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angelfeast2013-01-20 01:48 am
miscellanium) wrote in angelfeast2013-01-20 01:48 am
Entry tags:
beneath the shapeless glow
(after essentially quitting fandom during season 7, the urge to fic has returned.)
Title: Beneath the Shapeless Glow
Author:miscellanium
Characters: Gabriel/Sam
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~3600
Warnings: Dubious consent, knifeplay, humiliation, inflation, memory erasure
A/N: Started as a fill for Porn Battle XIII (prompts: pagan, blood, ritual, dub-con, blackmail). Functions as a prequel to Allegiance is the Strangest Thing and as a stand-alone. Masculine pronouns are used for Gabriel as opposed to the gender-neutral ou, because imo he's more embodied, integrated with his flesh, than the other angels. Title is from Aztec Camera's "The Back Door to Heaven." Thanks to cynassa for betaing this before it was put on hold and wantedplantlife for looking at the finished version.
Summary:If one trickster wouldn't take their side - wasn't even a trickster - Sam figured they might as well try asking another. Obviously there would be more to do (or more precisely, negotiate) once the god appeared, even if the ritual didn't say what it was, but this was as good a place to start as any.
[Set almost immediately after 5.08]
So. The trickster was an archangel gone native and rooting for the apocalypse just to put an end to one of the world's longest hissy fits. Sam could work with this.
While Dean and Castiel were off checking out a sign of some horseman or other (or so they said) Sam went and tracked down a version of the Poetic Edda with, according to Bobby, legitimate summoning and binding rituals embedded in the tales of Loki's exploits. If one trickster wouldn't take their side, well then.
The simplest ritual was written in an esoteric medieval Latin dialect, rather than the ecclesiastical Latin the Winchesters were used to, but the gist of it was clear enough; anoint lips with mead, cut the palm—always the palm, Christ—and paint a cross with the blood on any given surface, then begin the incantation. Obviously there would be more to do—or more precisely, negotiate—once the god appeared, even if the text didn't say what it was, but he figured this was as good a place to start as any.
He started reading aloud, ignoring his stinging right palm, and as he neared the end, his lips began to buzz, the floor shook and all the light bulbs exploded—
The voice that cut through Sam's momentary blindness was all too familiar. "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. You've got some 'splaining to do."
"You've got to be kidding me," Sam blurted out. "There's no way you're Loki."
"I'm whatever you want me to be," the archangel Gabriel said with a leer, laughing at Sam's disgusted expression.
"Let me guess—more witness protection."
"Ding ding ding—and on your first try, too!" Gabriel looked around, taking in the unexceptionally drab motel room and the thin line of Sam's lips. "Soooo, not in a chatty mood, huh? Fine, fine. But that ritual you just did? It's a two-parter. Want to know what the second part is?"
"No. You're leaving." He slammed the book shut, and was about to scuff out the cross of blood on the wall when Gabriel grabbed his hand. The archangel's nails dug into his palm and wrist, five small sharp points cold-hot against his skin.
"Not happening, pal. You made an offering, and I'm going to take it."
"Why, why don't you just wipe my memory or something, call it a day?" Sam wrenched his hand away, the sudden (painful) release as though Gabriel had deigned to let him go.
"Maybe because you should remember not to try summoning a god? Gosh golly gee, do you think that could be it?!" Gabriel's voice grew loud, louder than any human voice had a right to be, shaking the glass in the windows.
Sam didn't move. "What's to stop me telling people that Loki's not a god, just an angel? And we know how to kill angels."
"Just an—" Gabriel narrowed his eyes. His voice dropped back down, but overlaying it now was a high-pitched hum, thin and wavering, that pressed on Sam's eardrums. "You really have no idea what I am, do you? So how about you get off your high horse and finish what you fucking started, and I'll think about covering your tracks."
"Tracks?"
"Cripes, no wonder you've died so many times already." And just like that, the hum stopped, Gabriel flopped down onto the nearest bed, and the air felt lighter. "Okay, the ritual? Interpolation by some goody-goody monk who wanted to show those heathens a thing or two. Didn't work the way he wanted, blah blah blah. Anyway, it hacks right into heaven's radio, Sammy, and you know what you're broadcasting for everybody to hear?" When Sam didn't answer, Gabriel grinned. "Oh Lord, I offer up my heart for insert name here who will come unto me, for insert name here who will hide my flesh with his own, for insert name here who will—"
"I get the idea," Sam bit out. "Shut it down." The remark about dying stung, less as an indictment of his incompetence than as a reminder of that long Tuesday. He'd bring it up as another argument against this offering shit, but with any luck they'd never see each other again after today and to start that conversation now would have just dragged this out longer. Yet despite Sam's coldness Gabriel was still wearing that grin, all his teeth showing.
"Ah-ah. Tribute first."
"Look, that message can be traced here, to both of us, can't it?"
Gabriel scowled, then snapped his fingers. "Done." He stretched his arms, bed creaking beneath him, and linked his hands behind his head. "Alright, kiddo, we done with the stalling?"
Suddenly, Sam was aware of every inch of his skin, of the polyester of his shirt rubbing against his chest, of the weight of the air in his lungs. The archangel's eyes skimmed over him, calculating and appreciative both; Sam thought, not for the first time in his life and definitely not the last, what the everloving fuck.
-
The tribute, it turned out, was actually pretty par for the course. Just some sigil-marking followed by some "tasting of the flesh"—since the archangel was an Abrahamic being and not a purely pagan divinity, Sam was pretty sure that ruled out cannibalism. Maybe. Once an angel was so comfortable in its gendered body Sam forgot to think of ou as anything other than he, who knew what rules applied.
"So...you need to drink some of my blood?"
Gabriel made a face, gagging dramatically. "Your blood? That'd be like chugging herpes." Sam scowled. "Ha! Too soon?"
"Chri—cripes." Sam bit off a sigh and dragged his hands across his face. "Let's get this over with."
-
Gabriel sat astride Sam's back, denim against bare flesh, an unnatural weight pressing him down into the bed. The archangel traced a pattern on Sam's back with his blade, its tip catching on old scars, as he braced himself with a soft hand between Sam's shoulder blades.
"Just do it already," Sam muttered, shifting on the bed, the cheap sheets rough against his increasingly sensitive skin. Gabriel chuckled, his warm breath just barely ruffling the hair on the back of Sam's neck, and pressed the blade down.
Sam was used to having his skin opened, to the sharp feel of air working its way inside, but Gabriel kept cutting, carving—
It didn't hurt, no, the blade was too fine for that, Gabriel's hand too steady. The feeling was closer to that of an itch always out of reach, and the way Gabriel's fingers kept brushing against the edges of each cut just made it worse, sending his overcharged nerves wild. Everything seemed more than it was: Gabriel's crotch, cool where a human's would be warm, hard and heavy against his skin; the blood pooling hot in the dip of his back and trickling down his sides; the, oh fuck, the pressure of the mattress against his cock.
"Now you know how della Quercia felt; he never could resist a pretty face—or, well, grace," Gabriel said, his voice alarmingly close to Sam's ear, his vessel's New Jersey accent spilling out on the correction.
"Shut up," hissed Sam as he tried hard not to move, not to think about vessels (angels, Lucifer) or about, well, anything. But of course Gabriel had already noticed, already felt the slight rise of his hips, and Sam just knew the archangel was smirking at him.
Gabriel kept one hand on Sam's back, the angel sword flat against his skin, and slipped the other underneath. He let out a long low whistle as he traced the outline of Sam's cock.
"Don't say a fucking word," Sam ground out, teeth clenched.
"Really, Sammy, I'm offended." Gabriel stretched up quick as a snake and bit down hard on Sam's neck. The surprised sound Sam made, chopped off between a sob and a laugh, went right to Gabriel's cock—the sadist—Sam felt it hardening against him, full and thick--and the archangel's chuckle vibrated across his skin.
"Told you I was gonna taste of your flesh, kiddo." A clicking sound—Sam's jeans vanished, the weight of the blade disappeared—and Gabriel's other hand nudged at Sam's entrance, fingers circling in time with the slow strokes he gave Sam's cock.
"I didn't think," Sam started to say, his voice rough and catching in his throat, only to lose his words as another snap of the fingers filled him with something cold and wet—the liquid sensation of being slick with what had to be lube, coupled with his legs shoved wide and ass pulled up in the air, sent a hot prickling wave of shame down his back as Gabriel's breath dragged across his congealing blood.
The archangel took his time replying, leaning back instead to push Sam's buttocks apart and watch as lube dripped out and down his legs. Sam's breath came shallowly now as he tried to breathe around the pressure of the ever-rising amount of fluid in him, the skin of his belly gone taut, and he was, in some primal way, afraid to move, because it felt as though Gabriel could easily rip him apart. The grasp on his flesh tightened, blunt fingertips digging in like claws, and he realized that the fear was not unfounded.
Gabriel hummed, sliding his thumb across Sam's slick entrance, then pressed in just hard enough for Sam to buck at the intrusion. "No. You didn't think. And look where it's got you." He kept talking, his lips against Sam's skin and his hands moving as though it would hurt to keep still. "All helpless and ready to be slaughtered just like any old monster. Now, that could be with my penis," and he laughed at his own joke before stretching his body across Sam's again and bringing his head back down to Sam's ear to whisper: "Or we could paint the town red, and that's never any fun unless the paint's really red—you know what I mean, don'tcha?"
The worst part was that Sam did know what he meant, the year of addiction shoved down not quite out of reach, yet something bigger than this was folded up in Gabriel's words. There was a joking lilt in his vowels but everything else was edged with an old thirst—even if Sam could not name it he could feel it, and he did not need to turn his head to see the gold flash of the archangel's eyes gone wild. The inanity of Gabriel's chatter had turned more threatening than reassuring, disconnected as he seemed to be from the idea of lives with significance beyond his own.
But maybe this was narrow, uncharitable thinking on Sam's part, still resentful of having wound up in yet another position that he hadn't planned on. Being stripped naked, cut up, shoved face down on a shabby motel bed, and filled to what felt like bursting with lube could do things to a man. Already he was finding it hard to hold in the clear liquid; every involuntary throb of his entrance or press of the archangel's thumb helped it to escape in spurts and dribbles, and the wet sound of it hitting the sheets between his legs made his face warmer with every drop. Oh, there were probably sexier ways to describe what was happening, but Sam didn't feel particularly sexy right now as he fought to hang on to an increasingly blurred sense of dignity; his hard-on was involuntary, he knew, a gut reaction to the sharp edges and soft hands all over his body, and surely this was not part of the offering he had never meant to make.
Gabriel reared back, the separation of bodies tugging at the dried blood on Sam's back and opening the cuts up again. When Sam hissed and put his head against his crossed forearms he caught sight of his belly, grown big enough now that if he wanted to slide a hand along and beneath its swell he could.
"But! Murder's too easy," said the archangel. "I like to get my cheap thrills the hard way." He laughed and slapped Sam's ass hard enough to leave a red right handprint that wasn't allowed to fade.
Part of Sam felt like he should be offended, his reputation as a top-notch hunter at stake somehow, while another part of his brain reminded him that this was not an exercise in self-esteem but rather saving the world—even if they could be related, and—
Just as Sam managed to get himself on a track to distraction, Gabriel yanked him back into the moment by using an immovable strength to flip him over in one smooth move and slam him back down on the bed. A flash in his peripheral vision told him that Gabriel had the angel sword out again; the cold of metal in a vulnerable place, down low and sharp against his femoral artery, confirmed it.
"You still haven't learned the lesson, have you." Gabriel's voice fell instead of rising, the invitation to answer denied.
Sam's jaw went tight, his teeth gritting against each other. "Letting go of Dean, got that, and as for saying yes—" The blade pressed down and he stopped talking, but didn't look away from those golden eyes.
"It's possible to learn more than two things in a lifetime, Sam." His voice was rich with disdain but there was a sort of pleading in his eyes, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it look that Sam only saw because he wasn't expecting it.
And so Sam chose this moment to strike, coiling his legs away from the blade at the same time he grabbed for it to hold the damn thing to Gabriel's throat—or he would have, if the archangel hadn't frozen him with a quick snap of the fingers.
"Not your best effort, kiddo. Lucy and Ricky just got back anyway." Whatever it was that had peeked through his eyes was hidden again, shoved back under the flesh and insouciance he wore like a shield. With a puppeteer's flourish he rearranged Sam's limbs, herky-jerky, before setting him back down on hands and knees once more.
"What do you mean got back?" Sam couldn't move but he could still speak; he was almost shamefully grateful to have this small freedom. Even so it was hard to breathe, his heart rabbit-thumping harder with every soft pass of Gabriel's cold hands over his stretched stomach, with every catch of fingernails on cuts freshly scabbed.
"I mean," Gabriel said as he walked around the bed, his footsteps soundless, "They're gonna walk in any minute." Sam tried his damndest to look sideways and see Gabriel's face, but his muscles stayed locked up. Gabriel's hands stopped on his body above and below, on the dip of his back and the swell of his belly, as though feeling for the thin spots where, with the slightest pressure, the man would give way.
The bed began to shudder and it took Sam a moment to realize that it was his legs shaking, despite everything, from the strain of trying to hold in such a large volume of liquid. Of lube, his memory graciously reminded him, and, fuck what would Dean think to see him like this? This couldn't look like any offering he had ever seen, Sam was sure, and what about Cas? Shit, what if it all came squirting out in front of Castiel, who seemed to be edging towards if not absolving him then at least trusting him? Right then Gabriel moved his hands, like he was getting ready to—
Stop. Gabriel took a step back and looked at the sigils he had carved into Sam's back, crusted in dried blood. He pressed a palm to his erection, softening his cock. Next time. Castiel and Dean were a good hour away, which left just enough space to tidy up. Sam, suspended now in time, showed no indication of feeling the burn of skin rearranging and tearing as the sigils shifted, went from markers of grace to mere geometrical cuts—pretty enough to look at, but meaning nothing. The slivers of archangel grace woven into Sam's tendons and sinews stayed there, but they were buried deep under demon blood and flesh tainted by an unnatural life; one would have to know where to look to see an angel in there, and Gabriel had plenty of practice with hiding himself.
He'd already put his memory stick in a few other people, as it were, but this one had a way of not staying gone. To keep the backup secure he'd have to scramble things a bit in Sam's mind—he might fix it later by way of thanks, or something, if anybody was left to care. In the meantime, easy enough to Photoshop himself out of there: Sam summoned Loki all right, and of course, being a Winchester, things didn't go as expected, only this go-round the trickster would just a be trickster and Gabriel would just be a peripheral trace, something indefinable. Then he moved back in, laid his hands upon that quivering body once more, and restarted Sam's world.
Sam couldn't turn his head, still frozen in place, but Gabriel's voice, now a strange sort of pitch that slid out of his memory as soon as he heard it, was right in his ear saying things he couldn't understand—it was more magic, had to be, with the way his skin prickled with a rising fever-heat and his stomach felt impossibly huge and unreal, every throb of his cock pulling his skin tight—
Without warning Gabriel pushed a firm hand up into Sam's belly, holding him in place and laughing at the choking sound he made as he was forced to open up, let go. The burst of sensation shocked him into coming, that helpless rush of overstimulation, yet Gabriel still wasn't done. With each shove he could feel the liquid spurt out of him, hear the way it shot far enough to splatter on the wood floor instead of the bed, each press of the archangel's hands yielding less until all that was left was just the occasional dribble down his thighs. Sam knew that if he spoke now his throat would be clogged up, as though with tears, and he wouldn't grant that satisfaction. Better to stay quiet now, work on breathing again.
Summoning rituals, he thought foggily, never worked the way they should.
"Better clean up." Gabriel grinned, patted him on the ass, and vanished with a wink.
The fluorescent ceiling lights hummed, low and familiar, and Sam held onto this grounding sound as he collapsed onto the crumpled bedspread. He didn't have the energy to rise, his legs weak, so he pulled the pillow over his head and waited for the door to open. As the minutes passed, however, it became clear that Dean and Castiel's arrival was not in fact imminent, and the sheets were sticky against his body. So he got up, pulling the sheets with him to sop up the mess on the floor, gathered together some dry clothes and went into the bathroom to take a shower. Hot water to clean his skin, to steam out the shadowy memory of foreign hands—yes, that sounded good.
-
Over the drone of the bathroom fan Sam heard a door opening, followed by a loud slam and a complaining voice that could only be his brother. There was no answer, which didn't mean Castiel wasn't there, so he pulled on jeans before stepping out, still scrubbing his hair dry.
"No luck, then?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow at Castiel, who was staring at him, eyes narrowed, as though trying to answer a private question.
Dean scowled. "Whole thing was a bust. No horseman, no seal, not even any goddamn demons. One giant—" He blew a raspberry, throwing his jacket onto the floor for added punctuation.
"It was not entirely a waste of time," Castiel said. "We banished that ghost."
"Woo, a ghost cat haunting an old church, big deal. Call me when it's a ghost elephant," he snapped, turning on the TV and flinging himself down onto his bed. "Sam, what about Loki, any luck there?"
The memory of just a short while ago was already going vague, a string of impressions and sounds and not much more, and Sam shook his head. He went back into the bathroom to grab his shirt (right, the sheets were soaking in the tub, hadn't he spilled something?) and when he returned Castiel was staring again.
"Just another dead end. Wanted my blood for his trouble and then—" Sam shrugged.
Dean sighed, eyes still on the TV. "We've had worse ideas."
"Those markings are his, then." Castiel reached out like ou was going to touch them, but something about the idea of it felt too raw and so Sam shied away.
"Yes. They'll heal on their own," he added quickly, unnerved by the angel's gaze. He'd thought he was used to it by now, that hackle-raising directness; instead his instincts have him as skittish as when they first met a year ago, in the old days. Must just be the stress wearing him down.
Castiel looked at Sam steadily, face unreadable. "Perhaps," the angel said at length. The word dropped into the stillness left behind as ou vanished, the rustle of flight quieter now that ou was losing grace.
The cuts on his back sent twinges deep to the bone whenever he moved, but he knew one way or another that this would pass. He'd healed from hurts before, those stories spiderwebbed now across his skin. Whatever happened to his body next, if he could still call it his—that too would pass.
Title: Beneath the Shapeless Glow
Author:
miscellaniumCharacters: Gabriel/Sam
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~3600
Warnings: Dubious consent, knifeplay, humiliation, inflation, memory erasure
A/N: Started as a fill for Porn Battle XIII (prompts: pagan, blood, ritual, dub-con, blackmail). Functions as a prequel to Allegiance is the Strangest Thing and as a stand-alone. Masculine pronouns are used for Gabriel as opposed to the gender-neutral ou, because imo he's more embodied, integrated with his flesh, than the other angels. Title is from Aztec Camera's "The Back Door to Heaven." Thanks to cynassa for betaing this before it was put on hold and wantedplantlife for looking at the finished version.
Summary:If one trickster wouldn't take their side - wasn't even a trickster - Sam figured they might as well try asking another. Obviously there would be more to do (or more precisely, negotiate) once the god appeared, even if the ritual didn't say what it was, but this was as good a place to start as any.
[Set almost immediately after 5.08]
So. The trickster was an archangel gone native and rooting for the apocalypse just to put an end to one of the world's longest hissy fits. Sam could work with this.
While Dean and Castiel were off checking out a sign of some horseman or other (or so they said) Sam went and tracked down a version of the Poetic Edda with, according to Bobby, legitimate summoning and binding rituals embedded in the tales of Loki's exploits. If one trickster wouldn't take their side, well then.
The simplest ritual was written in an esoteric medieval Latin dialect, rather than the ecclesiastical Latin the Winchesters were used to, but the gist of it was clear enough; anoint lips with mead, cut the palm—always the palm, Christ—and paint a cross with the blood on any given surface, then begin the incantation. Obviously there would be more to do—or more precisely, negotiate—once the god appeared, even if the text didn't say what it was, but he figured this was as good a place to start as any.
He started reading aloud, ignoring his stinging right palm, and as he neared the end, his lips began to buzz, the floor shook and all the light bulbs exploded—
The voice that cut through Sam's momentary blindness was all too familiar. "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. You've got some 'splaining to do."
"You've got to be kidding me," Sam blurted out. "There's no way you're Loki."
"I'm whatever you want me to be," the archangel Gabriel said with a leer, laughing at Sam's disgusted expression.
"Let me guess—more witness protection."
"Ding ding ding—and on your first try, too!" Gabriel looked around, taking in the unexceptionally drab motel room and the thin line of Sam's lips. "Soooo, not in a chatty mood, huh? Fine, fine. But that ritual you just did? It's a two-parter. Want to know what the second part is?"
"No. You're leaving." He slammed the book shut, and was about to scuff out the cross of blood on the wall when Gabriel grabbed his hand. The archangel's nails dug into his palm and wrist, five small sharp points cold-hot against his skin.
"Not happening, pal. You made an offering, and I'm going to take it."
"Why, why don't you just wipe my memory or something, call it a day?" Sam wrenched his hand away, the sudden (painful) release as though Gabriel had deigned to let him go.
"Maybe because you should remember not to try summoning a god? Gosh golly gee, do you think that could be it?!" Gabriel's voice grew loud, louder than any human voice had a right to be, shaking the glass in the windows.
Sam didn't move. "What's to stop me telling people that Loki's not a god, just an angel? And we know how to kill angels."
"Just an—" Gabriel narrowed his eyes. His voice dropped back down, but overlaying it now was a high-pitched hum, thin and wavering, that pressed on Sam's eardrums. "You really have no idea what I am, do you? So how about you get off your high horse and finish what you fucking started, and I'll think about covering your tracks."
"Tracks?"
"Cripes, no wonder you've died so many times already." And just like that, the hum stopped, Gabriel flopped down onto the nearest bed, and the air felt lighter. "Okay, the ritual? Interpolation by some goody-goody monk who wanted to show those heathens a thing or two. Didn't work the way he wanted, blah blah blah. Anyway, it hacks right into heaven's radio, Sammy, and you know what you're broadcasting for everybody to hear?" When Sam didn't answer, Gabriel grinned. "Oh Lord, I offer up my heart for insert name here who will come unto me, for insert name here who will hide my flesh with his own, for insert name here who will—"
"I get the idea," Sam bit out. "Shut it down." The remark about dying stung, less as an indictment of his incompetence than as a reminder of that long Tuesday. He'd bring it up as another argument against this offering shit, but with any luck they'd never see each other again after today and to start that conversation now would have just dragged this out longer. Yet despite Sam's coldness Gabriel was still wearing that grin, all his teeth showing.
"Ah-ah. Tribute first."
"Look, that message can be traced here, to both of us, can't it?"
Gabriel scowled, then snapped his fingers. "Done." He stretched his arms, bed creaking beneath him, and linked his hands behind his head. "Alright, kiddo, we done with the stalling?"
Suddenly, Sam was aware of every inch of his skin, of the polyester of his shirt rubbing against his chest, of the weight of the air in his lungs. The archangel's eyes skimmed over him, calculating and appreciative both; Sam thought, not for the first time in his life and definitely not the last, what the everloving fuck.
The tribute, it turned out, was actually pretty par for the course. Just some sigil-marking followed by some "tasting of the flesh"—since the archangel was an Abrahamic being and not a purely pagan divinity, Sam was pretty sure that ruled out cannibalism. Maybe. Once an angel was so comfortable in its gendered body Sam forgot to think of ou as anything other than he, who knew what rules applied.
"So...you need to drink some of my blood?"
Gabriel made a face, gagging dramatically. "Your blood? That'd be like chugging herpes." Sam scowled. "Ha! Too soon?"
"Chri—cripes." Sam bit off a sigh and dragged his hands across his face. "Let's get this over with."
Gabriel sat astride Sam's back, denim against bare flesh, an unnatural weight pressing him down into the bed. The archangel traced a pattern on Sam's back with his blade, its tip catching on old scars, as he braced himself with a soft hand between Sam's shoulder blades.
"Just do it already," Sam muttered, shifting on the bed, the cheap sheets rough against his increasingly sensitive skin. Gabriel chuckled, his warm breath just barely ruffling the hair on the back of Sam's neck, and pressed the blade down.
Sam was used to having his skin opened, to the sharp feel of air working its way inside, but Gabriel kept cutting, carving—
It didn't hurt, no, the blade was too fine for that, Gabriel's hand too steady. The feeling was closer to that of an itch always out of reach, and the way Gabriel's fingers kept brushing against the edges of each cut just made it worse, sending his overcharged nerves wild. Everything seemed more than it was: Gabriel's crotch, cool where a human's would be warm, hard and heavy against his skin; the blood pooling hot in the dip of his back and trickling down his sides; the, oh fuck, the pressure of the mattress against his cock.
"Now you know how della Quercia felt; he never could resist a pretty face—or, well, grace," Gabriel said, his voice alarmingly close to Sam's ear, his vessel's New Jersey accent spilling out on the correction.
"Shut up," hissed Sam as he tried hard not to move, not to think about vessels (angels, Lucifer) or about, well, anything. But of course Gabriel had already noticed, already felt the slight rise of his hips, and Sam just knew the archangel was smirking at him.
Gabriel kept one hand on Sam's back, the angel sword flat against his skin, and slipped the other underneath. He let out a long low whistle as he traced the outline of Sam's cock.
"Don't say a fucking word," Sam ground out, teeth clenched.
"Really, Sammy, I'm offended." Gabriel stretched up quick as a snake and bit down hard on Sam's neck. The surprised sound Sam made, chopped off between a sob and a laugh, went right to Gabriel's cock—the sadist—Sam felt it hardening against him, full and thick--and the archangel's chuckle vibrated across his skin.
"Told you I was gonna taste of your flesh, kiddo." A clicking sound—Sam's jeans vanished, the weight of the blade disappeared—and Gabriel's other hand nudged at Sam's entrance, fingers circling in time with the slow strokes he gave Sam's cock.
"I didn't think," Sam started to say, his voice rough and catching in his throat, only to lose his words as another snap of the fingers filled him with something cold and wet—the liquid sensation of being slick with what had to be lube, coupled with his legs shoved wide and ass pulled up in the air, sent a hot prickling wave of shame down his back as Gabriel's breath dragged across his congealing blood.
The archangel took his time replying, leaning back instead to push Sam's buttocks apart and watch as lube dripped out and down his legs. Sam's breath came shallowly now as he tried to breathe around the pressure of the ever-rising amount of fluid in him, the skin of his belly gone taut, and he was, in some primal way, afraid to move, because it felt as though Gabriel could easily rip him apart. The grasp on his flesh tightened, blunt fingertips digging in like claws, and he realized that the fear was not unfounded.
Gabriel hummed, sliding his thumb across Sam's slick entrance, then pressed in just hard enough for Sam to buck at the intrusion. "No. You didn't think. And look where it's got you." He kept talking, his lips against Sam's skin and his hands moving as though it would hurt to keep still. "All helpless and ready to be slaughtered just like any old monster. Now, that could be with my penis," and he laughed at his own joke before stretching his body across Sam's again and bringing his head back down to Sam's ear to whisper: "Or we could paint the town red, and that's never any fun unless the paint's really red—you know what I mean, don'tcha?"
The worst part was that Sam did know what he meant, the year of addiction shoved down not quite out of reach, yet something bigger than this was folded up in Gabriel's words. There was a joking lilt in his vowels but everything else was edged with an old thirst—even if Sam could not name it he could feel it, and he did not need to turn his head to see the gold flash of the archangel's eyes gone wild. The inanity of Gabriel's chatter had turned more threatening than reassuring, disconnected as he seemed to be from the idea of lives with significance beyond his own.
But maybe this was narrow, uncharitable thinking on Sam's part, still resentful of having wound up in yet another position that he hadn't planned on. Being stripped naked, cut up, shoved face down on a shabby motel bed, and filled to what felt like bursting with lube could do things to a man. Already he was finding it hard to hold in the clear liquid; every involuntary throb of his entrance or press of the archangel's thumb helped it to escape in spurts and dribbles, and the wet sound of it hitting the sheets between his legs made his face warmer with every drop. Oh, there were probably sexier ways to describe what was happening, but Sam didn't feel particularly sexy right now as he fought to hang on to an increasingly blurred sense of dignity; his hard-on was involuntary, he knew, a gut reaction to the sharp edges and soft hands all over his body, and surely this was not part of the offering he had never meant to make.
Gabriel reared back, the separation of bodies tugging at the dried blood on Sam's back and opening the cuts up again. When Sam hissed and put his head against his crossed forearms he caught sight of his belly, grown big enough now that if he wanted to slide a hand along and beneath its swell he could.
"But! Murder's too easy," said the archangel. "I like to get my cheap thrills the hard way." He laughed and slapped Sam's ass hard enough to leave a red right handprint that wasn't allowed to fade.
Part of Sam felt like he should be offended, his reputation as a top-notch hunter at stake somehow, while another part of his brain reminded him that this was not an exercise in self-esteem but rather saving the world—even if they could be related, and—
Just as Sam managed to get himself on a track to distraction, Gabriel yanked him back into the moment by using an immovable strength to flip him over in one smooth move and slam him back down on the bed. A flash in his peripheral vision told him that Gabriel had the angel sword out again; the cold of metal in a vulnerable place, down low and sharp against his femoral artery, confirmed it.
"You still haven't learned the lesson, have you." Gabriel's voice fell instead of rising, the invitation to answer denied.
Sam's jaw went tight, his teeth gritting against each other. "Letting go of Dean, got that, and as for saying yes—" The blade pressed down and he stopped talking, but didn't look away from those golden eyes.
"It's possible to learn more than two things in a lifetime, Sam." His voice was rich with disdain but there was a sort of pleading in his eyes, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it look that Sam only saw because he wasn't expecting it.
And so Sam chose this moment to strike, coiling his legs away from the blade at the same time he grabbed for it to hold the damn thing to Gabriel's throat—or he would have, if the archangel hadn't frozen him with a quick snap of the fingers.
"Not your best effort, kiddo. Lucy and Ricky just got back anyway." Whatever it was that had peeked through his eyes was hidden again, shoved back under the flesh and insouciance he wore like a shield. With a puppeteer's flourish he rearranged Sam's limbs, herky-jerky, before setting him back down on hands and knees once more.
"What do you mean got back?" Sam couldn't move but he could still speak; he was almost shamefully grateful to have this small freedom. Even so it was hard to breathe, his heart rabbit-thumping harder with every soft pass of Gabriel's cold hands over his stretched stomach, with every catch of fingernails on cuts freshly scabbed.
"I mean," Gabriel said as he walked around the bed, his footsteps soundless, "They're gonna walk in any minute." Sam tried his damndest to look sideways and see Gabriel's face, but his muscles stayed locked up. Gabriel's hands stopped on his body above and below, on the dip of his back and the swell of his belly, as though feeling for the thin spots where, with the slightest pressure, the man would give way.
The bed began to shudder and it took Sam a moment to realize that it was his legs shaking, despite everything, from the strain of trying to hold in such a large volume of liquid. Of lube, his memory graciously reminded him, and, fuck what would Dean think to see him like this? This couldn't look like any offering he had ever seen, Sam was sure, and what about Cas? Shit, what if it all came squirting out in front of Castiel, who seemed to be edging towards if not absolving him then at least trusting him? Right then Gabriel moved his hands, like he was getting ready to—
Stop. Gabriel took a step back and looked at the sigils he had carved into Sam's back, crusted in dried blood. He pressed a palm to his erection, softening his cock. Next time. Castiel and Dean were a good hour away, which left just enough space to tidy up. Sam, suspended now in time, showed no indication of feeling the burn of skin rearranging and tearing as the sigils shifted, went from markers of grace to mere geometrical cuts—pretty enough to look at, but meaning nothing. The slivers of archangel grace woven into Sam's tendons and sinews stayed there, but they were buried deep under demon blood and flesh tainted by an unnatural life; one would have to know where to look to see an angel in there, and Gabriel had plenty of practice with hiding himself.
He'd already put his memory stick in a few other people, as it were, but this one had a way of not staying gone. To keep the backup secure he'd have to scramble things a bit in Sam's mind—he might fix it later by way of thanks, or something, if anybody was left to care. In the meantime, easy enough to Photoshop himself out of there: Sam summoned Loki all right, and of course, being a Winchester, things didn't go as expected, only this go-round the trickster would just a be trickster and Gabriel would just be a peripheral trace, something indefinable. Then he moved back in, laid his hands upon that quivering body once more, and restarted Sam's world.
Sam couldn't turn his head, still frozen in place, but Gabriel's voice, now a strange sort of pitch that slid out of his memory as soon as he heard it, was right in his ear saying things he couldn't understand—it was more magic, had to be, with the way his skin prickled with a rising fever-heat and his stomach felt impossibly huge and unreal, every throb of his cock pulling his skin tight—
Without warning Gabriel pushed a firm hand up into Sam's belly, holding him in place and laughing at the choking sound he made as he was forced to open up, let go. The burst of sensation shocked him into coming, that helpless rush of overstimulation, yet Gabriel still wasn't done. With each shove he could feel the liquid spurt out of him, hear the way it shot far enough to splatter on the wood floor instead of the bed, each press of the archangel's hands yielding less until all that was left was just the occasional dribble down his thighs. Sam knew that if he spoke now his throat would be clogged up, as though with tears, and he wouldn't grant that satisfaction. Better to stay quiet now, work on breathing again.
Summoning rituals, he thought foggily, never worked the way they should.
"Better clean up." Gabriel grinned, patted him on the ass, and vanished with a wink.
The fluorescent ceiling lights hummed, low and familiar, and Sam held onto this grounding sound as he collapsed onto the crumpled bedspread. He didn't have the energy to rise, his legs weak, so he pulled the pillow over his head and waited for the door to open. As the minutes passed, however, it became clear that Dean and Castiel's arrival was not in fact imminent, and the sheets were sticky against his body. So he got up, pulling the sheets with him to sop up the mess on the floor, gathered together some dry clothes and went into the bathroom to take a shower. Hot water to clean his skin, to steam out the shadowy memory of foreign hands—yes, that sounded good.
Over the drone of the bathroom fan Sam heard a door opening, followed by a loud slam and a complaining voice that could only be his brother. There was no answer, which didn't mean Castiel wasn't there, so he pulled on jeans before stepping out, still scrubbing his hair dry.
"No luck, then?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow at Castiel, who was staring at him, eyes narrowed, as though trying to answer a private question.
Dean scowled. "Whole thing was a bust. No horseman, no seal, not even any goddamn demons. One giant—" He blew a raspberry, throwing his jacket onto the floor for added punctuation.
"It was not entirely a waste of time," Castiel said. "We banished that ghost."
"Woo, a ghost cat haunting an old church, big deal. Call me when it's a ghost elephant," he snapped, turning on the TV and flinging himself down onto his bed. "Sam, what about Loki, any luck there?"
The memory of just a short while ago was already going vague, a string of impressions and sounds and not much more, and Sam shook his head. He went back into the bathroom to grab his shirt (right, the sheets were soaking in the tub, hadn't he spilled something?) and when he returned Castiel was staring again.
"Just another dead end. Wanted my blood for his trouble and then—" Sam shrugged.
Dean sighed, eyes still on the TV. "We've had worse ideas."
"Those markings are his, then." Castiel reached out like ou was going to touch them, but something about the idea of it felt too raw and so Sam shied away.
"Yes. They'll heal on their own," he added quickly, unnerved by the angel's gaze. He'd thought he was used to it by now, that hackle-raising directness; instead his instincts have him as skittish as when they first met a year ago, in the old days. Must just be the stress wearing him down.
Castiel looked at Sam steadily, face unreadable. "Perhaps," the angel said at length. The word dropped into the stillness left behind as ou vanished, the rustle of flight quieter now that ou was losing grace.
The cuts on his back sent twinges deep to the bone whenever he moved, but he knew one way or another that this would pass. He'd healed from hurts before, those stories spiderwebbed now across his skin. Whatever happened to his body next, if he could still call it his—that too would pass.