AN: Written for the last day of Sabriel-Week. The DAY 8 prompt was "S Day." I touched on a few: sigils, spanking, safety, submission. Rated M for corporal punishment.

Learning Lessons

In hindsight, it was a stupid move.

Sam had forgotten (or ignored) Rule #85 of Being a Winchester. When you volunteer to act as bait for a coven that's intent on sacrificing someone to their god, your Plan B Rescue will fail often (and spectacularly). And any attempts to contact your celestial guardians (by cell or summon) will be halted by whatever mojo the coven's been working.

While Dean had succeeded in taking out the coven (which, thankfully, hadn't been that large), it wasn't before Sam had a dagger driven between his ribs by the high priest.

They were racing to the nearest hospital (fifty miles away), Sam lying in the back seat of the Impala, a towel—already soaked red—pressed to his wound, and Dean in the front seat hissing "fuck, fuck" under his breath, when whatever mojo was in the air finally snapped and Gabriel winged into the car.

Sam felt Gabriel before he saw him. Felt the pull on his chest where Gabriel had carved what basically amounted to an angelic tracking device—tuned specifically to the archangel—in Sam's flesh, the symbol looking like a strangely shaped four. ("Because I never know what kind of hair-brained, apocalypse-defying scheme you and Deano are going to get into next," Gabriel had said when trying to convince Sam of its necessity. "And Cas's little embroidery job's been keeping it that way.")

It was a reasonable point and Sam had agreed, only realizing later that Gabriel hadn't been completely forthcoming about the effects of sigil. Like the way it gave him Gabriel-sensory-perception. He not only felt the archangel's presence, he felt his emotions, which had resulted in the mental equivalent of whiplash more than a few times.

Of course, when Gabriel appeared in the Impala, Sam didn't need the sigil to tell him the angel was pissed; the thinned lips and the golden eyes gone flat and cold as the moon told him everything.

"The hell you waitin' for?" said Dean. "Get healing."

Gabriel said nothing, cast a look at Dean that would have made lesser men shrink. Then he leaned forward and pressed his palm over the sigil on Sam's chest; he vanished with a beat of wings before the pain had fully disappeared.

"Sammy?" Dean's eyes found his in the rearview.

"Yeah," Sam said, staring at the spot Gabriel had occupied. "Yeah. 'm fine."

He wasn't sure how long "fine" would last.

# # #

It lasted until he was settled in his hotel room. Damp and clean and having washed what looked like gallons of blood down the shower drain, he was looking forward to falling face first in the bed and ignoring the world until, at least, noon.

What he got, when he padded into the bedroom in only a pair of soft sleep pants, was a sudden prickle along the back of his neck and an archangel standing between him and his bed.

"Gabriel?" Sam lowered his voice, the way you might to an easily startled animal.

"We told you not to," Gabriel said. His eyes had returned to their normal warm brown, but there was a strange light in them suggesting the molten gold and amber was not far away. "I told you not to."

"People were dying."

"People are always dying, Sam. They're human."

"And I'm a hunter. I'm not going to sit by and just let it happen when I can do something about it."

"Even if it means your life?"

"I've already given it more than once," Sam said, thinking of knives and shotguns and hungry holes in the earth. "Why not again? Even if."

"Wrong answer."

Gabriel was in his space before Sam could blink, wrapping a hand around Sam's neck and making him bend. The words Jess used to say to him whenever he teased her too often—I'll bring you down to my height, Winchester—echoed in his brain. Gabriel pressed a kiss to his lips, tongue flicking hot and wet inside Sam's mouth; his teeth scraped, bit down on Sam's lower lip and built into a bright, hot pinch of pain that made Sam jerk in surprise. He didn't pull away. He probably couldn't have even if he tried.

"Hands and knees." Gabriel pulled away. "On the floor."

"Wh-what?"

"You heard me, kiddo." The "kiddo's" a good sign; the cool way Gabriel said it, Sam thought, wasn't. In fact, the coolness Gabriel seemed to have wrapped around him like a blanket was a little unnerving. Sam couldn't feel anything from the angel other than calm, when he was certain he should be feeling everything but.

"Well?"

Sam, hesitating, lowered himself to one knee, then both. He met Gabriel's eyes, found no answer, no reassurance. He leaned forward, put his hands on the floor, resisted the urge to let his head hang between his arms.

"Good," Gabriel said, and it wasn't Sam's imagination that the word came out with a relieved rush of breath. "Good."

The angel walked around him, trailing fingers along Sam's back, down his spine, cupping Sam's hip through his pants, curling his fingers around the bone. There was something covetous in that touch, possessive; it made Sam's nipples harden, his stomach tighten.

"So, Sammy. You seem to be under the impression that you can just throw your life away on a whim."

"What? I'm not—" Sam's voice cut out with a sharp smack to his ass; even through the material of his pants, it stung.

"I'm not finished," Gabriel said, fingers lying on the small of Sam's back. "You need," he continued, "to understand something. I have prior claim. I rubber banded your ass out of the Cage." Another sharp swat and this time Gabriel had tugged Sam's pants until the upper part of half his ass was exposed; flesh on flesh hurt much more.

"Gabriel."

"You don't seem to learn your lesson unless there's pain involved, Sam." Gabriel stroked over the stinging skin. "Sometimes not even then," he murmured, almost to himself. "Consider this reinforcement." His hand landed in the same spot and Sam twitched. "So, the next time I tell you," smack "specifically," smack "to not do something," smack "you won't do it," smack.

If Sam could see his ass, he's certain he'd be able to make out the shape of Gabriel's hand; the skin stung and tingled and he probably won't be able to sit comfortably tomorrow. But that wasn't the only thing that hurt. Heat burned through his sternum, settled hard and heavy in his stomach. It took a moment to realize it wasn't him those feelings were coming from.

Sam, gingerly, sat back on his heels. "Gabriel." He wrapped an arm around the angel's waist, pulling him close.

"You're so fragile, Sam. You're all so damned fragile." If Gabriel hadn't been around for millennia, Sam would say this was the first time the angel had come to that realization.

Maybe it's the first time that it mattered.

Sighing, Sam rested his head against the angel's belly, breathing in the familiar scent of wind and wood and water, the faint trace of sugar syrup. Gabriel's hand cupped the back of Sam's head, fingers tangling in the short hair at the nape of his neck.

"I'm not," Sam started, "making promises."

Gabriel's hand tightened.

Sam changed tactics. "I can't make promises. To not be hurt, to not die. I can promise to try. And," Sam tilted his head back, looked up at the angel's face, "to at least listen when you're telling me something's a bad idea…."

"I suppose," Gabriel said, "that's as good as I can expect."

"And besides," Sam smiled, "aren't I Heaven bound anyway? Not like I'd go some place you couldn't follow."

"Sam…"

Heaven was a mess; had been ever since his swan dive into the Pit. Angelic bureaucracy. Gabriel'd have an easier time finding him in Hell.

"It's okay." Sam pressed his body against Gabriel's legs, wrapped his arms around the angel's waist.

Gabriel said nothing, just lovingly traced the raised flesh of the sigil, the touch sending a frisson of warmth and comfort and safe through Sam's body. And Sam was fairly certain those feelings weren't solely his own.

End