When the big man upstairs gave free rein of heaven to Castiel, the angel seemed to think of Gabriel as his intern, somewhat ironically since he was the oldest angel not rotting in hell this very moment, and gave him countless menial tasks to do. He'd been running around the universe all afternoon, so he couldn't have been more relieved to finally get home to Sam. His Sam.

Sam wasn't in the living room, so Gabriel just took a step forward and yelled out, "Honey, I'm ho-"

That was, until he felt something furry brush against his ankle.

Gabriel quickly leapt backwards, ready to smite whatever unfortunate idiot decided to break into his house. He just blinked at the small, grey ball of fur staring back at him with wide, blue eyes. He only looked away when he heard the lumbering footsteps of a giant entering the room. When Sam came into view he was wearing a huge grin.

"Gabriel! I see you've met little... well I haven't actually named him yet. Well... assuming it's a him... I haven't really checked now that I think about it." Sam's forehead wrinkled up in what Gabriel assumed was concentration, with a dab of confusion. Gabriel was utterly bewildered and was about to say something to that effect when Sam started to talk again.

"Before you ask, I found him wandering around outside. He was cute, so I stopped and petted him, and he just kind of followed me." He shrugged, and Gabriel realised that was kind of like how he met Sam. He smirked for a moment before returning to the matter at hand- the lump of fluff mewing happily around their feet.

"Do you even know how to take care of a... cat I assume?" Gabriel questioned, legitimately wondering if Sam had any knowledge of what to do, because he sure didn't. Archangels didn't normally need to know how to care for a house pet, but since when was his life normal?

"Well... no. But how hard could it be, right?" Sam looked back up at Gabriel, breaking out those damn puppy eyes he used whenever he wanted to get his way. Those eyes were like a nuclear bomb, wiping down any obstacles in the path to get what they want. And Gabriel was a sucker for them, so he had no choice but to bend to Sam's will.

And they were just about to find out how hard taking care of the cat really was.

It turned out the cat was only a few weeks old, and therefore couldn't eat solid food. As neither of them were mother cats, they had no idea what to feed it. In the end, Gabriel ended up snapping up a bottle of cat milk- which tastes nothing like real milk, by the way- and let Sam feed the cat.

Also, it didn't know how to use a litter box. They'd tried to teach it how plenty of times, but kept finding various droppings around the house no matter what they did. One time, Gabriel even found a little puddle on his side of the bed, something Sam found hilarious. It was less hilarious when he found another puddle on his side a few hours later.

Along with that, it didn't know how to be quiet. It woke them up at ungodly hours, meowing with a loudness that shouldn't have been possible coming from a six inch long living cotton ball.

The worst thing, though, was the fact that he and sam had no them time anymore. Oh sure, he'd tried to get the two of them alone quite a bit, but the cat always managed to get into something it shouldn't have, making Sam run out to rescue it from whatever it did this time.

It had been four days, and they still hadn't given it an official name, although Gabriel liked to call it The Fluffball From Hell. Sam didn't like that name very much.

After a week or so things had started to calm down some. The cat could eat real cat food now, given that it was watered down to the basically the consistency of water itself. It also learned how to use the litterbox, sometimes. They still occasionally found the odd present or two for them around the house, but it was much less frequent than before. It started to sleep more and more, and Gabriel found that the more it slept, the more he found himself warming up to the little thing.

On more than one occasion, Sam found Gabriel happily gazing down at the sleeping kitten in his lap, teasing him about it later. But he couldn't bring himself to care, he was always a sucker for cute things. Case in point, he was absolutely infatuated with Sam. So he couldn't help it when he started to love the thing.

But love can only go so far. When Gabriel found the cat standing on the side of the bed, staring at him with his giant blue eyes, head slightly tilted to the side, he got a bit peeved. This may have been due to the fact that Gabriel was currently buried inside of Sam, but the point remained that he didn't like the cat being there right now.

"You know, the way he looks kind of reminds me of Castiel." Sam, very helpfully, pointed out. Gabriel's face scrunched up in disgust.

"Sammy, please do not mention my brother in the middle of sex. Ever." Sam just chuckled and gently swatted at the cat to get him to leave so they could continue what they were doing.

Overall, though, having a kitten wasn't that bad. He was sitting on the couch cuddling with Sam- not that he'd admit he cuddled because hello, Archangel- and the kitten sprawled out in his lap, gently snoozing when he decided that they couldn't keep calling it "the cat."

"Kiddo, we're gonna need a name for this thing soon. Otherwise I'm gonna start calling him Fluffy and, appropriate as that is, it's a little overdone." Gabriel idly ran his fingers through Sam's hair, so used to petting the kitten it was a natural reaction.

Sam seemed to think about it for a moment then nodded, turning towards Gabriel. Leaning forward to touch his lips to the shorter man's, he spoke with an amused glint in his eye.

"He's loud, he's hyperactive, he loves sweet things, and he's downright adorable. Let's call him Loki."

That was the last thing said that night as Gabriel let out a roar of laughter and moved to tickle the youngest Winchester into oblivion.