A/N: For HereWeGoOnceMore. This is total crack, but it's Christmas-related crack. So, yay.

Last of the Supernatural Christmas fic tonight, Jesus H. on a slice of toast, I'm sorry, Internet.

Spoilers: for the bible.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. Or the premise behind the Christian faith.

Gabriel is bored.

He wishes they could have just made someone else do it. Like Michael. Michael totally wasn't busy today. All he's doing right now is smiting, for fuck's sake. He could have just dropped by on his way, saved Gabriel a trip like the wonderful older brother he is.

But noooo. "You're the messenger," they said, "so go message."

He hates messaging. It's so boring. And he's not even allowed to bend the truth to make it more fun, because then Michael bitches, and even Uriel's sense of humor doesn't stretch that far, resulting in what usually tends to be holy kick in the ass for his troubles.

Gabriel sighs theatrically and flops back against his boulder—which isn't exactly a very smart idea, because boulders are, apparently, really freaking hard.

He stares at the sky and tries to find pictures in the clouds.

Then he gets bored of that and makes his own pictures instead.

He's pretty sure that Lucifer would not appreciate what Gabriel just drew on his face.

Gabriel's almost tempted to just get up and go find something else to do. He's pretty sure Kali's free today. Or maybe not, maybe she was off doing that whole "destroy the infidels" thing this weekend. He's never really sure with these people; they have the most messed up schedules.

He likes them, though. They're his kind of people. They throw parties like you wouldn't believe.

And they don't whine at him to do paperwork every other day, unlike someangels he could name.

He wonders who shoved that stick up Michael's ass and how long it would take to pull it out again.

He rolls over with a sigh and stares at some ants. His family used to be so much more awesome before Lucifer threw them all the finger and buggered off to start his own club. Now, all Michael does is smite things, and Raphael…

Well, Raphael's always been kind of a dick, but he used to be the best at Scrabble.

"Excuse me?" someone says.

"Screw you," Gabriel mutters, not bothering to look up. "Whoever killed what, it wasn't my fault."

A sandal comes into view just within his line of sight. It somehow manages to look reproachful, despite being a piece of footwear.

Further inspection reveals that the sandal is strapped to a foot, which is attached to a leg, which just so happens to belong to a teenage girl.

"Oh," Gabriel says. "Never mind, don't screw you." That would make some people Upstairs Very Unhappy. And it would kind of defeat the whole "Holy Virgin" thing that they're trying to get going.

He pushes himself to his feet and sighs, running a hand through his hair. "All right, princess, let's get this over with."

The girl looks extremely confused. "Do I know you?" she asks hesitantly.

"No," Gabriel says, digging the scroll out of his pocket and skimming over it. "Well, this is total bullshit," he mutters. "Who writes these things?"

Probably Michael. No creative flair whatsoever.

"Who are you?" the girl asks. Oh, yeah, she's still there. Duh.

"Gabriel," he says. "The messenger." He rolls up the scroll. "Okay, I'm improving on this, so bear with me, okay, sweetheart?" He thinks for a moment.

"Okay. So, you're pregnant, God's the baby-daddy—don't ask me, I got nothing—Joseph's gonna help raise the kid, and, oh, yeah, the midget's gonna save humanity and open the kingdom of Heaven, blah, blah, blah, have fun."

"Wait!" the girl says before he can make his escape. "Wait, I… what?"

Gabriel rolls his eyes. "Do you seriously need a repeat?"

But the girl's hands have already strayed to her abdomen, and she looks down in wonder. "I'm… carrying the Lord's child?"

"Yes. Sure. Bun's in the oven."

"But… Joseph and I…."

"I know," Gabriel said, throwing his hands in the air. "What do I look like, Google? I don't know everything."

"… Google?"

"Never mind."

"Well," the girl says. "If it is God's will…."

"I'm sure it is," Gabriel says, even if he doesn't actually know that, because Daddy dearest is too busy doing… whatever it is he's working on since he finished his big old Earth project to tell anybody what the heck is actually going on.

"So, yeah." Gabriel waves a hand awkwardly. "Enjoy your God child. Oh, and you're supposed to call him Jesus. I don't know why, I mean, everyone's naming their kids that, it's not very impressive, if you ask me, but hey, I don't make the rules."

He raises his hands. "We good here?"

"Um…."

"Awesome," Gabriel says.

He's just about fed up with all of this sand (it gets everywhere), but the girl looks so frightened and unsure that he groans and stays put. "What? What more do you want from me, kid?"

"How does one go about raising God's child?"

Gabriel thinks about that for a minute. "I don't know," he says eventually.

He can't exactly tell her the truth. Because from his own personal experience, one goes about raising God's children by letting them slack off, or smite things, or rebel, or get into stupid fights and kill each other over Sunday's roast.

Talk about family arguments.

One day, when he was bored, Gabriel got into the Holy Prophesies, and he's pretty sure that someday, some dude is going to be born who thinks that he is the living version of Google, and he would probably cry over the extreme insanity that is Gabriel's home life.

He's probably going to be named Jeff. Or Phil. Something like Phil. (Gabriel couldn't really check for certain, because Michael had found him and gave him the longest time-out of his life.)

Yeah, Mary probably doesn't want to hear that.

So instead, he says, "You know what? You be the first to figure that out. Write a book, or something." He shrugs. "Maybe he'll turn out better than the rest of us did."

Mary drops to her knees. "If it is God's will," she whispers again, bowing to him.

"Hey, whoa," Gabriel says, stepping back. "No bowing. Seriously, just… get up. Come on, lady, I'm an angel, not… well, I don't know what the hell else you people would be bowing to, but stop it."

Mary rises to her feet and gives him one last searching look, eyes shining. He can't tell if it's from worry or joy or a little bit of both.

"Thank you," she says. "Even if I don't really understand a word of what you told me." She laughs, a shaky little sound. "Me, the mother of our Lord?"

"Well, you're… devout, and… stuff," Gabriel says awkwardly. "So… I guess you were the first pick?"

Well, okay, no, their first pick was some guy three towns over, but then the angels in charge realized that men could not actually carry children, and there was a whole big filing issue and lots of red ink going around. It took ages to sort out. Gabriel spent most of that decade playing a game that hadn't technically been invented yet (he calls it poker, it's catching on pretty quickly down on earth) with Odin and some of the guys.

Oh, and going camel-tipping.

Camel-tipping is so much fun.

"Well," Gabriel says, "I'd better hit the road. Nice chatting with you."

He poofs on up back to Heaven, leaving a bewildered Mary standing with her water jug, and drops the useless scroll on the front desk when he walks past.

That had been all kinds of awkward. Screw it, he's never messaging again.

At least, not until they invent the internet.

Honestly.