Sam wakes to a weight on the small of his back and the sharp smell of permanent ink.

"Don't move," says Gabriel's voice behind him, "You'll smudge it."

Something tickles between Sam's shoulder blades. "Gabe..." says Sam sleepily, lifting his head out of his pillow, "Are you drawing on me?" He should probably be upset, but he's too drowsy to work up a proper temper. Anyway, this is hardly the weirdest thing Gabe has ever done to him.

"Writing," says Gabriel, "Almost done." And he shoves Sam's head back down.

"What are you writing?" Sam mumbles, resigned to his fate as human notepad, "Your shopping list?"

Gabriel speaks slowly, narrating as he writes, "There once... was a man... from Nantucket..."

"Oh, no," Sam groans. He tries to roll over, but Gabriel is stronger than he looks and Sam remains pinned.

"Oh, I was just kidding," says Gabriel, ruffling Sam's hair, "I wouldn't be so derivative. I'm making my own up. Now, what rhymes with 'hung like a moose?'"

"You are evil," Sam says into his pillow.

Gabriel shakes his head. "That doesn't rhyme at all," he says.

It's several more minutes before Gabriel lets Sam up. Sam stands and inspects himself in the mirror as Gabriel regards his handiwork proudly.

"It's all in Enochian," says Sam, somewhat startled. The runes are printed in perfect, neat lines across his back and shoulders. It's much nicer than the random scribbling he had expected. In fact, it's beautiful.

"Well, it's my native language," says Gabriel defensively.

Sam smirks back at him. "Admit it," says Sam, and for a second Gabe looks almost embarrassed. But his usual grin returns when Sam says, "You just wrote 'DIBS' over and over, didn't you?"

"Caught me!" says Gabriel, bouncing off of the bed and upright. He gives Sam a peck on the lips before winging away to God-knows-where.

Three days later, Gabriel still hasn't returned. That's not so unexpected. Sam is used to him running off and making trouble elsewhere for days at a time. What's more concerning is that the ink on his back is showing no signs of fading.

Sam tries to put it out of his mind. After all, he can't even see it if he doesn't twist around to look at it in the mirror. He's almost managed to forget that it's there when they get back to the hotel after a rough hunt. Dean offers Sam the first shower as payment for having sneaked off to make out with Castiel while Sam was hard at work checking gravestones.

Sam peels off his shirt and is about to step into the bathroom when he notices Cas staring at his bare back. Cas's mouth is ever so slightly open, and his brow is knitted. He looks as if he is taking in a work of sublime art. Sam even thinks he catches a glimpse of tears in Cas's eyes.

"Dude," says Sam, feeling suddenly self-conscious, "What is it?"

Cas quickly looks away. "I apologize," he says, "I should not have intruded on something so personal."

Sam wants to ask what it says, but he wants his shower more. As he closes the bathroom door, he hears the squeak of bedsprings as something heavy hits the mattress.

"What are you doing?" says Dean's voice on the other side of the door.

Cas's voice replies, "Hold still. And give me that pen."

A/N 4/1/12: To those requesting a sequel, I'm sorry, but I wrote this as a one-shot response to someone's prompt. I don't have any plans to continue it. But it's Sabriel week on Tumblr, so I'll be posting two more fics along the same fluffy vein as this one within the next few days. Thank you all for reading!