I made inappropriate comments about one of my commenter's butts, and I sincerely apologize on behalf of the company.

I assure you that circuitry has been removed for repair and rewiring, and I promise to work hard to make sure something like this never happens again.

In fic related news, figured out where I'm going with this. Sort of. Feels good.

EDIT: I noticed today that somewhere in transferring this to , the first sentence was deleted. Annoying, but repaired.

Gabriel kicks a rock under the car and heaves a sigh so theatrical Brian Blessed would be proud.

"This is boring," he announces loud enough so Gigantor climbing out of the driver's side can hear him. "Can't we call it a day? Let's head back to that fudge shop we passed two graveyards ago. I could do with some fudge right now."

The side of Sam's jaw twitches and he slams the door closed with bit more force than needed, which is about the biggest reaction Gabriel's been able to get out of him all day. A twitch. Sometimes a half-hearted glare. That's it. Gabriel doesn't usually have to work this hard to annoy someone into submission.

Then again, this is the brother of Dean Winchester. It's to be expected.

(But he is being completely honest here; following Sam around and pretending to care about little details is boring, and he really does want fudge. See, this is the problem with being unable to fly father than a short hop. He has to actually rely on other people for transportation. Seriously, how do people cope with non-instantaneous travel? It's only been a day and it's already lost the novelty.)

"This is the second to last cemetery," Sam says with a voice that says "I'm trying to be reasonable to the hyperactive nine year old" and straightens his jacket. "Might as well check them all out today."

"Aw come on, you know you've been thinking about that girl standing out on the street with those samples all day. Nice and petite, cute little skirt and a silver tray. I bet she'd look even better with that skirt on the ground and all those chocolates covering her nip-"

"Dude!" Sam interrupts. Gabriel smirks at Sam's glare. "I know this isn't exactly your thing, but if you're gonna follow me around, at least concentrate on the job, not some girl we walked past three hours ago."

Gabriel's grin widens. "Should've known you were vanilla. Tell you what; you get vanilla with her, then I'll get her and show her a real good time. Sound like a plan?"

Sam very pointedly ignores Gabriel and walks past the archangel into the cemetery, not even deigning to look at him.

(He also, Gabriel notes with glee as he saunters behind, doesn't deny either suggestion. He makes a quick note to hold that against Sam later; he's thinking seven girls, Sam's bed, wearing clothing only made out of chocolate and not much of it. Maybe add a light rain of white chocolate, coming from the sprinker system. Mm, that might be too much. He wonders what the Sasquatch looks like blushing.)

Stone Creek Cemetery, at first glance, is exactly like all the other cemeteries Sam has dragged him in. Lots of gravestones; lots of statues; lots of dead people. Gabriel's suprised to find he recognizes some of the names; hell, one of them he put in himself. (Dirtbag of a politician who never shut up about abortion and how evil it is and how any woman who considers it is a Godless heathen and blah blah blah and Gabriel really doesn't care about the issue but the guy was a real dick about it so Gabriel decided to impregnate him. Turns out men aren't used to having babies. Also turns out men aren't really keen on having babies. Also turns out stabbing your stomach with a steak knife is not a safe way to have an abortion.)

Nothing really interesting, though. He glances over in Sam's general direction. He's checking some meter or something, Gabriel can't be bothered to figure it out. Gabriel shrugs and strolls off in the other direction. There's a big grove of trees in the back that look promising. Nice and shady; perfect for a nap. Not something he's used to doing, but definitely something he can get used to.

As he gets closer he feels something tugging at his senses, just a bit, forcing him to a standstill. Not a full angel or a demon, but definitely something if only he can put his finger on what. Frowning, he stretches his wings just a little and pulls himself into the grove.

And sighs. His life, he can already tell, is about to get needlessly complicated.

"Sam!" he yells. "Get your butt over here; I just found what we're looking for.

It takes Sam all of twenty seconds to cross the cemetery and enter the grove. He finds an elaborate memorial with granite pavement and wing-decorated benches and a bronze statue of a robed woman sitting on a granite chair. The woman, the cloth of her shroud leaving only her face and hands visible, stares out into nothing with an unreadable expression. It would be peaceful, with the trees obscuring the rest of the graveyard, if the statue wasn't so...unsettling.

Gabriel's standing within arm's reach of the statue and staring right back like he thinks if he stares long enough it'll start dancing.

"What is it?" he asks, nodding at the statue.

Gabriel continues to stare at the statue, but his expression turns thoughtful. "I don't think humans ever got around to making a word for them," he says finally. "But angels used to call them raclir murifri."

"Enochian?"

He nods. It catches Sam off guard a bit; he rarely hears angels speak Enochian and coming out of Gabriel? Kinda weird.

"So, they related to angels or something?"

He hesitates before shaking his head. "Or something. For all intents and purposes they're closer to reapers. Been around for awhile, but there aren't many of 'em. I haven't seen one in...since the First War. Have a habit of squatting at graveyards to protect Earthbound souls. Give a little haven until they figure out their afterlife."

"Well that's good, right? Protecting graveyards and preventing angry spirits."

"Sure, if you're not a hunter digging up and defiling corpses on a daily basis."

Sam doesn't have a good response to that, so he just nods and studies the statue. It doesn't look dangerous (or even mobile) but looks are always deceiving.

"So if this is what got Dean," he says cautiously. "What did it do with him? Did it...," he stops. He doesn't even want to think about that, let alone voice it. Gabriel reads between the lines.

"I don't think she killed him," he says quickly. "Not their style, although one or two of them were a little ax-crazy back in the day. No, they're more into sending threats off somewhere else so someone else can deal with them."

"Like where?"

"Well, if we're lucky, the past is pretty popular."

Sam grimaces. He supposes, for an archangel who's used to having any time period at the snap of his fingers, finding someone in the past is just as difficult as finding someone in Antarctica. For someone stuck on a more linear path, however, it didn't bode well.

"And if we're unlucky?" he presses.

Gabriel shrugs, nonchalant. "If we're unlucky," he says, pausing a bit for that little dramatic flair. If he had the juice he'd make thunder crash for extra zing. "If we're unlucky, he got sent to another dimension."

"But what is it?"

"Does it move?"

"Why is it so big?"

"I bet it's a spy."

"Why would anyone want to spy on us?"

"Not to spy on us, you leaf, a captured spy."

"Well it's not a very good spy then, is it?"

"Bet it's a Spring Court sylph."

"Sylph have wings, you idiot."

"Your spawn have wings."

"Is it dead?"

"I think it's a robot."

"Poke it; see if it is dead or not."

"Poke it in the eyes!"

Dean groans. His head is throbbing and the annoying high pitched voices are not helping. They're so fucking shrill he can't even block them out, let alone understand them. Hell of a wakeup call. He tries to remember last night. Had he drank or eaten anything weird? Smoked anything funny? Weird after effect, whatever it was.

"Look! It moved!"

"Poke it!"

Something buzzes around his nose and without thinking or opening his eyes he swats it. It screams.

"AIYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"Marla!"

"Marla, are you okay!"

"Why you!...Let me go! I'm going to rip his fucking eyes out!"

Dean snaps open his eyes just in time to see an oncoming missile diving for his face. Before he even really looks at whatever it is he rolls away into a crouch and the missile plows past and buries itself into the hardwood floor with a sickening crack.

Blood and adrenaline pumping through his veins, Dean's eyes dart around for any more dangers. He's in a prison cell (he's been in enough to know the look) with stone walls and an iron bar door and a strangely well-kept darkwood floor that seems out of place. There aren't many furnishings, just a large bed and one very fancy toilet, just as out of place as the floor if not more, with more buttons than a toilet really needs that remind him of something from Japan he saw on the Internet. Those don't interest him too much, though.

What interests him are the four one-foot tall people miserably huddling around the crater created by the tiny missile.

"...The fuck are you midgets?" he manages finally after gaping for more than a minute. He's of course completely ignored.

"Marla!" wails one of the taller midgets (yeah, that's not an oxymoron). "Speak to me!"

"She'll be fine, Jir," the oldest midget says sympathetically. He pats the weeping (fucking weeping; even little guys need pride) guy on the back. "Just a knock on the noggin. Nothing big."

"But look at her!" he chokes. "She's flattened! Oh, things will never be the same again."

"She'll bounce back," says the other guy-midget. His brilliant green hair sort of put a damper on any seriousness he might go for. Reminds Dean of an Oompa Loompa. Gene Wilder, not the weird Depp one. Minus the carrot skin.

He shakes his head. Not what he needs to be concentrating on right now.

"Hey!" he yells, trying to get the midget's attention. They look up, startled. The crying one, Jir he thinks, sniffles. "Mind telling me what's going on here?" Also what are you, where I am, oh, and if it's not too much to ask, mind telling me how I can gank one of you guys just in case you turn out to be tiny people eaters? Thanks.

The older one blinks and adjusts his glasses. He stares at Dean with an intensity that reminds him a bit of Cas before he went postal, although it's a bit less 'Dean, I'm looking at your soul' and more of 'I wonder if you could survive without your liver'. Not comfortable.

"Are you a robot?" he asks finally, deadpan. He's still scrutinizing Dean like the guy who wants to dissect him and put him back together again.

Really not comfortable.

"No," he says slowly. Weird question.

"Are you positive?" Dr. Frankenstein presses. "No mechanical parts? No off switches?"

"No, I'm-hey! Hands off!" Mid-sentence he has to shake off the one girl midget who's feeling up his back for no apparent reason other than to be really creepy. "I'm flesh and blood human." he says, glaring at the girl. She skatters off behind the old guy. "Now what the hell are you guys?"

"You're a human?" pipes up the girl, peering around Frankenstein with the same wide eyes he'd expect a little girl who just saw a unicorn would have.

Dean's eyebrows rise. "Yeah, so? Something special about that?"

Frankenstein snaps his fingers and Dean can almost see the lightbulb above his head. "That answers what you are then."

"What?"

He coughs (squeaks; even with the gruffest voice of the bunch it's still high pitched) and collects himself looking for all the world like a professor about to give a lecture. "If you are a human, that means you are a first born, taken as payment for some deal, yes?"

"Well, I am four years older, but-"

"Which means," Frankenstein says triumphantly. "Which means you will either be impressed into the Autumn Court army or eaten."

Dean stares. Full on stares. "Sorry, what?" he manages.

"If it makes you feel any better, I was hoping you'd be a spy," the Oompa Loompa grumps.

Dean glares at Oompa Loompa. "Yeah, that doesn't help. Look." he shifts up onto the balls of his feet and out of the less comfortable, more battle ready position and into one better designed for looming over midgets. "Nobody's eating me. And no one's going to put me in whatever Court's army, okay? I'm-"

Something clicks in his head mid-rant, and he begins piecing it together. First born. He remembers those words being used with making a deal, 'bout a year ago, before Sam got his soul back. He flicks his eyes over to the crater. Flattened in the wood a woman, completely naked (kinda hot, bit too flat for his taste, though) with wings. Looks like a pixie.

Like a fairy.

"Are we..." he swallows, because he's really hoping he's wrong here. "Are we in Fairy?"

Frankenstein nods proudly. "Correct! Here I thought humans were complete idiots. You're in Autumn Court, too be exact, which might not be the best place for a first visit, but-"

The old midget keeps talking but Dean can't listen. He's in Fairy. He's in fucking Fairy. He's in Candyland, again, surrounded by a bunch of midget fairies with squeaky voices and one pixie who tried to dive-bomb him, and he doesn't have a convenient ticket back home like did last time.

Shit.

I'm more than a little proud about where Dean is.

Probably will be continuing Dean's storyline, but probably not in this fic. He'll probably get his own. It sort of doesn't match the mood for the rest of it, and I just wanted people to know where I shoved Dean.

For those interested in the statue, this is what it looks like:

en {dot} wikipedia {dot} org {slash} wiki/File:Adams_Memorial_by_Augustus_

This is the original statue. A copy of this statue can be found in Maryland, where it supposedly will send you to hell or just flat out kill you if you sit on it.

I highly encourage you to look at it. Specifically at night. In the dark. It's very comforting.