Title: Transcendency and Other Misdemeanours

Summary: 5.18 missing scene. For centuries Gabriel has been hiding from his family, from himself, but others have seen him very, very clearly. They know what he truly is.
Characters: Gabriel, Trickster gods
Disclaimer: I love them to bits but they don't belong to me.
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Warnings: Language
AN: A general apology for any liberties or mistakes made with the gods who came to visit. It's hard to gain bone-deep knowledge of cultural/religious icons by reading a few articles but I tried.

I can't kill my brother

Can't or won't?

Gabriel barely heard the car door open as Dean stepped out. The hunter's words echoing in his mind like something out of a cheap psi-horror film. He heard the door screech and wail as it moved and he couldn't help but feel envious—he wants to screech and wail too.

Can't or won't…

How could Dean ask him that, ask him to do that? Kill his brother. It's not like Dean's ever really considered offing Sam no matter what reasons he was given. If Sam ever said yes to the Devil, Dean might do something in about four years or so but then it wouldn't be Sam anymore, either, so that doesn't really count at all! The angel nodded agreement with his own argument even as his mind continued the discussion. Why should it be easier for him to fight his brother than it is for Dean? Why should it be any different for an archangel to commit fratricide? Not that his siblings weren't killing each other with great abandon but that was them and not... him. No matter what meat Lucifer was wearing, he was still Gabriel's brother.

And it's his brother who wants to kill all the humans on the planet… Shit, totally unfun.

"Holy Hells, it's wet out there," exclaimed a voice from the seat next to him. Gabriel turned to see a dark-skinned boy run hands through his red, red hair. The boy flicked his fingers and a big spider flew through the air before latching on to the fabric of the roof. "Think you can turn off the water works there, Nancy?"

"I am not the one responsible, chica," the spider replied. Gabriel revised his estimate: that spider wasn't just big it was freaking huge.

"It's Saci," the boy rolled his eyes at the talking spider. "You know my name so quit being a bug." He held out his hand. "Hi, you must be Gabriel."

The archangel, not usually at a loss for words, found his mind absolutely blank. He took the boy's hand and gave it a tentative shake. The boy's, Saci's, features told of a South American heritage that had little to do with Cabral and Pizarro and lots to do with lost tribes and dark rainforests. He had one leg and red hair and he smelled awful. And that seemed awfully familiar... like the talking spider. "Have we met before?" Gabriel asked.

"Only in spirit," the boy replied, a smile splitting his broad face. The door beside Gabriel squeaked open. He turned toward the noise just as the front doors opened in quick succession. "Think the Winchesters would mind if I smoke in their car?" he asked in a lightly accented voice.

"If they don't, I do." A young Asian man pushed in beside the archangel forcing Gabriel into the center of the seat. He used a short spear to push aside the hunters' mess on the floor. "And you know Māui hates it." Gabriel looked at the teen a moment before his attention was caught by the colourful bird settling on the back of the front seat.

"If that bird shits on the leather, Dean's going to be pissed," Gabriel said calmly despite the whirlwind going on in his brain. He'd just wanted to go off somewhere and lick his wounds, prepare for the end of the world—little things but important. Instead his personal space was being invaded by birds and talking spiders and strange young men.

Gabriel couldn't help but wonder if this is what his victims felt like when he flipped their worlds over on them.

"Don't worry. I am house-trained," the bird responded in a deep, liquid voice. "It is the twenty-first century after all."

"What has that got to do with anything," the boy, Saci, asked which was a good question actually.

"It means, boy gods don't burn noxious herbs in other peoples' cars and bird gods don't defecate on the upholstery," the spider answered.

Gabriel laughed—what other choice did he have after hearing a spider use a three-syllable word for 'shit'? At least he now had a pretty good idea of who was invading Dean's car and it wasn't looking good for him.

"Well put as I'm not a fan of tobacco either." The speaker was one of the two men now seating themselves in the front seat, He was big—like Sam big—with long blond hair, blue eyes and a nose broken too many times to be described as anything as mild as 'adding character'... butt-fuck scary, maybe, but not merely 'interesting'.

"Considering the stuff you put in your body, I'm surprised you even notice." His companion was the opposite. Slim of body, with chiselled cheeks and a blade-like nose, he had golden skin with dark eyes and dark hair. He wore a cowboy hat with the cheesiest band decoration Gabriel had ever seen... and he'd seen plenty. All the man needed was a shirt with F.B.I. stamped on it—Full Blooded Indian—to be even more obvious. "Howdy, Gabe."

"Coyote," the archangel acknowledged. "Anansi," he tipped his head to the spider. "I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure," he said to the Asian youth.

"Zhongtan Yuanshuai," he dipped his head in an almost bow. "Call me Nezha—billions do." His voice was thickly accented but still completely understandable. Gabriel recognized god magic.

"He's from China. I'm from Brazil or near enough," said the boy beside him, "That's Māui. He's from Australia."

"Oceania, actually," the bird corrected.

"Whatever," Saci rolled his eyes.

"And surely you recognize me," said the large blond guy, "After all, we look so much alike, people often mistake you for me."

"Loki."

"Got it in one," the Norse god grinned but Gabriel didn't get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the expression. He didn't think he was supposed to.

An odd fatalism filled Gabriel as he looked at the beings surrounding him: Coyote, Anansi, and Loki he'd heard of—who hadn't?—and, if he had to guess, "Trickster gods. You're all Trickster gods."

Loki grinned at Nezha, "I told you he was smarter than he looks."

"Hardly a high benchmark," Anansi commented and Saci chuckled in appreciation.

"So are you here to kill me?" he asked. It seemed a better way to go out than being forced to take sides between his brothers. He loved them both, admired them, wanted them both to be happy but knew that it wasn't ever going to happen. The last chance for that had flown long ago. And now, if he chose one, the other would feel hurt and betrayed and he couldn't do it. Couldn't... didn't want to, wouldn't have to if Loki and the rest just blew him to bits. He'd even give them his real sword to do it with.

"Why would we want to do that, my fine feathered friend?" Loki responded with a smirk, "You can hardly entertain us if you're dead."

"The slow dancing alien?" Coyote reminded the group, "That was classic."

"Yes. Very entertaining, good choice," Nezha agreed. There were assenting murmurs all around. For the second time that night, Gabriel was left without an idea of what to say. That had been years ago. It was so weird that he was reminded of Broward County, except he was experiencing it from Sam's perspective. Not a nice place to be…

"So you're not going to kill me," he confirmed and looked around the car as the gods all shook their heads, even Anansi, his eight eyes glittering in the lights of the tricked out hotel. "So why are you here?"

"Well, all the oh-so-serious gods are inside. Why shouldn't we have our own party?" Loki asked. Gabriel just looked at him. He knew bullshit when it was thrown at him. Loki smiled in return, that same non-comforting smile he'd given the angel before.

Nezha broke the standoff. "Can your fallen brother truly kill them? I know the Norse gods are not fully strong—they have not many active worshipers now—but Kali is believed in by millions, practically billions." The teen god fiddled with his red sash, smoothing it out. "She is a strong god; creator and destroyer. Surely she is equal to Lucifer?"

The archangel took another look at the question. It was the same one that had driven him out of hiding on this god-forsaken night, to try and be a hero. Did the other gods, the ones in the hotel, stand a chance? Unfortunately, the answer remained the same. "Kali might've been able to stop him if Shiva was here with her. They pack an awful lot of power between the two of them, but he's not."

Nezha grimaced, "I think he is on a mountain in one of his meditative phases." Which explained to Gabriel why she was hanging out with Baldur, who was a douche really and totally not worthy of Kali's time. He couldn't mourn for the others, either he didn't know them or he did but didn't like them, but Kali? She'd been special. She'd pulled him out of his self-imposed exile and filled him full of life. She'd had such fire in her.

He almost smirked at his unintended pun except that fire, Kali's favourite weapon, wouldn't work against Lucifer who'd had thousands of years to get used to the heat, become immune to it. "Without Shiva, Kali'll fight and fail," the archangel said sadly. "I didn't see any other god that even came close to her potential so, yeah, they'll all die."

Then his attention was caught by something else the Chinese god had said. "Does that make a difference? Having people believe in you?"

"Hell, yeah," Coyote answered. "We rely on that stuff."

He'd never really thought about how the pagan gods still existed but maybe he should have. After all, his father's followers had done their best to wipe out all traces of other religions over the centuries but their names had been remembered and their ceremonies were written down somewhere for scholars—and Hunters—to study.

"The more people who believe in a god, whether strongly or not, the more powerful that god becomes," Māui explained. "It's like they lend a portion of themselves, their will, to their chosen god."

"The only way to kill a god is to forget all about him, or her," Anansi continued. "Even ones without active believers, like Loki, will retain some power as long as people talk about them, tell their stories, remember their names. We become more vulnerable to harm, though, weaker. It takes us longer and longer to recover. Eventually, we can't. That's when we can be considered dead."

"Thanks for pointing that out, Nancy," Loki said mockingly although Gabriel couldn't tell if it was directed at the African god or himself. Anansi was in no danger of fading out. He was worshipped in lots of places in lots of different forms and he had guys writing books about him even now. Anansi could afford to be clinical about this stuff. Loki couldn't.

"Huh." It was all Gabriel could think of in response. So gods didn't die as long as people believed in them, kind of like that tulpa thing the boys had run into in Texas years ago. It was good news. It meant he didn't have to worry about Kali any more, not really. Even if Lucifer forced her current form to dissolve she'd be back… and probably looking better than ever. He wished he'd live long enough to see it.

He wondered if that power transfer thing worked with angels too. It would certainly explain why Lucifer, not the most power angel their father created, had become Satan. A being so powerful he was able to kill mortals, angels and gods, and raise the legendary Horsemen of the Apocalypse with equal abandon.

But, even though it was an interesting idea, it was also completely beside the point. "That doesn't explain why you're talking to me."

"My goodness," the spider god mocked, "he's rather dim tonight."

"Getting stabbed in the chest by an old girlfriend will do that to a person," the angel sneered right back still half thinking about the power of belief in creating and maintaining the supernatural world and how he could work that to his advantage.

"Nancy's always getting killed. I don't think he even notices it anymore." Saci was smiling as he said it. He'd found some small spheres and was juggling them—an impressive feat considering the confined space in the back seat of the Impala. Although, when Gabriel looked more closely, it looked like the stones were actually falling through the boy's hands but that couldn't be right because there was always the same number circling through the air. He shook the question out of his head; it wasn't important right now or ever... probably.

"What do you want?" he asked again.

"You ever hear how Anansi tried to claim all the world's stories?" Coyote asked instead of answering the question. Gabriel ground his teeth. He hated Tricksters.

The bird chuckled. "He didn't manage it, of course, but he did learn many of them."

"Remembers much of them too," Loki said with a hint of admiration and Gabriel remembered that memory had never been considered one of the Norse gods' strengths. They'd had a creature, someone, to do that for them... or something like that.

"Lots of knowledge is hidden in the stories of common men," Coyote said obliquely.

Gabriel just barely stopped his impatient eye-roll. He'd killed people for spouting cryptic mystic shit like that. Hell, he could barely tolerate that kind of crap from his father. "If you guys came all the way out here to swap stories because I've got a good one about alien prostitutes in Atlanta that you might enjoy." Okay, so he didn't stop the sarcasm. They could sue him, or play tricks on him… or smite him which would certainly solve his current dilemma.

"We came here to give you information," said the teen-age god beside him. The boy was poking the garbage lining the floor of the back seat, lifting whatever he'd speared to his face, examining it, and then tossing it at Māui and making the bird god flutter first one way then the other. They both seemed to enjoy it.

Loki batted away a hamburger wrapper that came to close. "We want to help the Winchesters defeat Lucifer and you're our best point of access."

"You want to help. Why?" Gabe couldn't help his scepticism. He knew enough about trickster gods to know they never did anything without expecting something in return.

"The goodness of our hearts?" Nezha said with a smirk.

"Right," Gabriel responded sceptically. "So well, this has been fun but, pretty soon, my brother's going to show up and roast this wiener stand and I'd like to be somewhere else when he get here."

"Do you want to know how to trap the Devil and send him back to Hell?" Coyote interrupted any argument before it could start. "It won't kill him, likely won't even hurt him. He'll be gone and the apocalypse will be stopped."

He stared at the gods sitting in the car, looking for the tell-tale smirk on the lips or glitter in the eye that would let him know that this was a joke, just another prank by a Trickster. It had to be. The showdown between Lucifer and Michael had been prophesied for eons, ever since Mike had tossed their brother down, actually. Now these pagan gods show up with a plan to stop it?

But, as the silence stretched and none of them looked away, Gabriel realized they meant it. They thought they had a way...

"Let's see... save the world, not watch my brothers kill each other... hmm, tough choice. Of course I want to know." He'd meant to sound snarky but instead his voice was oddly wistful.

"Very good," Loki's smile was echoed on the faces of the other gods—even the bird and the spider managed to look smugly satisfied.

Of course, it was Anansi who took over the narration. "Angels are creatures of spirit. They can only be trapped by things of spirit manifested. Life on earth is ever-changing yet there are some elements that are absolute. See how nicely the conundrums dovetail?" the spider god intoned. Gabriel barely refrained from groaning impatiently but somehow Anansi knew anyway. "Obviously not," his voice was dry as the desert.

"There are ideas, drives, needs that are so ingrained in the human psyche that they might as well be the mountains and the skies. You know some of them as the Seven Cardinal Virtues: prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude, and then faith, hope and charity got added later." Anansi's head tilted in thought, "Love should've been in there but the early church leaders got it mixed up with passion and that was too close a reminder to the old Roman empire and its debauchery—" There was a not-so-discreet cough from behind him. "—but that's a tale for another time. Other ingrained ideas you know as the Seven Deadly Sins—"

"I'm sure he's already familiar with those," Loki said with a leer in his voice.

Saci, Māui and Gabriel snorted in agreement. Coyote grinned. The spider ignored them all.

"The Virtues and the Sins balance each other, that is they essentially cancel each other out in terms of power so, for all your brother Michael's good intentions, he doesn't have any special forces to bring to the fight and Lucifer has had millennia in Hell with the demons to learn some new tricks so they, like the Virtues and the Sins, balance each other in strength and intent—"

Beside Gabriel, Saci groaned and saved the angel the trouble. "Get on with it, Nancy or I swear, the next rock goes right through your head."

Anansi huffed in exasperation, "There are four more unalterable, unavoidable truths that exist in this, the realm of impermanence."

"The Horsemen," Gabriel said, enlightened.

"The Horsemen," Nezha agreed. He was twirling a gold ring around his finger, passing it from hand to hand.

"War, Famine, Pestilence and Death," Anansi listed them. "They are essentially neutral because they exist whether or not they have physical form, whether or not people believe in them or want them. As long as there are people living and needing and dying, they will exist."

"But they're working for Lucifer," Gabriel protested.

"They're working for your brother only because he gave them their physical forms," Coyote explained, "Their powers are neutral. They can be used against the Devil as easily as against anybody else."

"How?" Gabriel asked. "I mean, how does that work?"

"Because their powers are of the Earth, they can bind Lucifer back in the earth." Māui answered.

"Each Horseman has a ring that encapsulates its power while they have a body," Anansi picked up the narrative. "They keep the power focussed and allows the horseman to act and think rather than to react and exist. The Winchesters need to collect all four rings."

"They have two already," Nezha said, admiration filling his voice, "Impressive for mortals."

Anansi ignored the interruption, "If the Winchesters can collect all four rings and place them in a circle around Lucifer, the powers they contain will latch on to your brother as the one who gave them form. They'll want their forms back—"

"You talk like the rings are sentient," Gabriel broke in.

"Just call them precious-esssss," Saci murmured.

"Not sentient, instinctual." Anansi, as usual, ignored the comments and carried on with his explanation. "It is instinct for any living thing—creature or idea—to want to reproduce, to grow. Small conflicts become police actions that become wars. Wants become desires that become need. Illnesses become outbreaks that become epidemics."

"Only Death feels no urge to expand his territory," Coyote said. "Thanks to Māui there, everyone comes to him in the end." The bird shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with his fellow god.

"That ring will be the hardest to obtain," Nezha stated. He didn't offer any suggestions on how to get it, Gabriel noticed.

"As I said, once the Winchesters have them all, if they can circle Lucifer, the forces in the rings will latch on to him, wanting to return to their previous form. They will act as manacles draining his power and trapping him—"

"But not killing him," Loki interjected, feeling the need to emphasize that point. He'd never felt any compunction about killing his siblings but the archangel obviously did.

"—in his host body so that he will be easy to send back to Hell," Anansi finished. "The exorcism is a little different from what they know, but it's not beyond their capabilities."

"If it fails, the Winchester's will probably be killed. We'll be no worse off but your brothers might be screwed without their 'perfect vessels'," Loki pointed out pragmatically, "which might make them take a step back and rethink this whole thing."

"Either way..." Saci shrugged. Coyote dipped his head once in agreement, a move that the other gods echoed.

Gabriel examined what had been said, picking it apart, looking for flaws or loopholes. He didn't deny it sounded logical; he couldn't, because it felt familiar, like a tale he'd heard eons ago—or maybe he really was channelling Tolkien. Still, if there was a chance that it could work; he had nothing to gain by not trying, it seemed, and everything to lose. On the other hand these were Trickster gods. No one knew better than self-exiled archangel that Tricksters weren't known for telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help them, whatever.

Unless there was something in it for them... "What do you get out of it, again?"

"We've already told you," Loki said.

Gabriel just looked at the Norse god. What the hell was he talking about? "You're all immortal, that's what you said," the archangel repeated, "So what difference does my little family row make to you?"

Beside him, Nezha sighed and thumped his spear against the floor. "What happens if Lucifer wins?"

Saci answered him, "He wipes out all the humans on the planet because he hates them."

Anansi asked the next question, "What happens to us gods if there's no one left alive to believe in us, to speak our names and tell our stories?"

"We die," Loki answered.

A spear point lightly grazed Gabriel's chin. "I don't want to die," the Asian youth said very seriously and the angel swallowed.

"None of us want to die," Coyote said, "So we tell you how to stuff Lucifer back into his box, you tell the Winchesters, and then we all sit back and let them be the heroes."

Gabriel flicked his gaze over the assembled gods. They all looked either predatory or smug or both. They believed it would work. They wanted it to work. Christ, Gabriel admitted, he wanted it to work too. "One problem," the angel said, although he could think of several but none that these guys could help him with, "Why would they believe me? Considering I've acted like one of... you... every time I've met them, they've got no reason to trust me."

"Because you're going to sacrifice yourself to save them," Māui said calmly.

"For some reason, dying for a cause always seems to inspire confidence," Anansi mused.

"Is that why you let yourself 'die' so much, Nancy?" Saci asked with a snort, "Because it's part of your con?"

If spiders could arch their eyebrows, Gabriel was ready to swear that Anansi did. "It's an effective tactic."

Saci laughed an odd braying sound. He was now juggling about seven glowing stones. They looked hot—really hot. Gabriel turned away. He didn't want to know because, as fascinating the circus act was, the angel had another small objection. He raised his hand. "Uh guys? This may be a good, no… it's a great cause, and a good plan, but I don't want to die either."

"You're not going to die," Anansi focussed all his eyes on the archangel, "Just appear to die. There's a crucial difference."

"You would know," Māui snickered.

"Trick Lucifer?" Gabriel said in disbelief, "the Prince of Lies."

"Hel-lo-ooo," Loki said waving his hand in front of his face, "Tricksters." The blond grinned at him and Gabriel had to wonder just how closely these guys had been watching him. Too frickin' closely was the obvious answer, if they could quote that.

"Your brother will be expecting a trick so we give him one. You will seem to be here," Nezha tapped his spear on one side of the foot well, "but it will be false. This he will know so, when another you appears here," he thumped his spear down on the other side, "attacking with your little angel sword, he will assume it is your true form."

"It won't be?" This sounded okay. He wouldn't have to confront Lucifer, wouldn't have to experience his brother killing him—that was good.

"It will be," Coyote crushed Gabriel's small hope, "but you won't be you anymore."

The angel stared at the god. He was pretty sure his head hurt and he had a sudden sympathy for Dean and Sam and everything he'd put them through in the last few years. He knew he looked like a tonne of bricks had hit him because Māui laughed, which sounded really odd coming from a bird, "I think you'll have to expand on that a bit."

"Yes, please do explain, my furry little friend," Gabriel quipped unthinking. Coyote grinned coldly, flashing his too-sharp teeth, and his eyes flickered feral yellow. He tapped his too-pointed to be fingernails on the back of the seat. The archangel remembered that this was a god he was poking at... not his God, of course, but a god, which bumped him up a level of power from an angel, even an archangel... who could be killed while gods, even pagan gods, could not. At least, not as easily.

"How long have you lived among humans, Cochise? One thousand years? Two? And you've been playing a Trickster for much of that time." Gabriel nodded—close enough. "Long enough for the humans to believe in you, even pray to you to bring them good luck or maybe just to not notice them, It gives you some of their power plus you still have your grace inside. . With one little alteration, it will be enough to survive this fight. The change shouldn't even hurt."

"What are you talking about?" Gabriel's eyes were wide, frightened and his breathing was too fast and too shallow. He looked scared. He knew it, couldn't stop it.

"Why, becoming one of us, of course," the bird god said as if it should've been obvious, and it was but still...

It was the answer that Gabriel had expected, given Coyote's explanation, except that he hadn't wanted to hear it. He'd never be able to see his family again. Well... he would but they probably wouldn't want to... or be allowed to... whatever. They were talking about, not just hiding from his family, but leaving it completely, giving up all chance to go back to Heaven with the others once this was all over. If it would ever be over...

What did daddy say when you ran off and joined the pagans?

Dean Winchester's little comment floated through his mind. It was so totally appropriate for this because, if he agreed, he would literally be joining the pagans, just as a pagan god rather than a pagan human.

"That's sacrilege," he managed to scrape out of a throat gone tight and dry, "Actually, it's probably way fucking beyond mere sacrilege and into a whole 'nother category."

Loki nodded, "It's reminiscent of what Lucifer did." His voice wasn't soft or filled with sympathetic understanding. The Norse god just stated the fact as if it didn't completely blow open centuries of issues for the archangel.

"Except your brother rebelled because he didn't wish to share your father's attention—" Nezha added.

"—classic sibling rivalry," Anansi inserted.

"Spoiled brat," Saci muttered in counterpoint.

The Chinese god ignored them, "Whereas you would fight to protect humanity. To protect what your father claims as his greatest creation."

"Sounds almost heroic," Loki smiled ironically. He'd never wanted to be a hero but it never seemed to stop the urge from surfacing in the weirdest places.

Gabriel sneered at them. "I never wanted to a hero," he said in an eerie echo of Loki's thoughts, "That was always Michael's role."

"And he's doing such a fine job of it," the South American god sneered in return.

Anansi flicked a leg at them in what Gabriel thought was supposed to be a soothing manner but just looked bizarre in a huge frickin' spider, "As plentiful as your brother's good qualities likely are, in this matter he is allowing his feelings to cloud his judgment. He may be able to defeat Lucifer but at what cost?"

"Millions, maybe even billions, of people dead," Saci added, "All because he's so focussed on proving he's better," the god provided air quotes and Gabriel had no idea where the stones he'd been juggling had disappeared to, "that's he's still the good son, the loyal soldier."

"Nothing wrong with being dedicated to the mission," Loki started.

"As long as it doesn't make you act stupidly," Nezha added.

"This is making Michael stupid," they both finished.

"Harsh," Māui said with tilt of his colourful head, "but not exactly untrue."

Coyote turned in his seat to look at the angel fully. "So the question we're asking, my fine feathered friend, is what is really important to you? The two brothers that you haven't seen or talked to in a few thousand years, or the humans you've lived with and played with and grown to admire?"

Loki smirked, "You won't be able to get any of us to believe you don't like them."

It was true, Gabriel did like humans; they were so varied in how they lived, how they thought and everything they did and believed. Not like Heaven where all the angels were expected to be exactly the same, obedient and brainless, like windup toys or trained dogs... that sounded kind of bad when he thought it out loud like that. Disloyal, like he'd already made his decision and he totally hadn't.

"Yeah, but you're asking me to become a god," he hedged, "I'm not sure I'm up to that."

"If it makes you feel better you won't be much of one," Saci snickered. He was back to juggling his lumps of burning coal. Gabriel still didn't want to know...

"Maybe killing you will make Lucifer think of something other than his own hurt feelings, for once," Anansi suggested. "You were one of his favourite siblings if I understand the Christian writings correctly."

"Unlikely," Māui disagreed. He'd been attacked by his siblings enough to know it rarely changed anything. It took cosmic forces—like mothers—to change family dynamics.

"Whatever," Saci muttered.

"Humans have been more of a family to you than the other angels, either the ones up top or down below," Nezha pointed out.

"I left," Gabriel defended his brothers and sisters.

The teen-age god shrugged, "But they didn't try to find you."

The nasty hard truth hung like one of Saci's lumps of coal in the middle of the air, burning away all the oxygen. Gabriel couldn't deny that the young warrior was right. The other angels, his brothers and sisters, hadn't come looking for him. When he first ran away to earth, Gabriel had set up an alarm system, afraid that any angel following him would either drag him back to be punished for his disobedience. It had never been tripped. He'd felt cherubs and other lesser angels but none of his level, none of any of the level that even came close to his. They hadn't cared enough to even try to find him for whatever the reason.

"What do you say, Gabriel," Loki's voice cut through his unhappy thoughts. "Do you want to try to save the world or just let it burn?"

Gabriel sighed. His siblings may not care but he did. He'd been beaten as soon as they said he wouldn't have to kill Lucifer. It didn't matter that his baby brother was acting like a selfish, spoiled little asshole having a tantrum; he'd spent too many centuries taking care of him and protecting him, to not try and fix this for him now. Gabriel couldn't change himself enough to want Lucifer dead even though it would probably be the easiest and longest lasting solution. And even the thought that Lucifer would probably prefer being dead to being locked back up in the pit didn't change the conclusion: Gabriel had to protect his brothers from their actions no matter what it cost him.

"So how do we do this?" he asked, "As I said before, Dean and Sam have no reason to trust me and I don't think we have time for a lengthy conversation while I try to convince them."

"First things first," Coyote said, "We need to fix you so you're harder to kill." The god reached over and placed two fingers on the angel's forehead. Gabriel felt a scratch, from his claws probably, and then heat infused him. Heat and a bubbly type of feeling that made him feel like his skin was too small and the world was kind of fragile and—woah—was he floating? He could feel the raindrops and the lightning.

"How'd you do that?"

"Coyote can create things," Anansi answered, "even minor gods."

"Seriously?" Gabriel hadn't known that.

"It's a rare skill for a Trickster but, if you think about it, fairly logical considering that all of us can create, or recreate, reality to certain extents." They all waited for the spider to keep yapping because he always did but this time the god shut up. Gabriel would swear the insect smiled at him. Evilly.

"Okay, so now Lucifer can't kill me. How do we get the map of Mount Doom to the Winchesters?"

This time it was Loki that smiled at him evilly even as his form shifted and changed. He became smaller and curvier. He became a girl; a blonde girl with very few clothes on, and the Impala became a hotel room decorated in the best tradition of cheesy no-tells everywhere.

"How do you feel about being Hung-arian?" Loki asked as she rolled over on the bed.

Gabriel looked down at the bright red vest he was now wearing, at the cheap aluminum tray he was holding, and felt the ridiculously huge piece of fur hibernating on his upper lip. He wiggled his eyebrows lasciviously. "This'll work."

Fin.