasn't going to help his little brother any, if Dean lost his freaking mind over everything, too. Of course, it was completely unfair that somebody as nice, smart and loveable as Sam was cursed with schizophrenia – or whatever his latest doctor was calling it – but there was nothing the older Winchester could do but to suck it up and offer his own brand of comfort.

"Glad to hear you're having fun with my insanity, Dean," the younger Winchester huffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest. At least, Sam hadn't heard anything from the hummingbird since Dean had returned, so that was something.

"Come on, last time it was a platypus! A platypus, Sammy, how's that not hilarious?" the older Winchester insisted with a chuckle.

The younger Winchester sighed, but forced a little smile. The platypus incident had been just as bad as all the others, but Sam could see why somebody else would think it was funny. To him it was just one more nail in the coffin of his hopes and dreams. Speaking of nails in the coffin…

"Kiddo, I hate doing this to you while your big brother is here, but…" Gabriel stated in an apologetic tone. He had decided that it would be better for all of them if he was persistent this time. Sam had acknowledged his existence earlier, if he gave the human time until Midwinter, he'd have to start from scratch again.

"No, no, no, no, no," Sam nearly whimpered, pressing his palms over his ears and closing his eyes. The younger Winchester had thought that he'd get a little time to just breathe, at least while Dean was with him, but apparently it was already coming back to bite him in the ass that he had lost his temper and had addressed his hallucination before.

"Sam, what's…?" Dean asked worriedly, looking around for anything that could have caused that reaction in his younger brother. The older Winchester couldn't say he was surprised when he didn't see anything. "Again?"

"Tell me you at least see it, please!" Sam begged. The only good thing about having an episode when his older brother was there to witness it was that the younger Winchester had a chance to find out, if his hallucinations were visual and auditory as he had suspected this far, or if they were only auditory. Dean just had to tell him, if he could see the thing, too.

"What am I supposed to see?" the older Winchester asked, looking for any strange animals. This far, every time his younger brother had seen something, it had had something to do with an animal, after all.

"The spider!" the younger Winchester stated in a high pitched tone, pointing toward the little spider that was lowering itself off the ceiling as the brothers were talking.

"Yeah, I can see that spider," Dean confirmed, looking between his brother and the spider a few times before he spoke on, "Really, Sam, the spider is talking to you?"

Sam's face was burning in shame again as he nodded. At least, his older brother was taking all this much better than anybody else the younger Winchester had ever tried to confide in. The first thing admitting that a ferret had tried to make small talk with him – incident number one, in the middle of June after his 22nd birthday – had cost Sam his girlfriend and most of their shared friends. Granted, they weren't very good friends, if they were ready to completely turn his back on him over something like that, but it still had hurt to lose them. As things were, Dean was the only person Sam was close to that he had left.

"Like you humans are the only beings who communicate!" Gabriel snorted. He had stopped his descent from the ceiling for the moment to observe the humans. The situation could get dangerous for him in no time flat, if the older Winchester decided that he would try to rid his brother of his problems by squashing the hallucination. Apparently, the human was thinking about it.

"Okay, I'll just…" Dean started, reaching for a magazine and rolling it up when his brother's hands on his stopped him.

"Don't kill it, Dean!" Sam insisted, meeting his older brother's questioning stare, "It's not the spider's fault that I'm…"

The younger Winchester really didn't want the poor creature to suffer just because it was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Besides, even if Sam was obviously still insane for hearing a spider talk to him, it was good to know that the animal was really there at least. Not that that meant anything in regards to the ferret, the Yorkshire terrier and especially the platypus. It meant that Sam's hallucinations weren't always as bad as he had assumed they were though and that was good enough for the younger Winchester.

"Alright, I'll just take it outside then," Dean agreed, carefully trapping the spider between his palms to carry it to the backyard.

As soon as the older Winchester was out of the room, Sam reached for the bottles holding his pills. Even if the thing with the spider could have gone worse, it still had upset the younger Winchester and he really needed to calm down to make it through the rest of the day.

Sam didn't enjoy any of the days when his crazy mind was playing tricks on him, but Halloween was especially bad. There simply were too many freaky things going on already and every time the doorbell rang, the younger Winchester couldn't help wondering, if all of the children in their costumes were actually there. Sam had decided to let Dean deal with all that on his own that year.

"Sammy, how many of those have you taken today?" the older Winchester asked, nodding toward the orange bottles Sam was still holding. Dean couldn't be too sure, but he thought that the pill bottles had been much fuller the last time he had seen them and it had looked like his brother was swallowing pills while thinking of other things when the older Winchester had come back to the living room.

"I… don't…" Sam stammered, blinking a couple of times before he stared at the bottles in his hands. The younger Winchester thought that he couldn't have taken too many of the antipsychotics, but apparently he had swallowed quite a few of the sedatives.

"Oh crap," Dean stated, rubbing his jaw with his hand.

Luckily, a quick call to the family doctor had revealed that there were enough of the sedatives left in the bottle they didn't have to worry that Sam had accidentally poisoned himself. The younger Winchester would be able to just sleep it off. After threatening the doctor that getting his pants sued off his incompetent ass would be the least of his problems, if anything happened to Sam and the man still saying that going to the hospital wasn't necessary, Dean was placated enough to allow his younger brother to go to bed. Actually, the older Winchester had to more or less carry his brother to his room while Sam leaned against him, mumbling on about how grateful he was to have a brother like Dean. Drugs or no drugs, the older Winchester still liked to hear that.

"Why won't you go away?" the younger Winchester whined sleepily a few minutes later as a golden retriever made its way into his room. Sam wanted to call for his brother to take the animal away again, but he couldn't find the energy to yell.

"It's not that easy, Sam," Gabriel replied, nosing the younger Winchester's hand until the human giggled and started to pet his head. Maybe it wasn't fair to use Sam's altered state of mind to further his own agency, but Gabriel didn't think it was fair that the human made him the laughing stock of his entire family either.

"You're fluffy," Sam commented with a dopey grin, making space on his bed for the golden retriever to lie next to him if the dog wanted. The younger Winchester didn't have to wait for long before the dog was resting by his side.

"Thanks," Gabriel laughed, moving closer to the human and licked his neck for a few moments before asking, "Will you listen to me, if I promise you can cuddle me all you want?"

"M-kay," Sam hummed, scratching the golden retriever behind the ears and hugging him close. The younger Winchester had always loved dogs, but their father had never allowed the brothers to have one. Later on, he hadn't had the time for a pet anymore and then his mental state had made getting anything that would be dependent on him a bad idea.

"Wow, you're really stoned right now," Gabriel chuckled, allowing Sam to pet him some more before he got back to the topic at hand, "If I'd known that's what it took, I'd have encouraged it much sooner. Maybe shown up as a monkey and just put a joint into your mouth."

"Don't do drugs," the younger Winchester protested weakly. It probably wasn't that much of a believable claim when he was obviously stoned out of his mind and talking to a dog that might or might not be there.

"Sure, kiddo, just the legal stuff," Gabriel agreed with just a hint of sarcasm in his tone. Not that the human was in any state to understand subtlety in any way, shape or form as things were. "And I hope you'll stop with that now, too."

"I can't," Sam whined once more, burrowing his face in the dog's soft fur in his frustration. There was nothing the younger Winchester would have liked better than to tell his doctor, shrink and psychotherapist to shove their stupid pills – that never seemed to work anyway – up their asses, because he didn't need them anymore. He would word it a little more politely, admittedly.

"Yes, you can," Gabriel replied with a frustrated huff, "You're not insane, Sam. No more than any other human, anyway. Not that you're completely ordinary, but I guess your mom never got to tell you."

It really was a shame that Mary Winchester died as early as she had. However, it had been kind of negligent of her not to make preparations for her sons to get all the information they would need, if the fifty percent chance of following in their mother's footsteps each one of them had, applied to them. Mary could have spared her youngest a lot of grief if she had made preparations in case of her death, but there was no use crying over spilt milk.

"You're a witch, kiddo," Gabriel explained seriously, before he was interrupted by the human's giggles. Honestly, it wasn't the reaction he had expected, but it could have been much worse.

"Are you taking me to Hogwarts now?" Sam asked, still laughing so hard that his entire body was shaking. The younger Winchester idly wondered, if his older brother could hear him laughing downstairs, but all thoughts of Dean took a backseat to Sam's amusement over what the dog had just told him.

"Not that kind of… forget it… we'll discuss this when you're less giggly," Gabriel shook his head exasperatedly, waiting for the human to calm down again.

"Mhm," Sam hummed his agreement. The younger Winchester was getting very tired very quickly after he finished laughing, but he still had the energy to roll on his side and wrap himself around the golden retriever.

"Hey, while you're all cuddly and pliant, could you find it in you to accept me as your familiar spirit?" Gabriel asked, licking over Sam's face a couple of times to make sure that the human didn't fall asleep on him before he had answered the one most important question. Even being rejected was better than being ignored.

"Sure," the younger Winchester breathed against the dog's neck, his eyes getting heavier and heavier. It wasn't long after that Sam's breath evened out and he fell asleep.

"Let me just say, fucking finally, kiddo."

The feeling that he wasn't alone in the room was what woke Sam up after a couple of hours of sleep. To be precise, the younger Winchester couldn't shake the feeling that somebody was watching him, so he quickly turned on the bedside lamp. Squinting his eyes because of the too bright light flashing on, Sam looked around until his eyes landed on a fairly short man who was in fact, watching him.

"Wha…?" the younger Winchester began to ask sleepily before the shock of having a stranger in his room sobered the man and chased away his weariness. Sam's next questions came quickly, raising in volume the longer he spoke. "Who are you? What are you doing in my room? De-!"

"Hush, kiddo, big brother is asleep downstairs and you don't want to wake him up," Gabriel replied, quickly putting his palm over Sam's mouth so he couldn't call out for his brother.

The younger Winchester realized that he should have been scared of the golden-eyed stranger who was now preventing him from screaming, but something about the man was calming.

"You… your voice!" Sam exclaimed as soon as the other man allowed him to speak again. The younger Winchester's eyes widened in realization. The stranger's voice was the same voice Sam had heard every time one of his psychotic breaks had happened, the same voice all those animals had spoken with.

"Yeah, last time you saw me I was a little more hairy," Gabriel grinned, shrugging. It wasn't that the familiar hadn't liked the golden retriever form, but it would have stood in the way of a couple of things, finally convincing the human he was sane for one.

"You're wearing my clothes," Sam observed. The younger Winchester felt the need to say something, but he couldn't think of anything meaningful, so he had settled for the next best thing he had noticed. The guy really was a lot shorter than Sam, judging by how the younger Winchester's clothes hung off his frame. Not that the man wasn't well built, but he still was tiny in comparison though, his body type really shouldn't have been the thing Sam was focused on that moment.

"Would you have preferred to have me naked? That could be arranged, you know?" Gabriel waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Alright, so one of the reasons why the familiar spirit had never given up on this one potential witch in particular was that the younger Winchester had grown up to be smoking hot, sue him!

"No, no, it's okay… it's all…" Sam stammered, waving his hands defensively for a few moments, before the full absurdity of the situation hit him. "Who the hell are you?"

Apparently, the younger Winchester had gotten too used to thinking of himself as a nutcase, so he didn't even think to ask the most obvious questions anymore. In fact, Sam wasn't sure if he should be asking questions at all. There was a stranger in his bedroom, wearing his clothes and offering to take said clothes off again. The younger Winchester should have called the police on the short guy minutes ago!

"I'm your familiar spirit, your companion," Gabriel explained, a smug expression on his face, "It's my job to help you, give you information about the magic inside you and bug the hell out of you if you're straying from the right path…"

"I'm hallucinating again. It's never been people before, but -" Sam rudely interrupted the other man and got his upper arm pinched viciously for it. "Ow!"

The realization that a simple hallucination wouldn't be able to hurt him hit the younger Winchester hard. Not even Sam thought that he was crazy enough to have things his mind had made up hurt him physically.

"I'm no hallucination!" Gabriel insisted, staring the younger Winchester down until the taller man had to look away. Usually, it wasn't in the nature of a familiar to go dominant on their witch's ass, but most of the time the witches didn't resist their calling as hard as Sam was, either. "Look, I know this is less than ideal. Your mother really should have prepared you for this, but… we'll have to work with what we have."

Sam swallowed hard, daring to look at the shorter man again. The short guy's gaze was too intense to withstand it for long, but it undeniably spoke of honesty. "Mom was…?"

"A witch, yes," Gabriel confirmed, his eyes and his voice softening, "And she passed it on to you. Actually, your brother might have some magic in him too. I've never paid much attention to Dean, to be honest."

The familiar spirit realized that all this was a lot for the other man to take in, but the sooner Sam came to terms with everything the sooner things would be smooth sailing for them. There was no room for doubt in Gabriel's mind that their future was looking good.

"Why? Why now?" Sam asked in a surprisingly small voice. The younger Winchester was still fighting to accept everything he had heard, but even though it hadn't quite sunken in yet, he didn't doubt that it was true.

"22 is a powerful number, kiddo," Gabriel shrugged, which accentuated how ridiculous he looked in Sam's clothes that were much too big for his smaller frame. It was strange things like these Sam noticed, when everything else had stopped making much sense quite some time ago. "And you're a bit of a late bloomer. You might have first started at nine or eleven, maybe thirteen."

Gabriel had watched Sam for a long time to see when exactly his witchy side would kick in and the moment had finally come at the younger Winchester's 22nd birthday. Sam most likely didn't even realize that he had done it, but a very sudden and unpredicted rainstorm had made the long line in front of the club the younger Winchester and his friends had wanted to go to, much shorter just before they had arrived. That was when Gabriel had known that he was finally allowed to make contact with his chosen witch. The shorter man had only to wait for the next sabbat to talk to Sam and then of course, the moron had drawn all the wrong conclusions and had gotten himself psychiatric help instead of the familiar spirit he really needed.

"Why were you all those animals before?" Sam couldn't help asking. There was no room for doubt in his mind that the short guy had in fact, been each and every one of the animals that had spoken to Sam over the months. Why the hell his familiar had thought that it was a good idea to show up as a talking animal still was a mystery, though.

"I couldn't take human form until you accepted me," Gabriel groaned, shrugging once more which caused Sam's shirt to hang off his shoulders lopsidedly, "It's stupid, but you try to change a system that's been going for hundreds of years."

The younger Winchester took a few deep breaths, hoping to calm himself, but in the end he just had to laugh. Sam laughed until his stomach started to hurt and he had to curl in on himself, but he still couldn't stop laughing. It was a hysterical kind of laughter for sure, but the younger Winchester couldn't stop himself if he tried.

"You're worrying me, Sam," Gabriel commented with a deep frown, sitting on the edge of the bed and reaching out for the taller man. The familiar spirit ran his fingers through Sam's hair a couple of times, noticing that it had a calming effect on the man, so he kept doing it until the younger Winchester had stopped laughing and just laid there wheezing.

"I dropped out of college, you know?" Sam mumbled, looking up to the shorter man from under his bangs, "My girlfriend broke up with me, my friends… I don't have friends anymore. I thought I was losing my freaking mind!"

At least, it wasn't too late to pick his life back up again, if the younger Winchester could convince everyone else that he was in fact healed. It shouldn't be impossible for Sam to get back to college, maybe it would take a while until he could get the money together and convince Dean that it wasn't a spectacularly stupid idea, but with enough time it might be possible.

"You kinda have yourself to blame for that," Gabriel stated with just a hint of accusation in his voice, "Just listening to me would have spared you a lot of grief for sure."

It would have spared them both a lot of grief, in fact! Lucifer had already offered to take over for Gabriel, since the younger spirit obviously wasn't getting anywhere. When Gabriel had declined, Lucifer hadn't been too happy with him. Not to mention Balthazar's taunting comments. Even Castiel had given Gabriel sympathetic looks and Castiel was the one of them who had never had a witch to begin with!

"Maybe you're just crappy at making people listen to you!" Sam shot back, glaring up at the shorter man. Honestly, the younger Winchester didn't know what exactly the familiar could have said to get him to listen instead of just freak out, but the guy surely could have done better than just saying 'Hey Sambo, I'm here now, what's up?'.

"Maybe you need to get laid!" Gabriel retorted, giving the taller man a challenging look.

"What?" Sam asked ineloquently. The younger Winchester couldn't quite follow the leap in logic the shorter man had just made. After about 18 months of forced celibacy, Sam was inclined to agree with the other man just for the matter of principle, though.

"You're clearly frustrated. Endorphins might help," Gabriel explained with a grin, patting the younger Winchester's head like Sam was a little kid who had just said something adorable.

"Little problem there, everyone around thinks I'm insane! My brother is the only person I even talk to anymore!" Sam huffed, batting the other man's hand away.

Gabriel was quiet for a few long moments before he started to stroke the younger Winchester's hair once more and commented in a slightly forced, casual tone, "I could help you with that."

Sam frowned deeply, fixing Gabriel's golden-brown eyes with his own green ones. His familiar hadn't just suggested what the younger Winchester thought he had suggested, right? Sam went over the list of the things the shorter man had told him were the duties of a familiar spirit in his mind and couldn't find anything about sexual favors.

"What? You snap your fingers and a couple of women show up?" the younger Winchester asked awkwardly. Sam wasn't quite sure, if he found that thought more or less disturbing than the possibility that the guy who had made him believe that he was insane for over a year had just made a pass on him.

"You're the witch, not me," Gabriel clarified flatly, before he gave Sam a smoldering look, "Besides, we could cut the middle man out."

In theory, familiars weren't supposed to get romantically involved with their witches, but it wasn't like it was a law or something, it was just considered extremely taboo. Besides, Sam didn't know anything about that little, inconsequential rule and he didn't need to know for another while. In this case, Gabriel was prepared and willing to take full responsibility for his actions later.

"Excuse me?" Sam damn near squeaked, sitting up in bed before he went on talking, "After everything you've…"

The younger Winchester didn't get a chance to finish the rant he had started before Gabriel sealed their mouths together. When Sam tried to make a sound of protest – at least he thought it had been protest at the time – he got a tongue shoved between his lips instead. It only took a few short moments for the younger Winchester to get with the program and pull the shorter man closer to him.

Gabriel hummed appreciatively, threading his fingers through Sam's hair once more. The younger Winchester sure knew how to kiss someone breathless. Gabriel sighed against the taller man's lips and wanted to dive back in when a pair of big hands framed his face and effectively stopped his lips from reaching their target.

"Wait… what's… what's your name?" Sam asked a little breathlessly. If he was going to give in to his curiosity when it came to having sex with another man, a curiosity that had been there since puberty had hit the younger Winchester years ago, he wanted to at least have a name to put to the face.

The thought that sleeping with his familiar spirit might be a spectacularly bad idea was gone as quickly as it had come when the shorter man leaned in to nibble on Sam's neck. There were a lot of things the younger Winchester would have to figure out in the morning, but for the moment he was happy to add the question of how big the mistake he was making was, to the list of things he could concern himself with later.

"Call me Gabriel," the smaller man whispered into Sam's ear, catching the earlobe between his teeth while he was already in biting distance. The reaction Gabriel got was encouraging enough to do it again and then, once more just to get another deep moan out of Sam.

"Gabriel," the younger Winchester breathed, leaning his forehead against Gabriel's. This really wasn't where Sam had thought the day was going, but he was far from complaining; especially when the shorter man swung one of his legs over the younger Winchester's, straddling him.

"This is totally crazy," Sam commented, even as he pulled the plain grey t-shirt Gabriel had gotten from his wardrobe earlier, over the shorter man's head. Actually, totally crazy didn't even begin to describe what all this was, but it also was the first thing in a long time that felt completely and undoubtedly right to the younger Winchester.

"So?" Gabriel grinned, his fingers working quickly to unbutton the shirt Sam had gone to bed in earlier. The familiar spirit could feel the acceptance radiating from his young charge and it was one of the best feelings in the world, especially after he had had to be patient for so long to get it.

"Just saying, I guess," Sam shrugged, losing his shirt as he did so.

The younger Winchester took a firm hold of Gabriel's hips and flipped them over, fitting himself between the smaller man's legs and rolling his hips against his familiar's for a few long moments, before he pulled back enough to rid them both of their pants.

"You could have borrowed one of my boxers too, you know?" Sam stated a little absentmindedly as he took in Gabriel's naked form. The younger Winchester had realized that he found men just as attractive as women early on, but other than a drunk kiss the other guy didn't even remember happened, nothing had ever happened between Sam and another man. With everything that had happened in the last few minutes and the breathtaking sight in front of him, the younger Winchester couldn't help wondering why he had never pushed the matter further. Then again, he was somewhat glad that he hadn't at the same time.

"I didn't want to push my luck," Gabriel replied in fake seriousness, his eyes sparkling with mirth. The familiar knew that his human form was pretty damn nice to look at, but he really wanted Sam to do more than just look, so he held out his hand in an invitation the younger Winchester took all too gladly.

There was no more talking after the younger Winchester let Gabriel pull him back down and on top of the smaller man. They both moaned in unison when their naked bodies met for the first time. Sam rolled his hips against Gabriel's experimentally. If he hadn't suspected before that they both were much too worked up for this to last, he did now.

The familiar hooked his legs over the younger Winchester's hips to keep their bodies as close together as they could be, burrowing his hands in Sam's hair and pulling the taller man into a heated kiss. The bed was protesting against their combined weight when the younger Winchester started to rut against Gabriel in earnest, but neither one of them noticed too much over their moaning and groaning.

The rhythm Sam had established faltered all too soon when the younger Winchester was reaching the point of no return, Gabriel right there with him, as they continued to move through the aftershocks just to keep the feelings of euphoria and closeness for a little while longer.

Afterward, the two of them were lying next to each other, trading lazy kisses that did nothing to help either one of them catch their breath.

"Dean," Sam suddenly exclaimed, a look of panic crossing his face. If his older brother had heard any of the things that had just gone on, it would be very embarrassing. Not to mention pretty damn impossible to explain.

"No, Gabriel," the familiar replied, raising an eyebrow at the younger Winchester.

"I… no… my brother," Sam tried to explain. A part of him was still waiting for Dean to come storming into the room, demanding to know what the hell was going on. However, every second that passed without that happening eased the younger Winchester's worries a little.

"Fast asleep on the couch downstairs with a horror movie marathon going," Gabriel stated, stretching like a thoroughly satisfied cat before he leaned closer to the younger Winchester to steal a quick kiss, "No need to worry, Samalam."

Sam nodded relieved and pulled Gabriel into his arms. The shorter man made sure that they were both covered by the blanket before they settled in for a few more hours of sleep. They could deal with everything else in the morning.

The younger Winchester was in high spirits when he walked down the stairs, Gabriel sitting on his shoulder. The familiar had chosen to be a raccoon, at least for the day, because they both agreed that it would be better to ease Dean into things. First of all, the older Winchester would have to be convinced that Sam was mentally healthy, then they could tackle the subject of the younger Winchester's bi-sexuality and him having a boyfriend. Sam wasn't quite sure, if he'd ever want to have the 'I'm a witch' talk with his older brother, but he guessed he could still make that decision when he knew more about what being a witch entailed.

"Morning," the younger Winchester exclaimed in an upbeat tone, causing his older brother to wake up with a start.

"Did you eat all those yourself?" Sam asked incredulously, looking at the candy wrappers scattered around his older brother. Dean had bought quite a lot of Halloween candy the previous day, but by the looks of it, the children of the neighborhood hadn't gotten much of it.

Dean gave a noncommittal shrug and grunted as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. What the older Winchester saw once he could see clearly didn't make any sense, though. "S'mmy?"

"I'm going jogging," Sam announced, pulling his shoes on while Gabriel sat next to him on the floor and Dean was watching him intently. It was true that the younger Winchester had hardly left the house on his own ever since he had started to think that he was going crazy, but that was going to change now, for obvious reasons.

"What's with the raccoon?" Dean asked a little dumbly, as he watched the animal climb back onto Sam's shoulder. The older Winchester was damn near convinced that he was still sleeping and having nightmares, from too much sugar and one too many bad horror movies.

"He's my new companion," Sam replied casually, petting Gabriel's head for a moment before he turned to the door, "Get used to him, he's staying."

Dean was too flabbergasted to say anything before his younger brother was already out of the door, but he could have sworn he heard the raccoon laughing at him.

Update: If you liked my Halloween story of the year "An Aimless Witch" you might be interested in the continuation of the story by the wonderful Treeni called "A Determined Familiar"