For schmoop bingo. Prompt love at first sight. This isn't exactly connected in any way to my fic Whisper a Sunset, but in my mind they sort of take place in the same 'verse.
Warnings: Blasphemy (but this is Supernatural so... duh), vague mentions of questionable sexual acts (we're talking pagans... so you know, yeah), wee!Dean, wee!Gabriel, lack of any sort of actual slash, pre-series, spoilers for 5.08 and 5.19.
There's a snap of fingers and a huge bowl of ice cream appears on the table in front of Gabriel. There's another snap, then another and another. At each snap something even more unhealthy and sickeningly sweat appears on the table.
Gabriel takes the bowl of chocolate ice cream and leans back on the couch.
Fine, maybe he's always been a bit too curious. But it works for him. After all, this whole Trickster deal is pretty much all about sticking his nose into other people's business. So no, shacking up with the pagans has done nothing to cure him from that curiosity, pretty much the opposite. Pagans, Gabriel realised about five minutes after joining the club, are hopeless gossips.
He snags a Snickers bar and a bag of chocolate M&Ms from the table. The pagans also happen to be a heck of a lot of fun. A lot more fun than Heaven these days.
Heaven never had any orgies for one, Gabriel thinks and nearly chokes on his mouthful of chocolate. His family and… just no. He really hasn't felt that disturbed by anything in a while. When it comes to sex Gabriel has pretty much done it all. Well, Loki has, since that's who he is here. Sex doesn't really happen when you're mostly a giant ball of light (or, you know, Grace and Word, endless fury and power and love, but… whatever).
Gabriel sighs and sticks a handful of M&Ms in his mouth. Okay, sure the pagans are petty and unreasonable and do a lot of things that probably isn't all that good (and Loki's never hesitated to get in on the action). And hey, doesn't that sound familiar. So, who's he to judge? Besides Gabriel likes them, well some of them, they're not home but… nothing really is.
Yeah and why exactly is he thinking about home again? He's successfully avoided that for the last few decades. It's not his personal record (that had included a lot of things that weren't socially acceptable these days, come to think of it, some of it had probably never been acceptable in any society ever), but it's a pretty decent stretch of denial anyway.
Gabriel pokes a finger at the red crayon on the table. It rolls over a few times and stops when it collides with a bowl of candy.
Right. That.
It might be a universal trait of kid brothers to go poke their noses in their big brothers' stuff. He'll be damned if he knows (and if Dad ever shows up he might just be anyway), but it's the way Dad made him.
His brothers' true vessels? Come on, he just had to take a peek. At least at Mike's, since Luci's brat still wasn't old enough to do much of anything.
And fine, he shouldn't have gone, but that's never stopped him before. He just… well, if it all really is going to be over soon and… he had to see with his own eyes.
He really did mean to just sneak a tiny little peek.
Gabriel snaps his fingers and another little kid appears in the kindergarten. No one notices.
He sticks a sucker in his mouth, twirls his tongue around it and then pulls it out with a loud pop.
Cherry flavour.
There are kids all over the place. Gabriel hasn't actually been around kids a whole lot. He doesn't have anything against them, there's just never been much of a reason for him to have much to do with kids (okay technically, he might have had a few of them, but lets just not go into the whole giving birth to a horse thing or anything else like that).
Even with the place swarming with the little critters Gabriel has no problems at all singling out Mike's vessel. The kid shines like friggin' neon light to anyone who knows how to look. Gabriel couldn't miss him if he tried.
The kid is sitting alone, staring at two kids having an animated discussion about something that involves a lot of hand waving and the repeated use of the word "water".
Gabriel saunters over to a wall and leans back against it. He twirls the sucker in his mouth and looks as one of the teachers walks over to the kid. After a few words the kid follows the teacher and they both sit down at a table where she seems to do her best to convey how much fun drawing a pretty, pretty picture would be. Something like that anyway.
The kid takes the crayon he is handed and obediently draws something on the paper. After a moment the teacher smiles and tells him something that's probably disgustingly encouraging and then goes to break up a tug of war for some building blocks, which by the looks of it is about to escalate into hair pulling.
The kid sits alone at the table, the paper and crayons in front of him. He's clutching a crayon and doesn't look too happy about it. Gabriel watches as the kid draws a few lines on the paper, looking pretty much like he's resigned himself to the task.
Everyone seems happy enough to leave the kid alone.
It feels wrong. As brightly as that kid shines, even run of the mill mortals would have to see something. Drawn to that shiny bright light like moths to a flame.
The next thing Gabriel knows he's sliding out the chair next to the kid and dropping down into it. When he sits down Gabriel notices that like this he's a bit shorter than the other kid.
"Hi," Gabriel says. The kid ignores him and uses a red crayon to make some obscure swirls on the paper. Except… well, someone's trying to teach the kid things. He's drawing protective symbols. They look a bit squiggly in places, but the kid seems to be getting there.
There'll be trouble about that if the kid keeps practicing in the wrong places. Kids drawing weird symbols always make people nervous, but that's not Gabriel's problem.
He sticks his sucker back into his mouth and reaches over and tugs the crayon from the kid's hand. The kid turns to glare at him with the brightest green eyes Gabriel thinks he might have ever seen.
Gabriel blinks, then he gives the kid a wide grin around his sucker and pockets the red crayon. The green eyes widen a bit and then narrow down in anger. It looks a lot better on him than the quiet indifference Gabriel had watched earlier.
Gabriel slurps at the sucker and tries out looking innocent. The kid doesn't seem to be buying it. He pulls out a Caramel Crunch and holds it out to the kid, who doesn't look at all placated by the gesture. Gabriel pulls out the candy from his mouth.
"You sure?" He asks and waggles the chocolate bar in front of the kid. "It's not poisoned." Gabriel is pretty sure the not taking candy from strangers rule doesn't actually apply to other kids, but this kid already seems to be one paranoid little bastard. Can't say that he blames him.
The kid's eyes flick over to the candy bar. There's a moment of hesitation before the kid snags it out of his hand. The kid ducks his head and looks down at his hands clutching the candy.
Green eyes flicker up briefly. Then he hesitantly lifts his head and looks back at Gabriel and smiles shyly.
"Thanks."
Gabriel pops the sucker back into his mouth.
He turns towards the papers on the table and picks up a crayon. It's green. Gabriel draws a line on an empty paper and the kid doesn't seem to mind so much when he picks up a new crayon and goes back to drawing.
It doesn't take Gabriel long to finish. He looks down at the green lines, not his best work ever. He puts a finger on the paper and slides it over toward the kid.
"Try that instead," he says before he gets up and walks away.