Fic: Old Rules
Title: Old Rules
Authors: entangled_now and kijikun
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Gabriel, implied Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: 5x08
Word Count: 4262
Warnings: Bondage and possible dub-con
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: "You're everyone's until you're mine, Sam."
AN: Sequel to Old Gods. Co-written with the fabulous kijikun who made me want to write this pairing, and betaed by sweetsyren
In the days that follow, Sam dreams.
Sometimes it's of that night. He's still tied to the stone altar, his wrists raw and aching. The rain stinging as it hits exposed skin.
Gabriel stands over him, eyes dark, wild. The knife is in Gabriel's hand. It slides against Sam's skin, slicing through his clothes, baring him to the rain -- to Gabriel little by little.
Cold hands slide over his skin, over muscles, skimming up his arms, down his legs, across his chest. Possessive. Careful. As if Sam's a skittish horse that Gabriel doesn't want to spook, and Sam can barely breathe. Rain and fear chokes him, makes him tremble and jerk involuntarily against the ropes that hold him.
Gabriel drags a thumb against Sam's bottom lip. "I want to make you mine," Gabriel whispers.
And Sam wakes up.
Some nights he dreams of waking in bed. Of finding Gabriel -- wings unfurled, weapon in hand, with his back to Sam. Gabriel's speaking but it's something lyrical and harsh all at the same time and Sam can hardly bear to hear it.
All Sam can see are the dark shadows of wings, the gleam of a blade, and hair that Sam thinks wouldn't dare go out of place even with Sam's fingers in it.
He falls back asleep in the dream, and wakes up in his motel bed.
Sam remembers the dreams.
He does not tell Dean.
If Castiel knows (of the dreams or the altar and Gabriel) he does not say.
But the dreams follow Sam into his days and Sam is good at hiding research from Dean.
***
This dream always starts the same way.
The empty clearing, the ropes, the altar.
Sam feels like he's been sleepwalking through it for weeks.
He doesn't even pull at the ropes he just stares into the darkness; breathes into the rain and waits for the quiet sound of footsteps. Because Gabriel is as much a part of this dream - of this place as everything else now.
When the footsteps finally come he turns his head to look.
But it's not Gabriel.
It's a woman, and she's tall, far too tall, taller even than him. She slides onto the stone, slides up to straddle the rain-wet length of Sam's thighs.
Her mouth is scarlet with blood, the animal shine of it on her teeth and lips, and she smiles. She smiles under the rain, hair flung to the right in the wind and she touches him. Her fingers are tiny and sharp, pricking down and in like a cat's, and Sam gasps.
She's speaking but Sam can't understand her. He can't understand the strange wet noises she makes, though she smiles, smiles so wide. Like she's found something beautiful.
Sam gets the feeling she isn't the only one. Because the clearing is suddenly too warm, too full. Thick with the hot smell of wet fur and blood.
He pulls at the ropes, self-preservation instincts fierce enough to know that this woman - this not-a-woman - wants him for nothing good.
She reaches for him.
The hard roar of thunder overhead stops her cold, and her eyes lift to the sky.
It comes again, closer, harder, something that feels like freezing white fury and it's pouring now, the rain slamming into the ground in a warm rush.
Suddenly the woman is gone, she's just not there any more and Sam's coughing into the rain.
Someone is screaming, far away. There's a wet tear of something breaking, and a low animal noise of pain, or death. Sam tugs at the ropes but they're as tight as they ever were, tighter, sharp circles of rough pain at his wrists.
The next time Sam takes a breath lightening rips the sky in two, leaves it shattered and bright and Sam sees flashes of things in the dark. Shapeless and nameless.
He looks away, looks away with his heart thundering in his chest and this time he really does pull at the ropes, pulls hard and fierce until blood slicks his wrist and runs with the rain down to the stone beneath.
He sees movement out of the corner of his eye and twists -
This time it is Gabriel.
He has the knife and this is the first time Sam has seen it running with blood. The long deadly curve of it shining wet when the lightning flashes above, when it tears the darkness apart and leaves the faint burning echo of wings in the night.
Gabriel slams the knife into the ground beside him, blade sinking in red and deep. Then he crawls up the stone, cold and soaking and Sam isn't sure whether he wants to press closer or crawl away. Though the ropes leave him no opportunity to do either.
"They can't have you," Gabriel says fiercely. "None of them."
His face is dark, eyes sharp and bright and vicious and Sam's breath lodges in his throat.
"You're mine," Gabriel finishes, low and firm.
Sam groans something that might be protest or agreement.
"Say yes, Sam." There are shards of desperation in the words, left against his skin, against the wet openness of his mouth. "You have to say yes, I can't -"
Gabriel stops talking when Sam breathes into his mouth. When he stretches up and they shove, just barely against each other. It's too brief to be a kiss but Sam aches all the way through and Gabriel whines, low in his throat like Sam is destroying him.
He thinks maybe he wants to say yes, but he can only make quick hard little noises like he's forgotten how to speak.
He's shivering and he's not sure if it's the rain, the adrenaline or Gabriel himself. Because he's spilling power across Sam's skin like he can't hold it. It makes every breath sharp and hot and good, almost too good. Every second is a dizzy rush of fear and arousal. This vast impossible thing that he's been fighting since someone made him Gabriel's weeks ago.
"I need to touch you," Gabriel hisses. There's something tight and conflicted under the words. "You're everyone's until you're mine, Sam."
He takes a breath, shocked and doesn't even know what he's going to say. Doesn't know how he can want that so much.
"Yes," Sam manages against Gabriel's mouth. "You, God, just you."
Gabriel inhales, one ragged pull of air, and his fingers dig in.
Sam's shirt is gone in one heavy rip of fabric. The buttons scatter to the ground, the cloth is flung against the wet stone and Gabriel is kissing him, really kissing him. It's hard and deep and furious and Sam's skin is on fire. Gabriel kisses him like he's been waiting forever. Waiting to own him.
He jerks against the ropes and Gabriel makes a low noise in his throat and slides his hands along Sam's arms, holds him there, holds him down.
Sam gets it, he gets it and he shudders because that's ok, that's good. He can do that.
He stills and Gabriel’s fingers work his jeans open, quick and rough and Sam thinks he imagines that the angel's hands shake, that they catch on his flesh like they're drunk.
His legs are free, jeans and shorts stripped down his legs and the stone is cold under his skin. Cold enough to make him gasp.
He's hard, the curve of his dick hot and desperate against his stomach and he shivers when the rains falls, delicate little spatters of cold on his burning, too sensitive skin.
Gabriel's wet jeans and shirt are rough on his skin but they make his breath stutter in his throat anyway, the weight of him. The way he presses in, forced into stillness. Gabriel's hand is sharp and then tight in Sam's hair before he's sliding up to kiss him. To push him open and leave his mouth bruised and stinging.
Before he's pulling at his own clothes, leaving cloth and denim flung aside.
He shoves at Sam's thighs, pushes them open, and Sam takes a breath. He's hot and nervous and shaking with a schizophrenic combination of want and fear. He wants this but everything that it is, everything that it means. God, he's afraid of that. Afraid of having Gabriel inside him, of submitting like that without protest, here, now, tied down.
Gabriel shushes him, mouth back against his own, warm and lazy, his fingers glide across his groin, stroke him, leave him trembling and warm. Before sliding down and pressing into him. It's one quick slippery push, more surprise than discomfort, strange and intimate and half-way to wrong.
Sam breathes out, breathes out and relaxes and another finger slides in beside the first. It's a shivery stretch that threatens to hurt, then goes deep, and suddenly it's good. It leaves him breathless, leaves him pushing back and shaking on every press inside. Until Gabriel is murmuring low desperate meaningless things, and he's so hard against Sam's thigh that it hurts every time he presses down.
"Gabriel." Sam's throat is raw and he can't manage anything else.
Gabriel groans like he understands, fingers sliding free as he moves up, they dig into Sam's thigh while his other hand drops and strokes over himself.
Gabriel pushes in, all the way in. Sam takes it, takes the wet, heavy, stretching burn of it. He groans in a way that sounds shocked and broken. Gabriel makes a noise like this is all he wants, just this and nothing else. He leans into him, crushes him to the stone and Sam just surrenders completely, twists his hands to catch at the ropes and holds them while Gabriel leaves him gasping and wrecked with every solid push.
He leans down into him, hands tight on his skin, like Gabriel can hold Sam together. Or maybe he thinks Sam can ground him. He gets lost in the dizzy intensity of it. Of the way pain and need get tangled up and leave him humming between the two.
Gabriel drags him up, all unstoppable strength and desperate and kisses him, bites at the curve of his jaw and the edge of his throat. And, when Sam can't hold himself there any longer sliding away on a groan, Gabriel's teeth dig into the muscle of Sam's shoulder. It's a bright flash of pain that leaves him hissing and trying to draw away but everything is too close and too hot and the fiercest ache is still the one Gabriel opens up every time he presses, every time he goes deep.
Gabriel pulls up, just a little, spatter of red hitting Sam's chest.
The angel's mouth is red, the wet smear of Sam's blood shining there like an obscenity. Feral and vivid and wrong and Sam wants it. He shudders under the next thrust and stretches up against the ropes. He finds the heat of Gabriel's mouth, the wet copper flavour of his tongue and teeth. He tastes it, ruins it, presses it back into Gabriel's mouth. He's breathing hoarse and hard and desperate. Harder when Gabriel gasps and pushes him back down onto the stone, mouth now smeared wet and pink. He holds Sam there and pushes into him, and there's something lost and desperate in the rhythm of it now.
It's rough enough to drive a gasp out of Sam. To leave him groaning through every hard ache. The rain is cold, Sam's wrists are rubbed raw and every inch of him hurts where it's pressed into the stone. But Sam can't breathe with how much he wants it. How much he needs it. It's a slow fierce burn in his groin that's so good he can't bear it.
Can't hold it.
He tips his head back against the stone and comes. The wet rush of it is shock and relief and bliss against his bare stomach.
Pleasure's still flickering through his skin when Gabriel digs his fingers, rhythm falling to pieces and then he's lost where he's buried inside him, hot and too deep and Sam listens to the faint stunned gasping noises he makes while his thighs ache under his grip.
Gabriel folds into him.
The bare curve of his back shivers gently after every breath and it takes Sam a long second to realise he's murmuring the angel's name, over and over.
***
Waking feels like diving into a cold lake. It's abrupt, unexpected, and almost painful. And the truly fucked up thing is first thought that passes through Sam's mind is I want to go back.
The cracked motel ceiling above him seems to mock him as he stares up at it. He expects his body to ache, he expect to be sore.
He's not.
But he's cold. He shivers with it, as if he's been soaked with a cold spring rain.
Sam pushes himself into a sitting position, and looks at his wrists in the grayish pre-dawn light. There's nothing but the healing marks from the ropes weeks ago. He didn't expect to find anything new -- he never does after the dreams but this dream was different and he thought --
He looks over to the other bed and its empty, with the blankets shoved to the end of the bed. Dean's jeans and boots are gone from the floor.
Dean's with Castiel. Sam knows it, and this isn't the first time he's woken to find Dean gone in the early hours. But Dean hasn't told him, so Sam pretends he doesn't know.
Sam rubs his thumb over his wrist and bites his lower lip. For a long moment he sits there trying not to remember the dream.
He said yes.
Oh fuck, he said yes to Gabriel.
He covers his eyes with his hand and tries to breath, tries to fight down the panic which claws at his throat. A full body shudder wracks him and oh god Sam is grateful Dean is not there.
Because oh fuck, oh god, he submitted to Gabriel. He submitted to Gabriel on a pagan altar.
A pagan altar he'd bled on.
He'd said yes and he'd let Gabriel fuck him. Take him. Own him.
Sam makes a noise in his throat.
He's out of bed and in the bathroom before he has a clear idea of what he's doing. Sam turns on the shower, hot as it will go. He strips off his boxers and t-shirt in the flickering bathroom light.
The loud whomp-whomp of the fan is almost too normal.
Sam looks at himself in the mirror; there aren't any marks that weren't there when he went to sleep. He runs his fingers over the spot where Gabriel had drawn blood. Not a single mark.
No teeth print, not even a scratch. But he trembles with remembered pain and pleasure as his finger traces over the spot. It's like a sense memory has been left behind. His body doesn't hold the traces of the dream but his mind remembers.
"I said yes," he tells his reflection.
The words seem too loud in the confined space; they hang heavily in the humid air. Sam's reflection nods.
"To Gabriel," Sam tells the image that's rapidly disappearing as the mirror fogs. "I said yes to Gabriel."
Something loosens in his chest. He said yes, but not to Lucifer. He didn't betray Dean. He didn't --
Sam sags against the sink. "It was a dream anyways," he tells the steam, but he knows better. Actions in dreams could have power, especially lucid dreams like the ones that had plagued him for weeks. Though he had almost slept better knowing he'd see Gabriel not Lucifer.
He shakes his head at himself, and climbs into the shower.
"Fuck," he hisses as the water hit's his skin. It's hot enough to almost scald him, but it feels good.
The chill that seeped into his bones disappears under the hot stream of water. The water pressure is weak, and it's not a torrent of water, but Sam doesn't mind. He picks up an already unwrapped bar of soap.
Sam glides the soap over all the places Gabriel touched him. Every place where the angel's fingers dug in, where his teeth grazed. He'd expected to wake with marks -- though part of him hadn't expected to wake up at all.
Not that Sam had much time to think anything while Gabriel fucked him on that altar but after, as they lay there Sam's mind had whirled. All the bits of research he'd been doing on the fly about the ritual he'd been made of, about what being given to a pagan god could mean, had come to him.
He might even have said in a slurred voice to Gabriel that at least Lucifer couldn't take him now.
Sam doesn't remember Gabriel's response to that.
But he remembers all Gabriel's other responses. The way he touched Sam, kissed him, fucked him. How desperate he seemed for Sam.
Sam shivers, moaning softly. He's half-hard now from the memories and the hot water. The soap smells good, better than motel soap had the right to smell. It's musk and somehow reminds him of forest and rain.
It was too easy, to slick his hand with soap, leans back against the cool wet titles and touch himself. His hand wraps around his cock, as he closes his eyes.
He thinks about Gabriel.
In the clearing, eyes dark, wild, inhuman, bloody sacrificial knife in hand. More pagan than angel, a darkness that called to something in Sam and made his blood sing.
He thinks of Gabriel's spread shadowy wings in safety a well warded bedroom, a gleaming sword in hand, protective and all angel, keeping the shadows from Sam's sleep.
Sam's strokes himself, hips jerking. He turns his face into the stream of water, breathes into. He thinks of rain and skin he can't touch. Hands that make him want.
He tips his head back, panting, "Yes," over and over interlaced with, "Gabriel."
When he comes over his hand and stomach, everything goes white behind his eyelids and he shudders through it. He thinks he hears his name.
Sam slides down the title to the bottom of the tub, trembling. He finds that his other hand is still clenching the soap, and he frowns as he looks at it.
It's not motel soap. It looks those expensive handmade soaps Jess used to love. The smell of it fill the bathroom, and Sam knows who put it there.
But he doesn't mind. God, that's fucked up.
Sam thinks -- Sam knows he's probably over his head again. That he's gotten mixed up in something that has the potential to be more dangerous than Lucifer in a way. But he thinks about the tall woman, her bloody mouth, and he thinks about Gabriel mouth on his.
He thinks he's okay with seeing where this goes.
He knows he'll say yes to Gabriel again. Just like he knows that Gabriel can do whatever he wants with him, whether Sam says yes or not. Gabriel just won't.
Sam sits there until the water starts to go cold. He goes back to bed, Dean's bed still empty, and falls into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning Dean is back and Castiel is with him. Maybe Dean feels guilty for disappearing in the night with Castiel and not telling Sam or something, because Dean brought donuts and coffee.
He bought Sam's favorite kind of donuts, and those twisted dough ones covers in cinnamon sugar.
They eat and talk about the next case, about the next lead. Dean acts like he wasn't having sex with Castiel in the back of the Impala or wherever they go, and Sam acts like he wasn't taken on a pagan altar in his dreams.
It works pretty well.
But Castiel keeps looking at Sam, eyes narrowing just slightly with concern and something else. Like he can see Gabriel's claim all over Sam. And given the sharp inhale Castiel had made when he'd first seen Sam that morning -- Sam worries, just a little, that maybe Castiel can. And that maybe others will be able to as well.
Sam smiles at Cas and pretends he doesn't understand. Besides the donuts are good and Dean's in a good mood.
The rest can wait.
***
Gabriel is easy to find, Castiel suspects it is a conscious decisions. As if he accepts, or perhaps needs to be chastised for what he has done.
He's high enough for the air to be thin and to tear away every word. Though that doesn't matter, not to them. A storm crashes in the distance. Castiel can feel it on his vessel's skin, the power of it.
Castiel drifts closer, though Gabriel doesn't look at him, doesn't even acknowledge his presence. Castiel is sure that Gabriel knew he would come, before Castiel knew himself.
Gabriel is more of a maelstrom than the approaching clouds will ever be.
"I know what you have done," Castiel says quietly.
Gabriel had made no attempt to hide it. Sam Winchester had been raw and bright. Painted over with layers of ownership as obvious as they were shocking.
Gabriel stands silent and absolutely still, staring at where the storm creeps closer on the horizon.
"Did you tell his brother?" Gabriel asks eventually, quietly. Though he still hasn't moved. His voice is flat, not even a hint of the reckless amusement or the angry frustration from the last time they'd met.
And Castiel thinks that maybe he feels guilty, that maybe he feels ashamed.
Castiel has had time to think past his initial quiet horrified disbelief at how, at why, Gabriel could have done something so base, something so visceral. Time to understand for himself what being lost and furious and thinking for himself away from the certainty of heaven feels like.
For him it's been barely a year.
For Gabriel it's been generations.
But it's still wrong.
It's wrong for an angel.
"You have claimed Sam Winchester as your own," Castiel says firmly.
Gabriel's jaw tightens, a surprisingly corporeal reaction that hides something more complicated.
"You made him yours," Castiel adds, because it is significant to word it that way he thinks.
"He never said no," Gabriel says stiffly, like Castiel has made an accusation.
"Does he understand what it means?" Castiel demands. "What he has agreed to."
"It was me or them."
There's desperation in the explanation. Castiel is not sure Gabriel is even aware of it.
"Don't pretend you didn't do it for your own reasons. You've been fascinated by Samuel Winchester for some time."
"He ended up on an altar," Gabriel snaps and there's more quiet desperation under the excuse. Something raw and restless and old.
"And did you go to him as an angel or as a god?" Castiel asks.
Gabriel goes silent.
"You could have saved him instead," Castiel says quietly and Gabriel flinches ever so slightly, then scowls and turns on him.
"What gives you the right to chastise me?"
"I am the only one here," Castiel provides.
If Gabriel intends violence there is little Castiel could do, though he's almost certain that won't happen. That it's not violence Gabriel wants.
Castiel is unsure what he wants. Gabriel is far more complicated now than he ever was. Though no less powerful, and this is perhaps where the fault lies.
"I haven't just been masquerading as a pagan god, I've been one." Gabriel says fiercely, "Do you have any idea what that means, any idea what I've done -"
Gabriel takes a breath he doesn't need and looks away, looks past him.
"Perhaps you can no longer separate the two." Castiel is aware of how shocked he sounds.
Gabriel's face is hard when he turns his head back to face him. There's nothing the Winchesters would recognise as human left there. It's all angelic fury, at the fact that Castiel would dare to make such an accusation.
A reminder that Gabriel is older and far more powerful than him.
"I'm still capable of telling the difference little brother."
Castiel says nothing for a long moment, watching for flickers in Gabriel's expression. Gabriel lives inside his skin more than Castiel would have ever thought possible. But he should know better.
"Then perhaps you didn't want to. Perhaps you took advantage of what being a Trickster could give you."
Gabriel's mouth twists into something very human.
"I never took advantage of him, I left him there, I let him go the first time. But he kept - he was so bright and fierce and open. Stupid, reckless Winchesters, they're like flames to every crawling, sliding, creeping thing. And they were all ready to devour him, or keep him. He gave himself to me, he said yes -" Gabriel stops, expression going tight and then falling open, like he realises what he's rambled out.
"And what do you intend to do with him?"
Gabriel takes a breath, stares into the darkness and Castiel thinks perhaps he can see where Gabriel has tried so hard to carve himself in half. Where ancient, righteous angel of judgement meets wild, feral pagan god. He thinks perhaps both halves of Gabriel want Sam Winchester.
And perhaps they are both fighting for him.
"You wanted him and now he is yours," Castiel says quietly.
Gabriel looks pained for the first time.
"Now you have to decide if it's right to keep him."
Gabriel is silent.
***
Sam dreams of empty rooms and empty clearings, and a quiet so loud it wakes him from his sleep.
Authors: entangled_now and kijikun
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Gabriel, implied Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: 5x08
Word Count: 4262
Warnings: Bondage and possible dub-con
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: "You're everyone's until you're mine, Sam."
AN: Sequel to Old Gods. Co-written with the fabulous kijikun who made me want to write this pairing, and betaed by sweetsyren
In the days that follow, Sam dreams.
Sometimes it's of that night. He's still tied to the stone altar, his wrists raw and aching. The rain stinging as it hits exposed skin.
Gabriel stands over him, eyes dark, wild. The knife is in Gabriel's hand. It slides against Sam's skin, slicing through his clothes, baring him to the rain -- to Gabriel little by little.
Cold hands slide over his skin, over muscles, skimming up his arms, down his legs, across his chest. Possessive. Careful. As if Sam's a skittish horse that Gabriel doesn't want to spook, and Sam can barely breathe. Rain and fear chokes him, makes him tremble and jerk involuntarily against the ropes that hold him.
Gabriel drags a thumb against Sam's bottom lip. "I want to make you mine," Gabriel whispers.
And Sam wakes up.
Some nights he dreams of waking in bed. Of finding Gabriel -- wings unfurled, weapon in hand, with his back to Sam. Gabriel's speaking but it's something lyrical and harsh all at the same time and Sam can hardly bear to hear it.
All Sam can see are the dark shadows of wings, the gleam of a blade, and hair that Sam thinks wouldn't dare go out of place even with Sam's fingers in it.
He falls back asleep in the dream, and wakes up in his motel bed.
Sam remembers the dreams.
He does not tell Dean.
If Castiel knows (of the dreams or the altar and Gabriel) he does not say.
But the dreams follow Sam into his days and Sam is good at hiding research from Dean.
***
This dream always starts the same way.
The empty clearing, the ropes, the altar.
Sam feels like he's been sleepwalking through it for weeks.
He doesn't even pull at the ropes he just stares into the darkness; breathes into the rain and waits for the quiet sound of footsteps. Because Gabriel is as much a part of this dream - of this place as everything else now.
When the footsteps finally come he turns his head to look.
But it's not Gabriel.
It's a woman, and she's tall, far too tall, taller even than him. She slides onto the stone, slides up to straddle the rain-wet length of Sam's thighs.
Her mouth is scarlet with blood, the animal shine of it on her teeth and lips, and she smiles. She smiles under the rain, hair flung to the right in the wind and she touches him. Her fingers are tiny and sharp, pricking down and in like a cat's, and Sam gasps.
She's speaking but Sam can't understand her. He can't understand the strange wet noises she makes, though she smiles, smiles so wide. Like she's found something beautiful.
Sam gets the feeling she isn't the only one. Because the clearing is suddenly too warm, too full. Thick with the hot smell of wet fur and blood.
He pulls at the ropes, self-preservation instincts fierce enough to know that this woman - this not-a-woman - wants him for nothing good.
She reaches for him.
The hard roar of thunder overhead stops her cold, and her eyes lift to the sky.
It comes again, closer, harder, something that feels like freezing white fury and it's pouring now, the rain slamming into the ground in a warm rush.
Suddenly the woman is gone, she's just not there any more and Sam's coughing into the rain.
Someone is screaming, far away. There's a wet tear of something breaking, and a low animal noise of pain, or death. Sam tugs at the ropes but they're as tight as they ever were, tighter, sharp circles of rough pain at his wrists.
The next time Sam takes a breath lightening rips the sky in two, leaves it shattered and bright and Sam sees flashes of things in the dark. Shapeless and nameless.
He looks away, looks away with his heart thundering in his chest and this time he really does pull at the ropes, pulls hard and fierce until blood slicks his wrist and runs with the rain down to the stone beneath.
He sees movement out of the corner of his eye and twists -
This time it is Gabriel.
He has the knife and this is the first time Sam has seen it running with blood. The long deadly curve of it shining wet when the lightning flashes above, when it tears the darkness apart and leaves the faint burning echo of wings in the night.
Gabriel slams the knife into the ground beside him, blade sinking in red and deep. Then he crawls up the stone, cold and soaking and Sam isn't sure whether he wants to press closer or crawl away. Though the ropes leave him no opportunity to do either.
"They can't have you," Gabriel says fiercely. "None of them."
His face is dark, eyes sharp and bright and vicious and Sam's breath lodges in his throat.
"You're mine," Gabriel finishes, low and firm.
Sam groans something that might be protest or agreement.
"Say yes, Sam." There are shards of desperation in the words, left against his skin, against the wet openness of his mouth. "You have to say yes, I can't -"
Gabriel stops talking when Sam breathes into his mouth. When he stretches up and they shove, just barely against each other. It's too brief to be a kiss but Sam aches all the way through and Gabriel whines, low in his throat like Sam is destroying him.
He thinks maybe he wants to say yes, but he can only make quick hard little noises like he's forgotten how to speak.
He's shivering and he's not sure if it's the rain, the adrenaline or Gabriel himself. Because he's spilling power across Sam's skin like he can't hold it. It makes every breath sharp and hot and good, almost too good. Every second is a dizzy rush of fear and arousal. This vast impossible thing that he's been fighting since someone made him Gabriel's weeks ago.
"I need to touch you," Gabriel hisses. There's something tight and conflicted under the words. "You're everyone's until you're mine, Sam."
He takes a breath, shocked and doesn't even know what he's going to say. Doesn't know how he can want that so much.
"Yes," Sam manages against Gabriel's mouth. "You, God, just you."
Gabriel inhales, one ragged pull of air, and his fingers dig in.
Sam's shirt is gone in one heavy rip of fabric. The buttons scatter to the ground, the cloth is flung against the wet stone and Gabriel is kissing him, really kissing him. It's hard and deep and furious and Sam's skin is on fire. Gabriel kisses him like he's been waiting forever. Waiting to own him.
He jerks against the ropes and Gabriel makes a low noise in his throat and slides his hands along Sam's arms, holds him there, holds him down.
Sam gets it, he gets it and he shudders because that's ok, that's good. He can do that.
He stills and Gabriel’s fingers work his jeans open, quick and rough and Sam thinks he imagines that the angel's hands shake, that they catch on his flesh like they're drunk.
His legs are free, jeans and shorts stripped down his legs and the stone is cold under his skin. Cold enough to make him gasp.
He's hard, the curve of his dick hot and desperate against his stomach and he shivers when the rains falls, delicate little spatters of cold on his burning, too sensitive skin.
Gabriel's wet jeans and shirt are rough on his skin but they make his breath stutter in his throat anyway, the weight of him. The way he presses in, forced into stillness. Gabriel's hand is sharp and then tight in Sam's hair before he's sliding up to kiss him. To push him open and leave his mouth bruised and stinging.
Before he's pulling at his own clothes, leaving cloth and denim flung aside.
He shoves at Sam's thighs, pushes them open, and Sam takes a breath. He's hot and nervous and shaking with a schizophrenic combination of want and fear. He wants this but everything that it is, everything that it means. God, he's afraid of that. Afraid of having Gabriel inside him, of submitting like that without protest, here, now, tied down.
Gabriel shushes him, mouth back against his own, warm and lazy, his fingers glide across his groin, stroke him, leave him trembling and warm. Before sliding down and pressing into him. It's one quick slippery push, more surprise than discomfort, strange and intimate and half-way to wrong.
Sam breathes out, breathes out and relaxes and another finger slides in beside the first. It's a shivery stretch that threatens to hurt, then goes deep, and suddenly it's good. It leaves him breathless, leaves him pushing back and shaking on every press inside. Until Gabriel is murmuring low desperate meaningless things, and he's so hard against Sam's thigh that it hurts every time he presses down.
"Gabriel." Sam's throat is raw and he can't manage anything else.
Gabriel groans like he understands, fingers sliding free as he moves up, they dig into Sam's thigh while his other hand drops and strokes over himself.
Gabriel pushes in, all the way in. Sam takes it, takes the wet, heavy, stretching burn of it. He groans in a way that sounds shocked and broken. Gabriel makes a noise like this is all he wants, just this and nothing else. He leans into him, crushes him to the stone and Sam just surrenders completely, twists his hands to catch at the ropes and holds them while Gabriel leaves him gasping and wrecked with every solid push.
He leans down into him, hands tight on his skin, like Gabriel can hold Sam together. Or maybe he thinks Sam can ground him. He gets lost in the dizzy intensity of it. Of the way pain and need get tangled up and leave him humming between the two.
Gabriel drags him up, all unstoppable strength and desperate and kisses him, bites at the curve of his jaw and the edge of his throat. And, when Sam can't hold himself there any longer sliding away on a groan, Gabriel's teeth dig into the muscle of Sam's shoulder. It's a bright flash of pain that leaves him hissing and trying to draw away but everything is too close and too hot and the fiercest ache is still the one Gabriel opens up every time he presses, every time he goes deep.
Gabriel pulls up, just a little, spatter of red hitting Sam's chest.
The angel's mouth is red, the wet smear of Sam's blood shining there like an obscenity. Feral and vivid and wrong and Sam wants it. He shudders under the next thrust and stretches up against the ropes. He finds the heat of Gabriel's mouth, the wet copper flavour of his tongue and teeth. He tastes it, ruins it, presses it back into Gabriel's mouth. He's breathing hoarse and hard and desperate. Harder when Gabriel gasps and pushes him back down onto the stone, mouth now smeared wet and pink. He holds Sam there and pushes into him, and there's something lost and desperate in the rhythm of it now.
It's rough enough to drive a gasp out of Sam. To leave him groaning through every hard ache. The rain is cold, Sam's wrists are rubbed raw and every inch of him hurts where it's pressed into the stone. But Sam can't breathe with how much he wants it. How much he needs it. It's a slow fierce burn in his groin that's so good he can't bear it.
Can't hold it.
He tips his head back against the stone and comes. The wet rush of it is shock and relief and bliss against his bare stomach.
Pleasure's still flickering through his skin when Gabriel digs his fingers, rhythm falling to pieces and then he's lost where he's buried inside him, hot and too deep and Sam listens to the faint stunned gasping noises he makes while his thighs ache under his grip.
Gabriel folds into him.
The bare curve of his back shivers gently after every breath and it takes Sam a long second to realise he's murmuring the angel's name, over and over.
***
Waking feels like diving into a cold lake. It's abrupt, unexpected, and almost painful. And the truly fucked up thing is first thought that passes through Sam's mind is I want to go back.
The cracked motel ceiling above him seems to mock him as he stares up at it. He expects his body to ache, he expect to be sore.
He's not.
But he's cold. He shivers with it, as if he's been soaked with a cold spring rain.
Sam pushes himself into a sitting position, and looks at his wrists in the grayish pre-dawn light. There's nothing but the healing marks from the ropes weeks ago. He didn't expect to find anything new -- he never does after the dreams but this dream was different and he thought --
He looks over to the other bed and its empty, with the blankets shoved to the end of the bed. Dean's jeans and boots are gone from the floor.
Dean's with Castiel. Sam knows it, and this isn't the first time he's woken to find Dean gone in the early hours. But Dean hasn't told him, so Sam pretends he doesn't know.
Sam rubs his thumb over his wrist and bites his lower lip. For a long moment he sits there trying not to remember the dream.
He said yes.
Oh fuck, he said yes to Gabriel.
He covers his eyes with his hand and tries to breath, tries to fight down the panic which claws at his throat. A full body shudder wracks him and oh god Sam is grateful Dean is not there.
Because oh fuck, oh god, he submitted to Gabriel. He submitted to Gabriel on a pagan altar.
A pagan altar he'd bled on.
He'd said yes and he'd let Gabriel fuck him. Take him. Own him.
Sam makes a noise in his throat.
He's out of bed and in the bathroom before he has a clear idea of what he's doing. Sam turns on the shower, hot as it will go. He strips off his boxers and t-shirt in the flickering bathroom light.
The loud whomp-whomp of the fan is almost too normal.
Sam looks at himself in the mirror; there aren't any marks that weren't there when he went to sleep. He runs his fingers over the spot where Gabriel had drawn blood. Not a single mark.
No teeth print, not even a scratch. But he trembles with remembered pain and pleasure as his finger traces over the spot. It's like a sense memory has been left behind. His body doesn't hold the traces of the dream but his mind remembers.
"I said yes," he tells his reflection.
The words seem too loud in the confined space; they hang heavily in the humid air. Sam's reflection nods.
"To Gabriel," Sam tells the image that's rapidly disappearing as the mirror fogs. "I said yes to Gabriel."
Something loosens in his chest. He said yes, but not to Lucifer. He didn't betray Dean. He didn't --
Sam sags against the sink. "It was a dream anyways," he tells the steam, but he knows better. Actions in dreams could have power, especially lucid dreams like the ones that had plagued him for weeks. Though he had almost slept better knowing he'd see Gabriel not Lucifer.
He shakes his head at himself, and climbs into the shower.
"Fuck," he hisses as the water hit's his skin. It's hot enough to almost scald him, but it feels good.
The chill that seeped into his bones disappears under the hot stream of water. The water pressure is weak, and it's not a torrent of water, but Sam doesn't mind. He picks up an already unwrapped bar of soap.
Sam glides the soap over all the places Gabriel touched him. Every place where the angel's fingers dug in, where his teeth grazed. He'd expected to wake with marks -- though part of him hadn't expected to wake up at all.
Not that Sam had much time to think anything while Gabriel fucked him on that altar but after, as they lay there Sam's mind had whirled. All the bits of research he'd been doing on the fly about the ritual he'd been made of, about what being given to a pagan god could mean, had come to him.
He might even have said in a slurred voice to Gabriel that at least Lucifer couldn't take him now.
Sam doesn't remember Gabriel's response to that.
But he remembers all Gabriel's other responses. The way he touched Sam, kissed him, fucked him. How desperate he seemed for Sam.
Sam shivers, moaning softly. He's half-hard now from the memories and the hot water. The soap smells good, better than motel soap had the right to smell. It's musk and somehow reminds him of forest and rain.
It was too easy, to slick his hand with soap, leans back against the cool wet titles and touch himself. His hand wraps around his cock, as he closes his eyes.
He thinks about Gabriel.
In the clearing, eyes dark, wild, inhuman, bloody sacrificial knife in hand. More pagan than angel, a darkness that called to something in Sam and made his blood sing.
He thinks of Gabriel's spread shadowy wings in safety a well warded bedroom, a gleaming sword in hand, protective and all angel, keeping the shadows from Sam's sleep.
Sam's strokes himself, hips jerking. He turns his face into the stream of water, breathes into. He thinks of rain and skin he can't touch. Hands that make him want.
He tips his head back, panting, "Yes," over and over interlaced with, "Gabriel."
When he comes over his hand and stomach, everything goes white behind his eyelids and he shudders through it. He thinks he hears his name.
Sam slides down the title to the bottom of the tub, trembling. He finds that his other hand is still clenching the soap, and he frowns as he looks at it.
It's not motel soap. It looks those expensive handmade soaps Jess used to love. The smell of it fill the bathroom, and Sam knows who put it there.
But he doesn't mind. God, that's fucked up.
Sam thinks -- Sam knows he's probably over his head again. That he's gotten mixed up in something that has the potential to be more dangerous than Lucifer in a way. But he thinks about the tall woman, her bloody mouth, and he thinks about Gabriel mouth on his.
He thinks he's okay with seeing where this goes.
He knows he'll say yes to Gabriel again. Just like he knows that Gabriel can do whatever he wants with him, whether Sam says yes or not. Gabriel just won't.
Sam sits there until the water starts to go cold. He goes back to bed, Dean's bed still empty, and falls into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning Dean is back and Castiel is with him. Maybe Dean feels guilty for disappearing in the night with Castiel and not telling Sam or something, because Dean brought donuts and coffee.
He bought Sam's favorite kind of donuts, and those twisted dough ones covers in cinnamon sugar.
They eat and talk about the next case, about the next lead. Dean acts like he wasn't having sex with Castiel in the back of the Impala or wherever they go, and Sam acts like he wasn't taken on a pagan altar in his dreams.
It works pretty well.
But Castiel keeps looking at Sam, eyes narrowing just slightly with concern and something else. Like he can see Gabriel's claim all over Sam. And given the sharp inhale Castiel had made when he'd first seen Sam that morning -- Sam worries, just a little, that maybe Castiel can. And that maybe others will be able to as well.
Sam smiles at Cas and pretends he doesn't understand. Besides the donuts are good and Dean's in a good mood.
The rest can wait.
***
Gabriel is easy to find, Castiel suspects it is a conscious decisions. As if he accepts, or perhaps needs to be chastised for what he has done.
He's high enough for the air to be thin and to tear away every word. Though that doesn't matter, not to them. A storm crashes in the distance. Castiel can feel it on his vessel's skin, the power of it.
Castiel drifts closer, though Gabriel doesn't look at him, doesn't even acknowledge his presence. Castiel is sure that Gabriel knew he would come, before Castiel knew himself.
Gabriel is more of a maelstrom than the approaching clouds will ever be.
"I know what you have done," Castiel says quietly.
Gabriel had made no attempt to hide it. Sam Winchester had been raw and bright. Painted over with layers of ownership as obvious as they were shocking.
Gabriel stands silent and absolutely still, staring at where the storm creeps closer on the horizon.
"Did you tell his brother?" Gabriel asks eventually, quietly. Though he still hasn't moved. His voice is flat, not even a hint of the reckless amusement or the angry frustration from the last time they'd met.
And Castiel thinks that maybe he feels guilty, that maybe he feels ashamed.
Castiel has had time to think past his initial quiet horrified disbelief at how, at why, Gabriel could have done something so base, something so visceral. Time to understand for himself what being lost and furious and thinking for himself away from the certainty of heaven feels like.
For him it's been barely a year.
For Gabriel it's been generations.
But it's still wrong.
It's wrong for an angel.
"You have claimed Sam Winchester as your own," Castiel says firmly.
Gabriel's jaw tightens, a surprisingly corporeal reaction that hides something more complicated.
"You made him yours," Castiel adds, because it is significant to word it that way he thinks.
"He never said no," Gabriel says stiffly, like Castiel has made an accusation.
"Does he understand what it means?" Castiel demands. "What he has agreed to."
"It was me or them."
There's desperation in the explanation. Castiel is not sure Gabriel is even aware of it.
"Don't pretend you didn't do it for your own reasons. You've been fascinated by Samuel Winchester for some time."
"He ended up on an altar," Gabriel snaps and there's more quiet desperation under the excuse. Something raw and restless and old.
"And did you go to him as an angel or as a god?" Castiel asks.
Gabriel goes silent.
"You could have saved him instead," Castiel says quietly and Gabriel flinches ever so slightly, then scowls and turns on him.
"What gives you the right to chastise me?"
"I am the only one here," Castiel provides.
If Gabriel intends violence there is little Castiel could do, though he's almost certain that won't happen. That it's not violence Gabriel wants.
Castiel is unsure what he wants. Gabriel is far more complicated now than he ever was. Though no less powerful, and this is perhaps where the fault lies.
"I haven't just been masquerading as a pagan god, I've been one." Gabriel says fiercely, "Do you have any idea what that means, any idea what I've done -"
Gabriel takes a breath he doesn't need and looks away, looks past him.
"Perhaps you can no longer separate the two." Castiel is aware of how shocked he sounds.
Gabriel's face is hard when he turns his head back to face him. There's nothing the Winchesters would recognise as human left there. It's all angelic fury, at the fact that Castiel would dare to make such an accusation.
A reminder that Gabriel is older and far more powerful than him.
"I'm still capable of telling the difference little brother."
Castiel says nothing for a long moment, watching for flickers in Gabriel's expression. Gabriel lives inside his skin more than Castiel would have ever thought possible. But he should know better.
"Then perhaps you didn't want to. Perhaps you took advantage of what being a Trickster could give you."
Gabriel's mouth twists into something very human.
"I never took advantage of him, I left him there, I let him go the first time. But he kept - he was so bright and fierce and open. Stupid, reckless Winchesters, they're like flames to every crawling, sliding, creeping thing. And they were all ready to devour him, or keep him. He gave himself to me, he said yes -" Gabriel stops, expression going tight and then falling open, like he realises what he's rambled out.
"And what do you intend to do with him?"
Gabriel takes a breath, stares into the darkness and Castiel thinks perhaps he can see where Gabriel has tried so hard to carve himself in half. Where ancient, righteous angel of judgement meets wild, feral pagan god. He thinks perhaps both halves of Gabriel want Sam Winchester.
And perhaps they are both fighting for him.
"You wanted him and now he is yours," Castiel says quietly.
Gabriel looks pained for the first time.
"Now you have to decide if it's right to keep him."
Gabriel is silent.
***
Sam dreams of empty rooms and empty clearings, and a quiet so loud it wakes him from his sleep.