Mint and apricots

23. Kindred souls

After struggling to find better alternatives, Sam ended up sending his brother a message using the first few words that came to his mind.

To: Dean

I'll be hanging out for a few more hours. Have dinner without me.

Being more cryptic would have meant risking Dean calling him and asking for further clarification. But, at the same time, too much haste in adding information would have made his brother suspicious. Eventually, Sam decided that keeping the straight and simple style of someone with nothing to hide would be the best solution.

It took them about ten minutes by car to get to Gabriel's apartment, and since Luc was the only one who hadn't reached the (Not) my cup of tea on foot, all three of them got into his Citroën SUV in order to get to the suburban area of Salisbury Willows.

Luc was also the only one who had had an alcoholic drink, but Sam obeyed his conservative instincts and refrained from proposing himself as a driver. He knew how fond Luc was of his role as a driver – as well as the unquestioned owner of a car he loved – and he didn't want to take the risk of being scolded in front of a stranger for such a trifle. So, as it happened to him more often than he realized, he preferred to keep quiet, taking his place in the passenger seat without making the slightest comment about Luc's idea of getting his first drink in the middle of the afternoon.

Gabriel's bachelor pad was on the ground floor of a building that could offer a maximum of four apartments and was so different from Luc's detached house, but totally agreed with Sam's first impression of the man.

Whereas the walls of Luc's house were of an immaculate white, whoever had painted the small rooms of Gabriel's place had indulged in colors: leaf green for the tiny entrance, an autumn yellow embracing the living room, flashes of red on the kitchen furniture, a tanned parquet on the floors. In terms of furnishings, then, the style was closer to the lively and familiar one of Dean and Castiel's house than to the strictly minimalist, dazzling and impeccable approach favored by Luc.

In the living room, for example, stood a bookcase with wooden shelves, high up to the ceiling and swollen with volumes of all kinds. The result was that Sam soon got lost among the titles, while Gabriel cooked as he had insisted on doing and Luc continued to retrace the adventures of the past with him, sprawled out on one of the sofas.

Sam recognized several classics, many plays, a few dystopian-inspired titles and an avalanche of books on the culinary arts of the five continents. Judging also by the aromas that soon began to arise from the wooden cutting boards and pots that had been arranged in the kitchen, Gabriel looked like he loved to test himself with countless recipes and inspirations of the moment.

Sam had just crouched down to browse through the CD collection on the side of the stereo that had been installed below the window, when the landlord's voice invited him to be more daring.

"Way to go, Sam, great idea, we could use some music. Pick something you like, will you?"

Sam looked up just long enough to see that Gabriel was hopping from one side of the kitchen to the other and at the same time beating some eggs in a bowl, so he got to work. A few minutes later, Maggie Reilly's fairy voice began to sing on the first notes of Moonlight Shadow.

"Oh, nice!" Gabriel exclaimed, raising his face to the ceiling as if a wave of pleasure had just overwhelmed him. "Thank God you don't have your boyfriend's same taste in music! I feared the arrival of his beloved Earth, Wind & Fire. Those guys are like gone bad parsley: everywhere and annoying. Everyone take a seat, dinner's ready in two minutes!" he trilled then, more to stifle Luc's objection than because he wanted to have order.