wolfishxwillow

sin_stained_ink

Right between his shoulderblades. It drives Sam crazy, because it's right where he can't reach.

Of course, Dean laughing at the picture he makes as he tries to scratch it doesn't help.

Eventually the itch becomes a dull pain, and before Sam knows it, that dull pain sharpens until he instead of scratching the itch, all he wants to do is claw the skin until the feeling goes away.

But at least Dean's stopped laughing at him - after Sam started screaming his throat raw, of course.

Turns out, though it feels like it takes an eternity for the pain to go away, it's more like 60 seconds. 60 seconds of pure agony as something rips its way through the skin of his back, shredding his shirt to ruins, and leaving him on his hands and knees between their beds, panting out harsh, ragged breaths.

He barely has a moment to take in Dean's gaping expression, let alone have the chance to look back at the mass of red clay colored feathers sprouting from his back before their angels decide to pop back into the room.

From the looks on their faces, they aren't expecting the sight before them - not that Sam can blame them, he's kind of surprised about this himself.

Before he can blink, Gabriel's hands hold his biceps in a burning grip, dragging him to his feet with absolutely no effort - and that's something Sam's still getting used to, how Gabriel can hold him up like he weighs nothing. He doesn't understand what's going on, or the look in Gabriel's flashing amber eyes - like he's seeing Sam for the first time, like he's seeing through Sam.

"Gabriel?"

His voice is rough - screaming as he'd been will do that to you - and barely more than a whisper, but it seems to snap the archangel back from wherever he'd been. Only now that intense gaze is focused on him rather than through him.

Sam's breath catches in his throat at the growl that rumbles from Gabriel's throat when he tries to back away, give himself an inch more of space and in the space of a second - Sam didn't even have the chance to hear Dean protest the move, - the two are in an entirely different room, and Sam's being pushed back until the backs of his knees hit a mattress and he's forced to sit.

"Gabriel, what's going nnguh --"

The next thing he knows, Gabriel's kneeling behind him - and he didn't realize just how sore his back still was until fingers, hot like burning, dig into the skin between his newly manifested appendages.

"Shhh..." Warm breath puffs out against the nape of his neck and he finds himself relaxing when he didn't even know he'd been tense before.

He focuses on the gentle glide of fingers over tight muscles, the smooth circles Gabriel draws across his skin. Gabriel whispers against his neck, murmurs of how good he's doing and Sam wants to respond, ask how he can be doing good when he doesn't even know what's going on, but then those hands are on his wings and all thought beyond pressurehotgood is lost to him.

His feathers tremble and quiver the more Gabriel massages into them, straightening them out in some places, and it's the first time Sam's ever felt anything like this before but he sincerely hopes it's not the last time.