Felt like writing this. I always meant to do something like this, but I never really got around to it.

The Trickster is not a cruel being.

Not needlessly cruel, anyway. He is a Trickster. He only goes after those who are unfortunate enough to attract his attention. Abusive spouses, unfaithful partners, shitty parents, uncaring murderers who will never end up on trial.

He goes after those that humanity will never bother to punish for their crimes. He shows them exactly what they've done wrong, turns the tables, gives them a taste of the terror their victims faced. He waits until they're white-faced and petrified with fear.

Then, usually, he kills them.

He is a trickster.

That's what Tricksters do.

This time it is no different. He had come to town to meet with Coyote. And old friend - Trickster god, like the Trickster had been. Around Coyote, he is Loki, more often than not. They had talked, laughed, bought drinks for themselves and pretended not to remember the ones they owed each other. Coyote left. Loki stayed. Loki faded back into the Trickster.

He did not mean to stumble across two small boys while following his next victim through the park.

The Trickster trips, rights himself, and hears an indignant shout from the older one. His prey is already slipping through the gate at the other end. He makes to follow, except there is a righteously angry eight-year-old in his path. The boy demands an apology for slighting his brother. The Trickster laughs in his face, offers a lollipop, which is smacked out of his hands.

The Trickster looks closely at the stubbornly set face.

Gabriel reels back in surprise.

He knows who they are. Loki does not know, the Trickster does not, neither of them could ever know now, but he does.

He makes his excuses and flees.

The Winchesters. They cannot be here, not now, not ever. But they are.

The Trickster does not speak of it to anyone. He does not know what significance the Winchesters hold, anyway.

Gabriel, quietly, starts making preparations to run.

Again.

The Winchesters do not die quietly in a hunting accident before they reach their twenties. Loki does not arrange anything along those lines to happen. Gabriel knows their story, it's practically printed on the back of his eyelids, there to see every time he blinks.

He does not blink much. It's a metaphor. The downfalls of using a language your own species didn't develop.

Regardless.

He knows what will happen. Gabriel watched another version of it happen. He knows how it will go down.

He does not leave when he realizes that the Winchesters - now grown, completely unaware of their own supernatural significance - are on his trail.

He plucks a porn site from the mind of the elder and freezes the single laptop on that, loading the thing with every virus he can call in a favor to create. He steals money. He deflates the tires and drops the money clip next to the car, slightly lighter.

He tricks and lies and pretends he is nothing more than a human, and is genuinely surprised when he discovers that they have tricked him.

Smart.

Gabriel does not want to hurt them. It will draw attention, attention he's spent centuries avoiding. He does not hurt them. The Winchesters hurt him first.

The illusion crumples, falls, and Gabriel does not pursue them.

They think he is dead.

Maybe it's safer that way.

Dean's deal is coming due. Gabriel knows about it, Loki knows about it, the Trickster sees too many signs not to notice. The Winchesters are a message billboard in neon green and pink, and everyone down to the lowliest werewolf knows about Dean Winchester's demon deal.

Only Gabriel knows what will come after.

He drops a reporter, a debunker of the supernatural, through a wormhole. The Winchesters come looking. He weaves time around them the second they enter town. By the time they leave the restaurant, he is done.

Dean dies.

Sam cries.

Snap.

Reset.

Sam wakes up.

Gabriel kills Dean in a traffic accident. Sam screams.

Snap. Reset.

Dean dies, dies, dies. Sam never stops being shocked, being sad, clutching his brother.

Snap, snap, snap, snap. Reset. Reset. Reset. Reset.

Dean lives.

Dean dies.

Sam wakes up to the same old song.

I never meant to be so bad to you. Gabriel wishes he didn't. Sam Winchester is nothing like his usual targets. He is not driven by revenge (Loki is). He would not target Sam. He would let Sam live, go on to save people.

Sam Winchester is a genuinely good person.

Gabriel is not.

He knows what Sam Winchester will do, knows what will corrupt that soul and that good heart.

Snap. Reset.

He has to learn to let go.

Sam Winchester does not let go.

A look from you and I would fall from Grace. Why did he pick that song? It happened to be on the radio Tuesday morning. Gabriel sets it to endlessly repeat. He knows the lyrics by heart now. The irony of it does not pass over his head. A random chance, a song, a loop of time that the Trickster will not let end until he is satisfied that Gabriel's purpose has been served.

Gabriel knows he cannot derail this plan, this timeline, this fate.

He is still trying.

The Trickster has no knowledge of how futile this is. He is doing it for the hell of it, for the thrill of it, for the hilarity in killing Dean Winchester over and over again in so many mundane little ways.

Irony is his modus operandi. How the mighty fall.

Dean Winchester lives. Dean Winchester dies. The Trickster watches.

Sam figures out it's him after the hundred and eightieth clue he leaves.

The Trickster backtracks under the point of the stake. Snaps his fingers.

Wednesday.

Dean dies.

Sam lives.

Six more months.

Sam does not let go.

Gabriel watches with dread curling in his gut as Sam becomes more and more focused on him. The motel rooms are covered in snapshots from security cameras where he'd let himself be seen. He wants to see how far Sam will go. It is six months after Dean died. Sam is still going and not slowing down.

The Trickster throws him a bone. Tries to talk to him. Explains, spelling it out, what he's trying to do.

Sam begs for his brother with tears in his eyes.

Gabriel cannot bring himself to keep going.

The Trickster is not needlessly cruel. This is Gabriel's need, but he is less cruel.

Dean dies. This time, it is not at the Trickster's hand. This time, it is only four months. This time, it is a different angel. This time, it is not the Trickster Sam is blindly chasing after.

This time, someone comes and promises to help Sam.

She lies as well as the Trickster ever died. Gabriel does not watch him during those four months. He knows what happens.

The Trickster throws himself back into a hedonistic lifestyle. It is a wonder if he is on the same continent for more than twelve hours in a row. Everywhere has its vicious pleasures, people willing to lose themselves in a party, people who are willing to lie and cheat and steal.

Victims, fellow partygoers. Gods.

The Trickster avoids the latter. Loki is the god, not him. He does not feel like being Loki now.

Gabriel is closer to the surface than he has been in a long time. Being Loki feels wrong.

Being the Trickster is bearable. The Trickster, with his outrageous parties and fashion, fantastical mishaps and permanent laughter.

Distractions.

Gabriel knows what is coming.

The Trickster is not Gabriel, and pretends that things are the same as they have always been.

Lucifer rises, and everyone feels it.

Gabriel does not throw a fit. He does not rage. He goes somewhere very remote and does not leave for several weeks, until he is sure that Lucifer is not rampaging across the globe in the shape of Sam Winchester.

This is not what is supposed to happen. This is not what anyone thought would happen.

Gabriel discovers that the angel who rose Dean has sided with the Winchesters. Both of them are refusing to be used as vessels.

This is not a part of the story that they have all known will be acted out. Gabriel is bewildered.

He spends a week shadowing the three of them. Castiel is irrevocably on their side. Castiel. Gabriel recognizes the name faintly.

This can't happen. They cannot make this drag out forever, both sides taking minor blows, never getting to finish, wearing down the planet minute by minute.

Gabriel cannot stand that. He will not be able to take Lucifer's fall, played out in slow motion over again, because of a couple of humans.

The Trickster lures the Winchesters in again and traps them.

He is too much Gabriel for them not to notice.

Gabriel glares at them from behind a circle of holy fire and spits the story at them. They are dealing with forces beyond their comprehension, things that have been set into alignment for longer than their species has existed. They are running from a destiny they cannot control because they do not agree with it.

Like him.

Gabriel ignores the parallel. He snaps, he smirks, he is purposefully abrasive because he can. Because that has always been his last defense.

Castiel looks at him like he's disgusted with him. Gabriel smiles back and makes a cutting remark.

Dean tells him he's afraid and a coward. Dean Winchester, human, cuts to the core of him and finds the truth.

Gabriel does not leave the warehouse for a long time.

Kali calls for Loki. He shows up. The Winchesters are there.

Gabriel volunteers to help them. They make conditions. They threaten his disguise. Gabriel, reluctantly, agrees.

Kali finds out anyway.

She knew. She knew. How long has she known? How long has his secret been at risk? Gabriel smiles and jokes and it hurts when Kali stabs the blade into him. Made out of a soda can or no, she doesn't know that.

She would actually kill him.

That's what hurts.

Gabriel hides.

Dean Winchester cuts him open with words again.

Gabriel saves Kail's life. The DVD is hastily made but with every care, slapped into the Winchesters hands, and Gabriel only barely risks a look over his shoulder as they run.

It is terrifying being in front of Lucifer again. The Morningstar is as bright and as beautiful as ever, but he is freezing cold, and Gabriel can feel the chill brush against his own burning hot grace.

Some stars burn cold. Lucifer was the first of them.

Gabriel talks.

It's what he does best. Weave a story, tell a lie, tell ten lies. No one looks behind them to see the real him slipping their valuables out of their pockets.

Gabriel talks of forgiveness, and there is a flash of doubt in Lucifer's face.

Lucifer listens to the stories, to the truth Gabriel gives, and turns to see Gabriel behind him.

The blade hurts.

It is more than Lucifer's freezing-cold hand wrapped around his, around the blade pressed into his body. It is more than the feeling of atoms of Grace splitting around the silver, more than the blood that leaks and wells up in his throat.

Lucifer is an archangel. Gabriel is an archangel. Lucifer, who taught him nearly everything he knows.

Gabriel never believed that Lucifer would actually do this.

He knew what might happen.

He did not think he would die that night.

Lucifer whispers tender words, and Gabriel cannot reply, choking on the bits of his vessel that are in places they do not belong.

He clutches at Lucifer, because he cannot keep himself standing and Lucifer is the only thing to hold.

Lucifer cups his face, like a brother, and drives the blade up into Gabriel's heart.

This was not part of the story. He was never a major player, not like this. He was not a martyr to die on the battlefield.

Neither the bottle of blood in Kali's hand nor the knowledge on the DVD were part of the story, either.

In the split second before the rest of him does, Gabriel feels his wings burn.

Gabriel does not know any more than that.

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