Chapter Two

Gabriel had no idea what was happening to him. He was still considering the fact that he was in Hell or Purgatory. He wouldn't have been surprised given the things he had done as his time as Trickster, but he couldn't help but wonder if this was the worst it was going to get. Or if this was just a warm up. It didn't help that the voices had stopped talking and were no longer providing him with a distraction. No matter how bittersweet that distraction was. Gabriel mentally sighed and wondered if boredom was now his punishment.


Three Months Earlier

"This is a little odd, you have to admit that. I mean. I like Groundhog Day as much as the next guy, but really? And why do you need me?" Veles asked, making Loki grin at him when he huffed and pouted, both sitting in the diner that Sam and Dean had decided to have their breakfast in. Personally, Loki thought his idea was genius.

"You're a God of Death too, right? So you can take his soul down before my father or anyone else from up top notices that I'm fucking with the Winchesters," Loki pointed out calmly, ignoring the venomous stare Veles was shooting him.

"Dexter Hasselback, he was passing through town last week when he vanished." Loki absently heard Sam say, which was quickly followed by a mournful sigh from Veles, and made Loki beam with utmost unholy joy when he realised what that meant.

"By the way, can I let Dex out yet? His whining is driving Ira up the wall. It's driving me up the wall as well, actually. If only because when he whines, Ira whines at me. Have you ever heard an ankou whine? They have had years to learn the most annoying ways to do that. Ira can now make a monosyllabic word have fifteen syllables. I know. I counted. Please let me let him out," Veles hissed, which just made Loki snicker before he shook his head.

"Nope, he's got to stay there for a while. Besides, you know he'll only be there for all of the days we will be reliving," Loki pointed out in what he hoped was a persuasive tone, not that he had any doubts he couldn't get Veles to cave to pretty much anything he asked.

"Oh, well when you put it that way, let's throw a bloody party," Veles grumbled before he stole the syrup from Loki and poured it into a glass, Loki then watched in horrified fascination when Veles then proceeded to pour three straws of sherbet into the glass and slowly stirred it with his finger.

"Your sugar habits put mine to shame. I look like a diabetic compared to your daily intake of sugar," Loki pointed out, throwing the sugary concoction a disturbed and disgusted look.

"Hmm. Possibly. Now, what are you going to do because they're leaving?" Veles pointed out to him, which made Loki jerk in his seat and turn to watch the brothers leave the diner.

"Shit, right, come on, you've got a temporary soul to collect," Loki whispered to Veles, who made a small noise of shock.

"What? Now? Give them time to see the damned Mystery Spot! I put a lot of damned effort in that place! Do you know how hard it is to glue a table to a ceiling? Very is the answer. Especially when your fucking partner just decides to fanny about with your swirls," Veles spat at him, and Loki felt himself pale as he considered just how much Veles actually had done for him, and what the God would do to him if he pissed him off too much.

"Fine, they can see the Mystery Spot. Come on. Oh! I know how to kill him!" Loki exclaimed, quickly getting over his fear of imminent death when he realised just what he could do to the Winchesters first. Really, this idea was awesome.


"Wow, uncanny." Loki glanced to the side to see Veles' reaction to Dean's sarcastic retort about his 'masterpiece' and wasn't disappointed to see the angry, barely restrained disgust in his volatile lover's expression.

"Kill him," Veles hissed, and Loki snickered but nodded his head and snapped his fingers, making the 'owner' appear, deciding it was within his best interest really to not piss Veles off even more.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Julian the ankou, who had decided to go by the name as Mr Carpiak during his stint as the owner of the place, exclaimed loudly, glaring at the two shocked hunters, before he then apparently 'noticed' the two guns being aimed at him and shot them a fearful, alarmed look.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We can explain," Dean said, quickly putting his gun away when he saw that it was a civilian he was aiming at. Or at least, what he assumed was a civilian.

"You robbing me?" Julian asked them, voice managing to sound both incredulous and scared, Loki had to give it to Veles for choosing this particular ankou for the job, though apparently he wasn't doing all that much anyway. Apparently reaping business was slow in the Americas when less than one percent of your followers lived there.

"He's a very good actor. I'm glad you chose him," Loki muttered in Veles' ear, then rolling his eyes when his comment caused Veles to smirk smugly at him.

"Oh he's very well trained. Julian, shoot him," Veles whispered as they watched Dean start to put his gun down. Loki saw Julian discreetly nod his head to his master's order, before he fired his own gun, seemingly accidentally. Loki then nudged Veles, who glared at him before stepping out of the shadows for Dean's now detached and soon to be departed (temporarily) soul to see him.

"Dude! He shot me! I'm… is this me dead? Am I dead? I had months left! I'm not supposed to die now!" Dean exclaimed, watching Sam hugging his body to himself. Loki allowed himself to feel a small amount of guilt for a second, before he squashed it, deciding this was far too much fun to actually feel guilty about.

"Oi, you, shut it and come with me. Bloody stupid idea. Relax, I'll be bringing you back soon enough. Just need to ferry your soul away before someone notices that shouldn't," Veles snapped, making Loki flinch at the underlying promise of pain once this was over, and Dean to spin around and face Veles with a shocked look on his face.

"Who are you?"

"Doesn't matter. Come on." Loki heaved a small, silent sigh of relief when Veles then dragged Dean's soul to his Underworld before anyone sensed the Vessel of Michael passing on. He then glanced at the sobbing younger Winchester, smothered the guilt once more and clicked his fingers.


Loki would openly admit that he had made a lot of people die in the most unusual of ways during his time as a Trickster, but what he had come up with in his past held nothing to what he and Veles came up with when they worked together. Plus, Loki would concede that Veles had seen a heck of a lot more death than he had, even though he was less than five centuries old.

He really did enjoy seeing Dean Winchester get flattened by a desk, but even Veles admitted to slowly running out of ideas by the time they had killed Dean thirty times. So they decided to go with a couple of classics and see if anything came to them whilst killing Dean in random, seemingly innocent ways.

Like now.

Loki watched Sam muttered under his breath about Asia playing, which was pretty much the same thing Veles was screaming mentally to him. And something neither he nor Dean could understand, and really that similarity right there should have worried him, and was possibly the cause for making Dean slit his throat with his razor the previous 'day'. Still, Sam wasn't paying any attention to his brother, and had decided that they should stay in the motel room as 'what could happen in a motel room?'. Dean, on the other hand, had just started the shower in the bathroom.

Loki turned to look at Veles, who glared at him but rolled his eyes and walked into the bathroom to follow Dean, whilst Loki moved to stand in the doorway so that he wouldn't miss anything.

And clicked his fingers.

With a startled yelp and a crash, Dean fell in the shower and broke his neck. His confused and somewhat weary soul looked at his body and then to Veles, who looked equally as weary.

"You said you'd show me that river thing with all the dirty souls next time we went down there," Dean pointed out, and Loki felt he should also be concerned that though when alive, Dean didn't remember any of this, once dead, his soul did.

"I did indeed. Though I may have to snap you up some clothing. Not that I want to cover that piece of living art. Really, you were most certainly blessed, weren't you?' Veles muttered, leering openly at Dean, who just gaped back before covering himself up.

"Oi! Take him down before Azri notices a soul that belongs to his lot that hasn't been collected. And stop leering!" Loki snapped, refusing to admit that he was jealous. Though really, he knew there was a reason Dean rubbed him up the wrong way.

The only reason that same hatred didn't pass over to the other Winchester was because Sam was way too tall for Veles.

He hoped.


Okay, both Loki and Veles would fully own up that they had run out of ideas when they made Dean die from a poisoned taco. Really, they scraping the bottom of the barrel, but Loki didn't think it was time to end it yet, he didn't think Sam quite understood why they were doing what they were doing.

Though Veles repeatedly admitted that he didn't honestly see what they were doing either. No matter how many times Loki calmly explained that Sam needed to see he could survive without Dean, and that Dean's death was inevitable so to stop trying to prevent it. Veles would then just point out the flaws to the whole thing, which made Loki sulk.

So they'd agreed not to talk about it. Just as they'd agreed that they wouldn't kill Dean via taco ever again.

"I didn't even know souls could throw up," Loki stated in his defence when Veles and Dean had returned from whatever it was they did in the Underworld, and Loki restarted the whole process.

"Neither did I. Never again, Loki, never again," Veles hissed at him, before he began to mutter under his breath that he'd never get the smell of vomit out of his robes. Loki felt it prudent not to laugh at that. He valued his life a little too much.


Loki had no idea where Veles was going with this one, but the God had sworn he had had the best idea ever for Dean's next death, so Loki had decided to go with it. Thus, it was starting to get fairly late into the night and Sam and Dean were creeping around the judge's house after Dean had claimed he had a funny feeling about the guy.

"I have no idea where you are going with this," Loki muttered as he and Veles silently and invisibly followed the two brothers up the stairs of the rather opulent house.

"I found something out about the good old judge a couple of Tuesdays back, and well… this is going to be brilliant!" Veles whispered back excitedly, and Loki felt his own excitement begin to build, wondering what it was about the judge that made Veles sporadically giggle like a school girl.

Loki turned to look at the brothers when Veles cackled and nudged his side sharply. Sam held a finger to his lips when he looked at Dean, then pushed one of the doors in the hallway open upon Dean's signal.

The resulting chaos of the two men entering a room in which the judge was dressed up like a giant bunny, was a memory that Loki would carry with him for centuries to come. It ended when Sam flailed wildly at the judge to try and explain what he and Dean were doing there, whilst Dean gaped at the fully grown man dressed as a rabbit. Unfortunately for Dean, it was Sam's flailing that was his downfall this time.

"Timberrrr," Veles whispered with a maniacal little giggle at the end, as they both watched Sam hit Dean in the head, knocking Dean off balance and causing him to fall backwards over the banister.

"Dean!"

"I'll go collect Deany-boy, shall I?" Veles said, the smug grin on his face telling Loki that he was very proud of his idea. Loki had to, grudgingly, agree.


Fine, Loki would admit that he was starting to get a little bored in repeating Tuesday over and over, but he would also follow that admission with the fact that Sam clearly hadn't learnt the lesson they were trying to drive through to him.

But Loki did think that Veles had a good argument. He was rather fond of his balls, perhaps he would only kill Dean a handful more times and then just admit defeat.

"Really? Mauled by a dog? Your dad warned you from a very young age, to not trust monsters and shit, but he overlooked the whole 'don't stroke strange dogs' rule? Well, you can blame this death on him then. Guilt free death. Go you." Loki snickered as he watched Veles scold the sheepish, and confused looking soul of Dean.

"Er…"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Come on. Let's go, Charon wanted to ask you something about shtriga's. Why he can't ask me is beyond my knowledge. Freakish little Gate Keeper."

"He's called Charon," Dean pointed out, and Loki snorted, still baffled that Dean's soul retained all of his memories, just as Sam had.

"I know, just makes him even more freakish. You know, he's not even Greek! I nabbed his soul in Romania!" Loki watched in amusement as Veles took Dean to the underworld, bemoaning about weird, clearly unhinged Gate Keeper's and ankou. He waited until he could no longer sense either one, before he looked at Sam frantically calling out for his brother to wake up, and clicked his fingers.


"Again? You do know this is exhausting for me, right? I feel like a bloody yoyo. Back and forth, back and forth. Just… keep him dead or leave him alone. Sure, it was amusing the first ten times, Loki, but for crying out loud, a hundred and nine? I'm knackered. Let me rest. Let him stay alive for a few more hours, yeah? Please?" Veles pleaded, and Loki cringed, not too sure on how to answer, given Dean was aimlessly heading straight for the open manhole already.

"Er…" Loki flinched when he watched Dean fall down the manhole, and nudged Veles to point it out.

"Oh for fucks sake. Be back in a minute," Veles groaned and walked over to grab Dean's soul to take it back down to the Underworld. "Oh no, don't worry, you'll be back with Sammy in no time. Yep. Won't be for long, but you'll be back. Just… can you not eat any tacos this time? The trip the last time you did that was a little nasty."

"You're a doll, Veles!" Loki called out after Veles, wincing slightly at the venomous glare Veles shot his way.

"Yeah, yeah! Can't have Daddy-Dearest find out what you're doing with his saviour, can we? Fucktard." Loki conceded that he possibly deserved that, then shrugged and snapped his fingers.


"Oh God. I'm exhausted. It's all well and good for you, but me? And let's not mention that Julian is now a little traumatised. He's an ankou. Do you know how hard it is to traumatise an ankou?" Veles asked as he settled on to the stool next to Loki in the diner.

"Is it bad that I'm getting bored?" Loki asked, sighing and waving for the waitress to come over. And he really was, Sam didn't look to be learning the lesson any time soon, and Loki had never liked it when a lesson/prank was taken past the point of amusing.

"No. I'm bored. I was bored seventy-eight Tuesdays ago. Please let it be Wednesday tomorrow." Veles muttered darkly, and Loki huffed, sighed and then glanced over at where the Winchester's were sitting.

"I don't know…" Loki trailed off, sure he was getting bored with it, but he really didn't want to have to go to any awkward family reunions any time soon, so he had to succeed in this.

"Lo, if you don't do it, then I will. And you know that our magics have this strange affect when they are in collision with one another," Veles warned and Loki looked at him with wide eyes, remembering with great detail just how much their magic didn't mix well.

"Right. Time to end it then? Don't want it to be 1979 when we next wake up," Loki said with a forced smile.

"At least it'd be a Wednesday," Veles muttered, Loki just ignored him and waved the waitress over.

"Miss, can we have strawberry syrup with this please?" Loki asked the waitress, who nodded her head and then walked off to place their order. He decided to agree to Veles' wishes, preferring not to mess with time completely.

"Thank you. I've never loved you so much, as I do at this point. Now, I'm to make myself scarce," Veles muttered when he noticed Sam and Dean sit down at their usual table. "Try not to get killed this time, okay?"

"They can't kill me!" Loki hissed at him, pouting. Veles snorted and rolled his eyes, then squeezed Loki's hand and walked out of the café, making the first change for Sam to notice.


Five and a half months later

"This is cruel, Lo," Veles muttered softly as they watched Sam determinedly hunting Loki down to bring his brother back.

"I know. So let's end it. You know the plan?" Loki asked, turning to face Veles, ignoring the injured hunter behind them, unflinchingly stitching his own injuries.

"I know the plan. I'll meet up with you later. You owe me a lifetime of massages for this, and quite probably therapy for Julian," Veles added as an afterthought, and Loki winced at the thought of the poor ankou. Yeah, he probably would need therapy after this. So would Sam, quite possibly.

"You do know that he's going to think you're me, right?" Loki asked, just before Veles left him to set up a trap for Sam. Veles turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow, then smirked.

"He has no idea how to kill me, Lo. Don't worry about me," Veles told him softly, stepping up to Loki and gently running his hand over Loki's cheek, smiling at him reassuringly. "It's going to be fine, you know? Well, no, it's not, but I'm going to be fine, so snap your fingers and let's get this show on the road."

Loki smiled at him and jerked his head with a nod, before he snapped his fingers and the two tricksters set up the final part of Sam Winchester's lesson.


Two Weeks Later

"You do know that incest is illegal, ri-?" Loki arrived just in time to see Sam stab Veles in the chest with a wooden stake, making Veles stop mid sentence and stare down at the stake in shock. "Wha-?"

"I think you're the trickster! You were the one that killed my brother!" Sam yelled, making Veles look at him, and Loki noticed that Veles was beginning to pale and fade as his body on this plain lost blood. Loki couldn't help but notice with intrigue, that his lover's blood sparkled as the light caught it, he wondered if Sam would notice and what he would think about that. It certainly wasn't a characteristic of Tricksters.

"He's not me. But thanks for killing off my rival. He was beginning to annoy me." Loki stepped forward, deciding to speak up before Sam did notice Veles' unusual blood type. Veles glared at Loki, making Loki mentally cringe and apologise, just before Veles' eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed to the floor. His body faded away seconds later, only to appear, as Loki knew it would, either in Veles' own office, or at Charon's desk.

"Wh-what?" Sam spun to look at Loki, before glancing back at where Veles had been lying, a small pool of blood left behind being all the evidence left that it had happened.

"That, the guy you just stabbed and killed, was my rival. He was hustling in on my turf, so thanks for that," Loki said in a blasé manner that completely belied how he was actually feeling over seeing Veles die, even if it wasn't permanent. "So, you've been looking for me? What did ya want, Kid?"


Back Six Months

"I hate Asia. I hate being stabbed. I hate the Winchsters. I hate Tuesday. And I still have no idea what a 'Pig 'n a Poke' is. It certainly isn't what I learnt it to be," Veles muttered as they watched the Winchester's leave town with Dean alive and Sam not totally recovered from his six month stint alone. Loki couldn't help but hope and pray that Sam had learnt the lesson he and Veles had worked so hard to drive home. "And stop praying to me, you know I have no say over future events."

"Sorry. I keep forgetting you're my God now," Loki muttered, then frowned and looked at Veles. "What is a pig in a poke then?"

"Something completely fucking useless. So… Sam and Dean. Now, shall we head on down to the underworld? Charon somehow got his greedy little hands on some vintage butterbeer. Ah, I haven't had that since I was a human. Who the fuck thought burning all recipes for that was was a good idea?I hope they are being tortured somewhere. Wankers."

"So Dean was eating useless?"

"Look, the American's mess with everything, including the English language apparently. Who the hell knows what Dean ate. It killed him at least three times in different ways though, so I don't think I will ever want to eat it."

"You have a point there."

"I always do, so come on, butterbeer!"


"No, no, no, if you do that, then this part won't be right. Think about it… Where would this fit in if you made that like that?" Gabriel's consciousness jerked when he heard the voices start talking again. He wished, begged, prayed that he could remember the names of the owners of the voices. And why he felt he knew them. But the answers to both were staying just out of his grasp. He then wished he could cry in frustration.

"Ah, no, I understand now. Do you think I made the right decision in leaving?" Gabriel felt confusion flow through him at the older beings question, and wondered what the answer would be.

"I think… I think there comes a time when we have to leave. Right or wrong. It's the only option open to us. It was the only option open to you."


One Year Earlier

"Okay, I still have no idea why you use that magazine for inspiration. Use your imagination, you've been doing this for millennia, why do you now need inspiration exactly?" Veles asked, sitting on the kitchen counter in their flat, which neither of them were actually paying the rent for, but their landlord didn't really care. Or know. Loki felt that that made everything fine and no illegal at all.

"Oh come on! Some of these are genius! Think about it! Alligator in the drains?" Loki exclaimed with a tap to the magazine in front of him, sitting at the breakfast bar, munching on a chocolate bar and pouring over the copy of Weekly World News.

Veles looked at him with an unimpressed glare, but then shrugged, "Uh huh. Fine, but one day we will pull the midget with the axe on some poor unsuspecting couple, broken down on an abandoned road. If you can create your favourite cliché, then so can I," Veles muttered, tapping at the large jam jar, which was full of water and had a strange cephalopod in it, only it glowed. Pink. Loki blinked, bit his lip, then caved and gave in to the urge to ask.

"What is that, by the way?" Loki asked, glancing at the strange little creature, which turned and stared at him unblinkingly with its canary yellow eye. Loki shuddered and couldn't help but wonder what the hell Veles was on, and if he was possibly experiencing an acid flashback of some sort. He knew Woodstock was a bad idea.

"I call it the Octopod," Veles told him proudly and cooing at the creature like a proud parent. Loki gaped when the 'octopod' actually turned and began to make a strange cooing noise back, and rubbed against the glass, where Veles' finger was. He had begun to notice just how odd his life had become since he had met Veles all those centuries ago. And that was saying something; given his 'adoptive parents' were giants.

"Octopod?" He had to ask. He couldn't not ask. It was impossible to not ask.

"Yeah… well… octopus was already taken," Veles told him huffily, pouting and refusing to look up from the odd cooing creature.

"What does it do?" Loki asked, finding himself unable to drag his eyes away from the odd creature and really beginning to wonder about the whole acid flashback thing.

"Er… swim? Don't know. Isn't that teacher supposed to be taking his swan dive tonight?" Veles asked, and Loki knew he was changing the subject from his somewhat lacking new creation but allowed it anyway, plus Veles sort of had a point. He did a trick to set up.

"He will indeed and of course, the unsuspecting janitor needs to be there to find the body. So I guess I need to actually go and pretend to be doing my job. How come you get to pretend to be the student and I'm a damned janitor?" Loki grumbled, grumpily moving from the table to actually look like he was getting ready to leave, and Veles began to snicker.

"Because you look like you're fifty and I am beautiful and youthful," Veles told him bluntly, before squawking when Loki glared at him and lobbed a Hershey's Kiss at his head.

"I do not look fifty! Mid-thirties at the most!" Loki hissed, glaring at Veles, who placed the jam jar on the counter next to him and picked up the chocolate instead. Loki watched, mentally regretting throwing the candy away.

"Uh huh, mid-thirties, you keep telling yourself that. You do know that you look like a cradle snatcher when we go out together, right?" Veles asked him with wide, innocent eyes and Loki decided that he hated the smarmy, youthful looking deity.

"You do not look that young! You're even pretending to be a mature student! You said you're twenty-eight!"

"Not the point. You're going to be late," Veles pointed out, glancing over at the clock and then back at the Trickster.

"I'm never late. Besides, he isn't going to throw himself out of the window without a little help, now, is he? So it's not gonna happen without me," Loki pointed out smugly, smirking at Veles, ignoring the real reason behind Veles' reminder.

"That was me hinting at you to leave," Veles pointed out with a pout.

"Oh, I know," Loki said with a wide grin on his face, and then he sighed and stood up. "You do have a point though. I'll head out then. What are you going to be doing, exactly?"

"Working on my octopod." Loki blinked slowly at the response, then shook his head and actually decided he didn't want to know what that would entail. Though there was one thing he thought Veles should do.

"Right. Well, maybe you should work on its name as well," Loki commented and then vanished from the room before Veles could retaliate. Veles could get very mean with his retaliation.


Loki mentally cackled when he saw just which hunters their tricks had brought the attention of. He'd wondered about the Winchester's ever since he had heard whispers of their names when they had been born decades before. He never actually thought they would ever try to hunt him however. Clearly his luck was beginning to pick up.

He'd sent Veles to the local student hang out to see if he could find out what the two brothers knew and suspected. And to see if they suspected either himself or Veles.

Unfortunately, that left him babysitting the Octopod… Which was staring at him unblinkingly with its creepy eye. Really, he needed to talk to Veles about making something normal and less weird looking as his next creation. No wonder the creatures in the magical world couldn't show their faces in the non-magical world.


"So? Do they suspect you? What do they think? What did they say? Well?" Veles asked, practically pouncing on Loki as soon as he walked in the door. Loki laughed and nudged past Veles to close the door behind him. He'd just returned from showing Sam and Dean Winchester around the office of the dearly departed professor of Morality. Which was one of life's greater ironies.

"They don't suspect me of a thing! This is brilliant! I say we do three or four more and then let them 'find me out'. You shouldn't be found out though. We might bump into them again, then it'll be your turn to mess with their heads! Oh, this is going to be fun. I haven't messed with a hunter for years!"

"We messed with those three hunters last year, Lo," Veles pointed out, and Loki waved him away absently, the three hunters from Edmonton didn't count.

"That doesn't count. So what do we do next?" Loki asked as he walked into the kitchen. He stalled slightly mid-step as he caught sight of the noticeably larger cephalopod that was now living in a large fish tank. He felt a small flash of alarm as he considered just how much it had grown in the past couple of days. "Should it be growing that quickly?"

"I've decided to make a kraken."

"Kraken were giant squid," Loki pointed out and then smirked when Veles huffed at him and turned his attention back to the octopod.

"Yes, well he's an octopod. Deal with it. Now, I say aliens. That's always amusing. And whilst you pick your next victim, I'll work on ways to break up the dream team," Veles said, with a positively evil smirk on his face that made Loki sort of feel sorry for the Winchester brothers for all of a second, before he considered what Veles has just said.

"Dream team?" It wasn't the most imaginative of names. He'd thought better of Veles.

"Sure, why not? Go on, shoo! I'd recommend that creepy jock. He needs taking down a peg or two," Veles told him, and Loki rolled his eyes, just wondering what said jock had done to make Veles gun for his mental breakdown.

"Of course, Dear," Loki muttered, grabbing his newest issue of Weekly World News and beginning to flip through it. "Do you think aliens like ballroom dancing?"

"What? Maybe. Probably more slow dancing. You know, like to Lady in Red or something," Veles commented lightly, and Loki nodded his head slowly.

"Chris DeBurgh it is then. Do you ever think we make things a little too surreal with out tricks at times?" Loki asked, pausing mid-click as the thought struck him, though given the incredulous stare Veles gave him, he was the only one who considered the possibility.

"Don't be stupid. Now, shoo, and don't forget the probing!"


Loki jumped when his phone began to ring in his pocket, and frowned, knowing that it had to be Veles, given they only had one another's numbers.

"Yeah?" Loki asked, holding the phone to his ear, whilst half-heartedly sweeping the floor.

"Houston, we have a problem." Loki rolled his eyes at the sound of Veles' voice, suppressing the sigh he wanted to release.

"What have you done?"

"Me? I haven't done anything! Look, the creepy hunting duo has called in back up. Someone older, wiser and er… kinda weird lookin'. Like… a trucker that has no truck, or love of roadside diner food, or indeed anything else truckery."

"You do know you make no sense whatsoever, right? What the hell is wrong with you recently?" Loki had a brief and horrifying thought that maybe Veles could get pregnant, before hastily ignoring it and flushing at the embarrassing thought. Though Veles really was acting a little scatty recently.

"Nothing, look, they've called in back-up, so… it looks like that last one was the last one. For here anyways. They've pinned it on you, Lo. We didn't even need to nudge them in the right direction. So just pin up your favourite articles in your locker, lure them to wherever the hell you think would be a good idea and let them 'kill' you. I'll pack up and we can move on. Oh, and Octi has um… We should move somewhere near the sea," Veles told him quickly and then hung up before Loki could answer. He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at him for a few seconds, before cringing as he realised he really had to see what 'Octi' had turned into.

"Well shit. What the hell has he created now? Right, articles, candy and um… the auditorium." Loki muttered to himself, making the broom vanish with a snap of his fingers and then disappearing and reappearing in the locker rooms.


"How much were you drinking when you came up with the whole stake thing? I mean, really?" Veles asked, appearing in the entrance to the auditorium moments after the three hunters had left. Loki stepped out of the shadows by the stage and smirked at him, before shrugging.

"A lot. So then, my feisty little Slav, where shall we go next?" Loki asked Veles, walking up to him and pulling him into his side.

"No idea. Where haven't we been for a while?" Veles asked, running his hands up and down Loki's chest as he looked up at him.

"Well, you did say it had to be near the ocean too, I can't believe you shoved that damned thing in our bath! And who isn't going to notice a giant, pink glowing thing?"

"Hmm, you are right. Maybe I didn't think this through. Oh well, nothing to do for it now. I'll shove it near Russia, they don't notice shit like that," Veles commented lightly. Loki just knew he was ignoring the incredulous stare he was sending him.

"They don't—you know what? I'm not going to ask. I've learnt that most of the time I just don't want to know," Loki muttered, shaking his head and wondering if he'd ever feel normal again.

"Ah good, took you long enough. So I have a question," Veles said tentatively, as he grabbed Loki's hand and apparated them to their apartment. A motion that Loki would never get used to, no matter how many times he was forced to participate.

"Shoot. Though not literally. I know you, you'd take that as an opening to shoot me with something. And it'd hurt," Loki said with a pout, ignoring the insulted look Veles shot him.

"What? No it does not! Stop being a baby. Besides, I'm not going to shoot you. I am going to ask why you are so interested in the Winchester's however. And don't deny it. If you weren't, we'd have left as soon as they entered the town. So tell me why they are so intriguing to you," Veles demanded, narrowing his eyes at the Trickster and making Loki shift uncomfortably.

"Ah, it's er… you know that horrible feeling that you and all the other gods and goddesses have been feeling? Well… it's them. Those two. They're vessels," Loki blurted out in one breath, wincing and looking around the room at anything just so long as he could avoid Veles' narrow-eyed gaze.

"Vessels? Those two? Who? Who are the somewhat unlucky angels that will have to use those bodies? I mean, both are very handsome but well… neither one has enough common sense between them to fill a teaspoon," Veles pointed out, and Loki chuckled before grinning brightly at him.

"Oh, that's mean. I like it," Loki said with a grin, before flinching when Veles glared at him. "Fine, Michael and Lucifer. Happy? Come on, we need to go before Mikey comes to investigate who said his name."

"He's a bit of a 'tard if he feels he has to see the reason someone uses his name. For one, it's one of the most popular names of western society and two he's a bloody archangel, chances are people are going to use his name at least once in their life. Moron," Veles muttered, but he still followed Loki as they walked through the flat, checking to make sure they hadn't left anything behind.

"Well yes, Mikey isn't the most intelligent of my brothers. All brawn and no brain, that one. Shame. My father clearly isn't completely without fault," Loki told him, nose wrinkling as he said it, and shaking his head mournfully. Veles just snorted and then vanished from the apartment to head to their next destination, Loki following behind him

And to drop Octi into the Baltic.


"Sometimes I'm ashamed of what I caused." Gabriel 'frowned' at that and wondered, not for the first time, what was going on.

"Sometimes shame is all we have left."


Seven Years Earlier

"Why are we here? I hate this place. No, really, why? To that matter, why is everyone else here as well? Seriously, you can't move for all the damned Christians, Hindu's and Muslims. Where are the Pagans when you need them?" Loki snickered quietly at the scandalised look the woman next to them shot them, before hurrying off whilst Veles sneered at her back and went back to his bitching.

"Everyone's here for the same reason we are. There are none of your followers here because you banished them from this country and well, there might be pagans around but they don't exactly have a flashing sign over their head proclaiming 'I'm a pagan, ask me how' do they?"

"They should. It would make it a lot easier to know who we can talk to without wanting to leave and throw up at the random crap they wish to tell us about whatever god they are following at the time. It gets quite tiresome when you realise that no one you are talking to has any idea of who you are, even when you tell them your real name," Veles muttered, dodging a family of four as they passed him, sneering at the screaming child as it passed. Loki grabbed Veles' hand to stop him cursing the child or something.

"Your religion is a little exclusive, unless someone can make themselves turn into a rabbit by sheer will or something, you don't give them a second thought," Loki pointed out, feeling quite reasonable to do so. Given the look on Veles' face however, he was the only one that did think so.

"I give them the damned powers. And they can turn into things other than rabbits, you know. I don't have a whole legion of followers that turn into rabbits on random occasions. Though, that could actually be rather disturbing," Veles said musingly, and Loki groaned silently, wondering what affect this was going to have on Veles' next creation. The thought was actually quite horrifying.

"Fine, fine. Anyway, the reason we're here is because I thought it would be nice to celebrate."

"Celebrate what?" Veles asked, finally giving Loki his full attention and stopping with the mental smiting of the surrounding humans.

"Well, in a couple of hours, we'll be greeting the new millennium. It's your first one. Thought it'd be nice to celebrate. Plus, it was three hundred years ago that we first met. Ah, you all naïve and innocent in your wrathful Godliness. You were hot."

"You were drunk," Veles retorted dryly, and Loki didn't even bother trying to deny it. He really had been.

"Your people sure know how to make good alcohol," Loki said with a dreamy sigh, considering actually molesting Veles in front of everyone around them when the God snickered and handed him a flask with some sort of magical alcohol in it. "You are amazing, you know that."

"I know. I also know that you're probably actually speaking to the contents of that hipflask, but I'm going to delude myself into thinking that it's me you're talking to," Veles told him breezily, and Loki grinned mischievously, before taking a deep swig of the liquid.

"Aw, I love you. Don't be pissy. Here, have whatever I have just burnt my throat away with! It'll make you forget all of life's troubles," Loki said with a wide grin, feeling the affects of the alcohol already, and deciding to go with it instead of suppressing it.

"Fine. Gimme," Veles muttered, holding out a hand for the flask, before hissing in anger at the man that ploughed in to him and almost made him drop said flask. "Moron! I should smite you down! Smite you down good and proper!"

Sighing, Loki grabbed Veles' elbow and tugged him away from the now baffled looking man, who would quite possibly try to beat them up once he got over the fact that some angry British midget had threatened to 'smite him good'. Snorting and shaking his head, he tugged on Veles until the man followed behind him, still muttering under his breath, and he took them further into the crowd and nearer to the ball.

Two hours later, and the crowd counted down as the ball was lowered and Loki turned to face Veles, grinning at the raised eyebrow.

"What?"

"Happy New Millennium!" Loki exclaimed brightly, flinging his arms around Veles' shoulders and pulling him into a hug, before pulling back slightly and kissing the stunned God on the lips, groaning when Veles opened his lips seconds later.

"Happy New Millennium. Same place next century?" Veles asked him, once they had pulled away, though they were still close enough that Loki felt Veles' lips brush against his as he spoke.

"Of course. It can be our new place to celebrate, considering that awesome bar from previous centuries has disappeared," Loki said, feeling a small amount of sadness as he thought about the pub he had met Veles in.

"It hasn't disappeared. It's still there, just no one else is there," Veles told him calmly, and Loki swore he could hear a mirroring echo of sadness in his tone.