~.~

Sam Winchester is the kid brother of the most popular guy in school.

Dean is the track-team star, ladies' man and owner of the sweetest black car Gabriel's ever seen. He plays guitar, has a voice to melt the knees of even the most fervent music-hater and won't stand for bullying. He's every guy's ideal best friend, every girl's dream guy and every teacher's favourite student.

Gabriel Novak is, for all intents and purposes, a nobody. Less than a nobody. He's the moody kid who hangs out near the smokers, reading stuff he shouldn't and listening to music too loud and too profane to be appropriate for school.

Dean's that leading role in every teen romance ever. He's the jock with an actual personality underneath. He's the popular kid who still gives the shy girl a smile when he passes her in the hallway and roars at the bad kids who try to bully his little brother.

Gabriel's the kid that Wheatus sang about. And he's determined to get his Noelle, who in this case happens to be nearly six foot tall and all over gorgeous, with hazel green eyes and floppy brown hair that just perpetuates the kicked-puppy look the kid always wears.

There's two years between them, and although Gabriel knows two years means nothing in life, at High School it's everything. He knows what people would say about him, seventeen and pining after a kid who's not even legal yet. But Gabriel's long over that. He's been over it for years. He's tried everything to get over him, he's tried it all.

And the worst part is that they don't even really know each other. They don't talk, they don't hang in the same circles, and they don't share any of the same activities. But a weak part of Gabriel knows that if he were to indulge he'd try any of the things Sam likes, just as an excuse to get to know him. It's why he sulks around the library after school sometimes, reading slightly racy books from the senior section and claiming they're for his Lit class when the librarian gives him suspicious looks. He sits by himself with one earphone in and his feet on the table in front of him and he watches Sam Winchester come out of his shell.

It's the only place the kid ever really smiles.

Gabriel watches, during study sessions and after-school reading clubs, doing his best not to smile as he watches Sam really let go, really show his enthusiasm. He watches the animated way the kid talks with his hands, something Gabriel does too and something that makes his chest warm because he's always been a little self-conscious about it and it's sort've nice to see someone else does it too. He listens to the pleasant sound of Sam's voice, to the threads of excitement and passion when he's right in the very middle of explaining why the book they're reading is worth his love.

Gabriel likes everything Sam does, everything he says, even when he doesn't really understand it or agree with him. He likes to hear Sam laugh, secluded in the library with his group of friends and he likes the moments when they are quiet, when they read passages to themselves, or better yet when Sam reads his favourite parts out loud. Gabriel's in deep, and he knows it.

And his favourite moments are those fleeting, tiny ones, when Sam's eyes drift across the room when he's thinking, or when he's listening to someone talk, and his eyes will meet Gabriel's for just a heartbeat. Those are Gabriel's favourite moments for many, many reasons.

The electricity that tingles along his skin at the contact, the way his stomach quivers, the trip of his heart.

But the best reason is that Sam always smiles.

Nothing beaming and overt and sparkling, but something small, just this side of polite and a little friendly.

Because Gabriel has a terrible reputation, a really really bad one, one that might rival even his big brother Lucifer's. He's proud of it, of the way it makes people avoid him, of the way it makes bullies think twice about going near his little brother Castiel. Most of it is exaggeration, lies, gossip. A lot of it is true.

But in those tiny, fleeting heartbeats, Sam doesn't look like he cares, giving Gabriel that small, friendly smile with eyes that hold no fear of him.

And it might just be those tiny moments that ensure Gabriel can't get over him.

~.~