the tessellated yarn

Secret Christmas Project || 0

Wolfish-Willow answered: Sam/Gabriel, petting.

It starts – well, it starts because Sam starts noticing the way Gabriel’s eyes gleam, molten gold and dangerous, just before he burns a dozen demons out of their meatsuits. It starts because Sam starts thinking about wings and raw power folded down inside Gabriel’s tiny vessel, and the way it would feel to have Gabriel yielding under him, wrists trapped over his head and control given over freely. It starts because Gabriel shakes the Beautiful Room apart in fury when Zachariah tortures them, wings spread gloriously wide in threat, and when they land back in Bobby’s yard Sam can’t help but haul him in by the collar and drink the taste of that power from his mouth.

It’s crazy, but the world’s ending and Sam’s pretty sure they’re not all coming out the other side in one piece – he’s pretty sure he’s not coming out the other side at all – so he thinks he’s entitled to a crazy last minute fling. Dean sometimes gives him looks full of pity and disgust, but it’s disgust like he can’t believe it’s Gabriel Sam’s fucking every night, not like he can’t believe Sam’s fucking Gabriel every night. The pity, Sam thinks, is because Dean thinks Sam’s in love with Gabriel, somehow – but he’s not. He’s really not.

See, Sam likes fucking. He likes almost-rough and hard and fast, likes the hot-blooded feeling of having someone else curve and bend under him, likes the contradiction of controlling and giving up control in the same action. Even with Jess, the sex had rarely been tender, had rarely been lovemaking in the truest sense – the tenderness came after, when they were lying tangled and Sam wrote a lovestory on her skin with touches, feeling so full of emotion it choked him.

At first Gabriel was careful with him, tried to be slow and gentle like he thought that’s what Sam wanted, but when Sam gripped his hips so hard it bruised his fingers and bit a mark over the line of his hipbone, Gabriel seemed to get it. After that, it was exactly the way Sam wanted it, exactly the way he likes it – hungry and edged with anger and so hot Sam thinks he’s either going to be destroyed or reborn from it.

Sam had imagined Gabriel would be vocal, but he was surprisingly quiet. He buried his face in Sam’s neck, or between his shoulder-blades, and shuddered and groaned and gasped, but he didn’t speak except to choke out Sam’s name when he came, voice ringing away into one long, high peal of terrible, beautiful sound that made Sam want to cry.

Afterwards, Sam reached out on instinct to touch, to sweep Gabriel’s sweaty hair out of his face, to smooth a thumb along the crows-feet creases at the corner of his eye – and Gabriel recoiled, staring at Sam with such a strange look of incredulity, like he can’t believe Sam dared to be so familiar, that Sam pulls back immediately.

So, yeah. It doesn’t mean anything. They fuck, and then Sam falls asleep to the sound of Gabriel breathing and wakes up alone. They don’t touch afterwards, but they sometimes argue or banter or Gabriel tells him about some creature humans still haven’t discovered – he’s not sure if they’re real things or if Gabriel’s spinning stories for him, but the sound of his voice is soothing and more than once he falls asleep under its power.

They don’t talk about the fight that’s coming, or the grace period that’s running out, but Sam can mark time by counting the bruises Gabriel leaves him with – they get darker as the clock ticks down.

Slowly, Sam gets so comfortable with Gabriel he forgets. He forgets that it’s nothing. He forgets that Gabriel doesn’t want him reaching out, doesn’t want the affectionate touches, and finds himself with his hands carding through Gabriel’s hair on instinct. The first time it happens Sam doesn’t even realise until Gabriel goes utterly still and silent. For a long moment, they stare at each other, hovering on the edge of a shared breath, and then Gabriel closes his eyes and turns into Sam’s hand, mouth pressed to the pulsepoint of his wrist like acceptance.

In another way, it starts then, because Gabriel lets Sam stroke and pet and run his fingers through the hair at the back of Gabriel’s head, thumb in the little dip where his neck meets his skull. It starts because Gabriel lets him draw him in for a kiss that feels like a first one, all exploration and carefulness.

It starts because Sam builds a catalogue of Gabriel’s smiles and learns the difference between them the way he learned the tone of Dean’s silences as a child. It starts because Sam lets Gabriel bind him down and spread him open, utterly vulnerable, lets Gabriel drag yes after yes out of him and trusts the archangel not to break him apart with the word.

It starts because Gabriel looks at him through the dark one night and says, don’t say yes, and the next day Sam does it anyway, because the alternative is watching Gabriel be torn apart.

It starts because Gabriel shreds his wings apart pulling him free of Lucifer before the Cage can close, and then kisses him like it was worth it. 

Uh. So, I doubt this was what you had in mind when you sent the prompt in, although, to be fair, it’s not what I had in mind when I started writing, either. I could write you something fluffier, with more… actual petting, if you’re not happy with this?

Oh, and yeah, quickfic with no editing, so sorry for typos and/or bad quality :)