Pranks, bad dreams, lots of panicking. Nothing scary. Your teeth may or may not rot, Gabriel's and Draco's definitely will from all that candy.

I would like to thank everybody who reviewed this story. VegasGranny always writes interesting and insightful reviews! :D (The reason this story seems detached from reality probably has something to do with the fact that thewindinthemeadow and I like to write it late at night past my bedtime, plus she wants to be an actress so of course she's crazy.)

Chapter 7

Draco

Little Gabriel stared up at me with wide golden eyes. "You'd really stay here with me forever?"

"Well, yeah. What else could we need? I can live without showers; you can just snap your fingers and I'll be clean. You can make all the food and water we need, and I'll never be bored if we're together. Now, you might get bored, but if you wanted to stay here, it's okay with me."

"Humans can be really cool," Gabriel said in an awed tone. "We're staying here. Until I get bored. And given my average attention span, um…"

"I get it," I said. "You'll get bored really fast, so it won't be long at all. But- I mean, we could rule the world from inside a volcano, probably. If you don't want to be bored, we can think of stuff to do."

"Can we play my Candyland/Chutes and Ladders crossover game?" Gabriel asked. "I made this alternate version where you get real candy every time you move."

"Sure," I said. "We might need a flat spot on the floor, but you know what to do."

"The board can float," Gabriel said confidently, manifesting a floating magical candyland game. "You go first. You're the yellow one."

I rolled a die and got three. A ladder let me skip five spaces ahead. I got a peppermint hard candy from the space I'd first landed on, but it disappeared in my mouth once I landed on my final space, replaced with a lemon drop. "Hey," I complained when the flavors clashed. "You made it do that on purpose," I accused.

Gabriel giggled. "It's more fun that way." He rolled his die and got five. A Chute threw him back two spaces. "Aw," he said. "The flavors went together." He went up the ladder five spaces and dropped his gamepiece next to mine. His smile came back. "They both clash with lemon!"

I rolled again and moved forward 2 spaces. I added a caramel cream to my lemon drop. I was starting to realize that a new candy after every move was going to be a lot of sugar and eventually a lot of stuff in my mouth. Maybe I should save some of my earnings or give them to Gabriel, who was apparently swallowing candies whole to make room for new ones.

Gabriel moved one space forward. "Oo," he said. "Squash candy clashes with everything!"

"Squash candy?" I asked. I didn't want to know what he did to squash to make it count as candy. To Gabriel, no less. There probably wasn't any squash left.

I rolled my die twice and hopped ten spaces forward. Just to see what would happen. I got an Atomic Fireball for my efforts. Gabriel laughed at the faces I made.

He rolled a four. "Oo, Oo, Oo," he squeaked. "I'm gonna get a maraschino cherry!" He shoved his piece forward as quickly as possible.

Apparently cherries are pretty important, because the following move, when he didn't get a maraschino cherry, he kind of covered everything except the board in cherries. Including me. And himself. Gabriel looked ridiculous, or he would have if I could have seen any of him.

I removed the cherries from Gabriel's eyes so I could see them.

"There you are," I said. "Hello, Gabriel."

He was too busy eating ten cherries at once to respond.

"Okay," I said, just a little annoyed. I kicked the board over.

Gabriel gave this betrayed look to the board. "Hey, you can't fall over," he argued.

"Gabriel, it's not the board's fault," I said. "Blame me." Then I realized that would probably precipitate another meltdown, so I pulled Gabriel into my lap.

"Draco, you hafta protect me from the game board," he sniffled. "It's mean."

I did not expect that. "Hey, look at me. I still remember where our pieces went. It's not a problem. We can for sure keep playing if that's what makes you happy."

"Keep playing!" he squeaked and kissed my cheek.

"Okay," I said. I turned the board back over and set up the pieces where they were.

"Here, you take another turn. I already had two in a row before."

Gabriel rolled and got another maraschino cherry. He looked quite pleased, despite having been sent backwards.

I kept my arm around Gabriel just to be safe while I rolled my die. I landed on a blue square. Blue raspberry, I thought. But no. It was some kind of weird fruit that I almost recognized, like lychee or acai or something.

"You really put a lot of thought into this," I said. "You did a great job making this game, Gabriel."

Gabriel looked so pleased he almost glowed. "Thanks," he muttered.

Okay. Remember, Draco, little things are hugely important. No knocking over game boards, and make sure Gabriel knows you still think he's awesome, still love him, and aren't going anywhere without him. Ever.

Since this game was obviously important to Gabriel, I behaved a little better. I didn't get bored, but it was because I was watching Gabriel, not because I'm enough of a kid to want to play CandyLand with candy.

When the game was over, I had a better idea.

"Hey, Gabriel, if you want to play again, we can, but I have another idea that might be pretty cool." I watched his response.

"Does it have candy or sugar spurting everywhere?" he inquired hopefully.

"Yup, that's part of it. Gabriel- I assume you know about chess. Did Loki tell you anything about something called wizards' chess?"

"Is that the game where you order the pieces around?" Gabriel asked.

"Yeah. Well, usually in wizards' chess, they're made of stone, you order them around, and when a piece gets taken, instead of being captured, it gets smashed by the other piece. My idea was, we could have the pieces be full of candy, so that when they get smashed, instead of shattering into stone, candy goes flying everywhere. Like a piñata."

Gabriel grinned. "As long as candy goes everywhere, I'm in."

We wouldn't have any pawns left after the first three minutes, but at least there would be some strategy to keep my interest and lots of candy for Gabriel.

I was right. It actually only took 1 minute and 43 seconds for Gabriel's pieces to finish smashing all the pawns, since he didn't care if his own pieces smashed each other or my pieces.

I won easily. Gabriel was too busy smashing random chess pieces to actually try to win, so I was easily able to get rid of all his important pieces, and he was happy to get rid of all of both of our unimportant pieces for me. Which left me with all the big guns.

"OK, let's do it again, with chocolate pieces this time. And then whenever a piece dies I get to eat it," Gabriel suggested.

"OK," I said amiably. I don't mind winning chess games. "Only, I get to eat a few pieces. You get 80% of them."

Gabriel pouted. "But I want 85% of the pieces," he bargained.

"Forget I said that, then," I said. "You know what? Make me a big chocolate bunny to eat, and you can eat ALL the chess pieces. And you can have your own bunny to work on, too, if you want to."

Gabriel made two life size chocolate bunnies in incredible detail.

I was almost hesitant to break mine, since it looked so much like a real bunny, but I knew if I didn't eat it, I don't know, actually. Something bad could have happened. Gabriel could have felt bad about making a bunny that wouldn't be edible. Or he might have tried to bring the bunny to life or something crazy like that.

So, since I always started with the ears, I tried to break off an ear. No luck. The bunny was- get this- solid. Chocolate. Solid. So I had to resort to licking a life-sized chocolate bunny. I looked ridiculous. But what's a guy to do.

Gabriel laughed at me, but he couldn't exactly talk. He had chocolate all over his face from taking huge bites out of his bunny's tail.

Gabriel set up the chess board with chocolate pieces, and I moved my piece. I was white chocolate; Gabriel was striped milk and dark chocolate. I'm sure he was planning on eating most of both sets, though, so it wouldn't have mattered.

I won again, but Gabriel had chocolate completely covering his head and the front of his shirt.

"How do you get so messy?" I said. "Do you know you're adorably cute covered in chocolate?"

Gabriel looked pleased. "I just do stuff- enthusiastically," he said. "S'more fun that way. Pun intended."

"Oooo, s'mores! Gabriel, we're in a live volcano! We have to do smores," I insisted. "That is an absolute necessity. You don't go inside a volcano to not do s'mores."

"I'll let the wall make it hot then," Gabriel said. "Just not very hot. Humans have a shockingly small range of acceptable temperatures."

"Maybe just in one spot," I suggested. "I'm pretty sure you can't roast marshmallows at a temperature low enough to be safe for humans."

"I'll do the middle of the floor," Gabriel said excitedly. "And then it'll be like a fire pit."

"M-meh," I said. "Sorry. Only if you want me sitting on your shoulders the whole time. How about letting in a trickle of lava through a tiny hole in one wall? Make it cool by the time it hits the bottom of the floor."

Gabriel thought about that. "I guess it'll work," he said. "But only if we use lava colored marshmallows."

I shrugged. "I don't get why, but sure. As long as I can taste marshmallow, chocolate, and graham cracker, I'm good."

Gabriel snapped up sky blue chocolate, orangy red marshmallows, and rainbow spotted graham crackers. "You said color doesn't matter, right?"

"Yup," I said. I picked up a square of sky-blue chocolate just to double check that it did in fact taste like chocolate and not like blue dye and wax. It was chocolate, with a hint of blueberry.

"We're good," I said. "It's lava time."

Gabriel gently tapped the glassy bubble with one finger. There was no visible change, but the temperature increased.

I held my hand close to the wall and sprang back. "Ouch," I yelped. "Ouch ouch ouch. Well, it's hot enough. Gabriel, help." My hand was pink and starting to blister.

Gabriel caught my hand and kissed the worst burnt part. The pain vanished, and my hand went back to normal.

I took a deep breath. "Thanks, Gabriel," I said. "Do we have skewers or marshmallow-roasting sticks or whatever you call them?"

"Sure," Gabriel said. He snapped up a bunch of sticks and skewers. Like, fifty of them.

I took one and put marshmallows on all six ends, hoping they couldn't all get flambé-ed.

"Hey, Gabriel, do we have enough oxygen in here if something catches fire?" I checked.

"I assume so," Gabriel said uncertainly. "I mean, you've been breathing in here for two hours or so. Is it low on oxygen?"

"I don't know," I said. "I just know fire uses up oxygen pretty fast. Faster than breathing, I think. As long as we have oxygen incoming, we're okay, but not too much or we'll get flames going out of control." I sighed. "I'm sorry it's so complicated."

Gabriel waved his hand. "I think that should be good. I increased the oxygen content in the air- but we need a plant."

"Algae," I said. "I think like 90% of the world's oxygen comes from algae."

"So, you want a pond?" Gabriel said uncertainly. He conjured a pond- in the ceiling. I blinked.

"It works," I said. "Let's get roasting. I'll tell you if I run out of oxygen, but if I can't tell you, you'll know if my lips and nail beds turn blue or I faint that something's wrong."

"OK," Gabriel said. "So unless you eat blueberries I'll know if you start running out of oxygen."

"Basically, yeah," I said. I started slowly moving my marshmallow stick toward the hot spot, looking for a good place to brown my marshmallows without flambé-ing them.

Gabriel just threw his marshmallow at the hot spot and let it roll down the wall. Apparently he liked his marshmallows blackened.

I did eventually get a marshmallow cooked perfectly, but took me a few tries. Gabriel was happy to eat my rejects.

"You know you spent an hour on one marshmallow?" Gabriel exaggerated.

"Really? It felt more like twenty minutes," I said. "Besides, technically I cooked about eighteen marshmallows in that amount of time. You just ate most of them."

"Ah, true," Gabriel said. "They were perfectly good marshmallows. I dunno why you didn't want them."

"Well, to be fair, I guess my chances of developing cancer went down to a whopping absolute zero when I married you, so- I guess a little char wouldn't hurt me. I'm just not used to being invincible."

"Char can kill people?" Gabriel asked. "Yeesh. I forgot how much humans break. Dad made you guys really fragile."

"Yeah, but you don't die from eating a little char once," I admitted. "It's just, if you're always eating burnt everything, you have a greater chance of developing cancer when you get really old. But you might die of other natural processes first, and other factors affect things too. Like your gender and whether you eat healthy and whether you were able to maintain a healthy body weight."

"Huh?" Gabriel said. "Let's just make more s'mores."

Once I'd found the perfect roasting distance, I easily turned out five or six more marshmallows before I started to feel sleepy, probably from a combination of sugar, too much heat, and not enough oxygen.

"Gabriel," I mumbled. That was about as far as I got. I hoped he would catch it and make sure I was okay, but I knew he would figure it out eventually.

Gabriel

Draco suddenly collapsed for no apparent reason. I'm not sure what to do. I read a little of his mind before he fell asleep, and he thinks it's too hot and he can't breathe. That doesn't sound good. I increased the oxygen levels in the air to a little more than is normal above ground. And I cut off the lava flow. I don't know much about small temperature decreases, that was always more Lucifer's area of expertise.

I conjured a whole bunch of ice and dumped it everywhere Draco wasn't. I didn't want him to get too cold, and I wasn't sure where the ok temperatures were. I hope this works.

Draco opened his eyes and sat up a little bit. "Gabriel? What happened? Why is there ice everywhere? I didn't die, did I?"

Draco might've died? I started thinking of all the horrible things that could make Draco die. There were so many of them. I burst into tears. "I m-made the ice cause-" I stopped being able to make words that sounded like words. This failure made everything seem even worse, and I cried harder.

Draco held out his arms. "Gabriel, come here," he said. "I'm okay. Nothing's gonna hurt me that you can't fix easily. The s'mores were great, and I'm ready to stay here with you or go home or anywhere you like."

I hugged him and kept crying. "S-sorry," I sobbed. "I-I'm being r-really dumb for n-no reason."

"I love you, Gabriel," Draco said. He held me close and kissed my hair. "I don't think you're dumb. I love you and I'm happy that we get to be together, wherever that is and whatever it entails. I wouldn't trade you for the world."

I sighed happily. "I should thank Loki," I said.

"For bringing us together?"

"Yeah," I said. "I wasn't gonna get seriously involved with anyone again, cause the apocalypse is so close, but now I'm really happy I have you."

"We need to get angel married," Draco said. "Then you won't even have to worry about the apocalypse."

"It's four hours to midnight," I said. "And then we'll be angel married properly."

"Do you need to bring any of the stuff here?" Draco asked.

"Uh, not really," I said. "I'll just make some dirt and do that instant grass thing Raphael came up with. And then we'll need a bunch of special herbs and flowers…"

"Cool," I said. "What's the instant Ramen grass for?"

"You need to sleep on bare grass, so like, no blanket. Balthazar wanted to make people do it naked, but Castiel complained it was a bad idea. So you can wear clothes."

"Hah, it's a good thing there's no mandatory blanket, in this temperature," I said. "Except, you might want to get rid of the ice before it melts and makes your instant Ramen grass into instant Ramen grass soup."

"Point taken," I said. I was about to vanish the ice, but i had an idea. "We should do something with the ice to not waste it." I conjured a tv screen that showed the Winchester's motel room live. "Dean's asleep," I noted.

"Wow, Gabriel," Draco snarked. "That's so mature I might barf- if I was as immature as Dean."

"It's just an icily good wake up call," I said. "It won't damage him."

"No, it won't damage him unless you hit him too hard or he doesn't wake up and knock the ice off," Draco confirmed.

"Hunters are light sleepers," I said confidently. "He'll survive." I dumped the ice on him.

Dean sprang out of bed, yelling.

"Sam! Wake up, now. We have to check for hex bags. I could be about to die."

Draco giggled helplessly. "He's pathetic!" He gasped.

"Dean, what-" Sam said sleepily. "Oh!" He saw the ice and started fishing through it for who knew what.

I was almost crying from laughing too much.

Dean got out a heavy axe and started chopping open the walls one at a time. Sam looked under the beds and checked inside the mattresses.

"They- they think it's a w-witch!" I choked out, still laughing. "Oo, oo, that's great!"

Draco looked less than pleased. "They think witches and wizards kill people by piling ice on them?" he fussed. "That's just- random."

I laughed harder. "Not a witch like you," I said. "This other kind of witch that gets power from demons. But I don't think they'd- he-he-he- try to kill Dean by pouring ice on him."

"Hey," Draco said in a deep voice, with a terrible accent. "Put 'im on ice."

I laughed, and dumped ice on Sam too.

"Dean, it's getting me, too. I think this pattern- doesn't really fit with a witch. It seems more like a ghost or maybe even something we've never heard of."

I giggled at Sam's logic. "He's right! They've never heard of an archangel trickster. One point to Sam!" I coated their floor in a thin layer of ice.

"Hey, Gabriel, don't forget the candy wrappers, or they'll never know it's us," said Draco.

"Good point." I made it rain candy wrappers in the hotel.

"Is it doing that in the whole building, or just their room?" Draco asked.

"The whole building," I said, smiling innocently.

Draco started playing with my hair. I leaned into his fingers and somehow ended up falling asleep. Without fixing the raining candy wrappers thing, so- Anyway, blame Draco.

Draco

I guess pranking Dean and Sam made Gabriel calm down a lot, because he fell asleep. He was still a little guy, so I curled around him protectively and hummed gently until I fell asleep too.

I sank slowly underwater, rain on my face. The rain turned to candy bars just as a friendly underwater-dwelling frog sucked me under by wrapping his tongue around my ankle. I grabbed a giant fly and handed it to him, and he let me go.

I was lying on grass, wet grass, in a pool of my blood. I could see all the stars above me, just like the other night when Gabriel "married" me pagan-style. There were weird tattoos all over my arms. I looked up again, and I was looking into a pool that was somehow above me. I could see my reflection.

It changed to Voldemort's face. I was frozen. Gabriel was throwing popcorn at him, but it didn't seem to be enough to make him go away. Then I saw Wormtail crawling towards me, his handless stump bleeding black. I couldn't crawl away. He noticed the popcorn and started slurping it up, ignoring me. Voldemort scowled at Wormtail and jumped out of the pool, and got in a huge wrestling fight with him. Wormtail got away and bit me, and Gabriel turned into a toddler and burst into tears. I backhanded Wormtail, scooped up Gabriel, and started running.

I couldn't see a thing, but it didn't seem to matter. Voldemort, on the other hand, slipped in my blood and fell loudly on his face with a splash. I didn't see him again.

After about half an hour of running, I knew my legs were tired, but they weren't really bothering me. We started ascending slowly, and pretty soon I could see that we were high in the mountains. The stars were all gone, but I could see the rocks around me by the light of the half-moon. Gabriel was still clinging to me, so I kept going as fast as possible, trying to make sure Voldemort and Wormtail couldn't catch us and hurt or scare him. Realistically, though, Wormtail probably couldn't catch up after I'd run so far and so fast. But Voldemort could.

I ran faster and faster until I slipped and we fell off a cliff. I screamed soundlessly, but Gabriel was still holding me and somehow we just stopped in mid-air.

"It's okay," he told me, and then Lenny helped pull us up.

"Where have you been?" Lenny barked.

I looked around, but we were still surrounded by red-gray craggy rock, high in the air.

"Len, what are you doing here?" I asked, but Lenny didn't seem to see the rocks.

"Draco, are you okay? Where do you think you are?" he asked.

That's when I realized I must be crazy. Gabriel vanished, and Lenny got bigger and bigger until he was way bigger than me.

"Lenny?" I asked.

"Tsk, tsk," said a cold voice, but it still looked like Lenny to me. "Your schizophrenia is acting up again."

I could feel cold metal under me and wet sheets above me.

"Where am I?" I asked. "Is this a mental hospital? Gabriel! You didn't say I would be crazy! What's wrong with me? Help!"

There was a sharp prick in my neck, and I fell asleep where I was and dreamed that Sam said Gabriel was dying of rabies. I woke up panting and freaking out.

Dean was leaning over me and putting huge casts on me in various places, but it was pointless because they didn't seem to weigh anything. I knocked him out with one kick, and Sam came in with a knife and tried to kill me.

Something stabbed Sam from behind, saving me, but I couldn't tell who it was. Gabriel? Voldemort?

Lenny picked me up in his beak and plopped me in the middle of a river, but it still seemed dark and gloomy everywhere. I could see where everything was, but nothing looked like much.

Dad was kicking and flailing through the water upstream of me. I could see him coming a long way ahead. When he caught up to me somehow, he grabbed me and tried to pull us both under.

"Relax, Draco," he said. "There will be a home for us under the water."

It kind of creeped me out. I wanted to believe him- he's still my dad- but I didn't. Besides, I had Gabriel to think of. And I wasn't some pathetic Death Eater wannabe anymore. Gabriel saved me from that.

So, as hard as it was, I punched Dad under the jaw and broke away from him. I swam like the dickens, trying to reach the shore, and eventually I made it. I could see Dad flailing around underwater. I couldn't save him without risking killing myself, but Lenny could.

"Lenny, do you see the albino frog? Could you drop him in a tide pool?" I asked.

Lenny looked displeased, but he did as I asked.

"You can do better than that guy," humphed Lenny.

"I know, but he's my dad," I said. "You only get one of those."

I guess my brain must have been processing that too hard, because I woke up. Gabriel's eyes were open, and he looked worried and scared. I hugged him.

"You were screaming," he mumbled. "And it was scary and I didn't know what to do."

I sighed. "That's not unusual for my dreams," I said. "There've been times I didn't want to go to sleep to avoid them, but with you around I feel better about it, because you can help me be okay again when I wake up," I said. I realized that might be a lot for a ten-year-old to process. "You make me feel safer, Gabriel. I'm okay and I love you."

"But how're you ok if you're screaming?" Gabriel sniffled. "You didn't look ok."

"Sometimes people aren't okay in a particular moment, but overall they're okay," I explained. "I can live with bad dreams at night, because I get to spend time with you during the day. Does that make sense?"

"No," Gabriel said flatly.

I didn't know what to say. I wasn't really okay, but I was better than I'd hoped to ever be again a week ago, and Gabriel needed to know that this wasn't his fault and that I would probably be okay eventually. And that I can handle this, if he needs me to.

I started crying. I couldn't help it. It was a pretty bad dream, and usually being around Gabriel made me feel safe enough to freak out and let him handle it, but I didn't want to put that on him when he'd already had to shrink to ten to be able to deal with his own issues.

Gabriel pulled me closer to him and cuddled me. "It's ok, pumpkin ice-cream," he told me gently. "You can cry. It's ok."

I broke down sobbing and hugged Gabriel tightly.

"What am I gonna do, Gabriel?" I complained. "I can't even have a bad dream without scaring y-you, and I can't sleep w-without having bad dreams, and I can't live without sleeping, a-and- I can't do anything right."

"So, you think you're doing something wrong?" Gabriel asked. "Draco, if you're scared, then you have to let me help you. If I have to enter your dreams every time you sleep or whatever, I can do that. We'll figure it out. And it's not your fault."

"I don't think there's one whole okay person between us," I admitted. "You- you got so freaked out when I swam away from you that one time- look." I showed him my memory of that time. "I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what I did wrong. I didn't want to hurt you. But you got hurt, 'cause you have issues, too. I'm scared that maybe we can't handle everything. I'm scared that if I let you know when I'm scared and freaking out, I'll hurt you somehow and I won't be able to fix it."

"If you hurt me too much, I'll turn into a two month old baby," Gabriel said. "And we'll handle it. You can't- you just can't not come to me when you're scared. Because we're supposed to be together, because we're almost a complete person between us, because we need each other. And we'll fix whatever goes wrong. And maybe it'll be hard and it won't work all the time, but what isn't like that?"

I tried to take deep breaths and calm down, but it wasn't working. I just kept imagining all the things that could go wrong.

"G-Gabriel, do you think it would safe for two kids to be alone inside a volcano?" I asked. It was the only thing I could think of.

"For the rest of the world, or the two kids?" Gabriel asked, smirking. He snapped, and I shrunk to about Gabriel's age. I might've been a little younger. "Is that better?" he asked gently.

This was better. I could fit in Gabriel's arms now. I closed my eyes and buried my face in his shirt. I thought about apologizing for being pathetic again, but Gabriel didn't seem to like that too well, so I kept my mouth shut.

"Can we have sleeping bags? We'll ditch them when it's time for the ceremony," I said.

"I thought you were too hot," he commented as he made a bunch of neon purple sleeping bags. "Course, you're definitely too hot."

"I was," I said. "But- I guess when I get scared, I'm a sucker for cuddly warmth. I was hoping being inside a sleeping bag might help me calm down."

"It should," Gabriel said. He pulled a sleeping bag around us.

I burrowed in all the way to the bottom. Even curled up inside a sleeping bag and knowing nothing could get past Gabriel, I was still shaky and kinda panicking. I panicked more when I realized it wasn't working.

"Gabriel, it's not working," I said. "I don't know what's wrong."

"It's ok," Gabriel pleaded. "There's nothing dangerous here, and nothing could go wrong. Please be ok. You're my world."

I swam to the top of the sleeping bag and pulled Gabriel into my arms.

"Hey, I'm not gonna leave you. I'll be okay someday- I think. Don't worry about it too much. Last year I had nobody to stay with me when I freaked out, and I had a Dark Mark on my arm. That was awful. This isn't so bad- I just-" I started crying again. "It is kinda pretty bad, but none of this is your fault. You found me when I thought I was going to die and didn't care, and you gave me hope that my life might not be so bad. Or so short. And then you faced down Voldemort and got that stupid Dark Mark off my arm and married me- and I should be happy. I'm just miserable because of stuff that you couldn't do anything about, and now you can, and I- I'm sure that if it's possible for me to be okay, I'll be okay with you. I just- had a bad dream. That happens, and people freak out, but it doesn't last forever."

"Can you calm down in an hour?" Gabriel asked. "Cause we've only got an hour and a half before midnight if we want to get married tonight."

"I thought I just had to be asleep and unconditionally love you," I said. "We can swing that even if I'm freaking out."

Gabriel grinned. "You're sure now that the unconditional love thing will work?" he asked. "That's cool!"

"Yeah, how could it not?" I argued. "I would rather be in the middle of an active volcano with you than anywhere else in the world without you. I'll always care about you, even if you went bad or something, and I can't imagine wanting to leave you, ever."

"It'll work," Gabriel said happily. "I just want to make sure you aren't scared during the ceremony, cause it gets a little weird. Oh, and you have to be capable of speech. But that's all."

"Define weird," I said. It better not be weird like the pagan thing, or I will scream.

"Weird like-" Gabriel hesitated. "Uh, I'm not sure how to put this. Older me would be better at it."

"Either way," I said. "Or, you could show me. You can probably send pictures and videos to my head, too, right?"

"I'd burn your eyes out," Gabriel explained. "You have to see something human eyes aren't capable of seeing."

"You could skip that part? Just put in a camera flash or something."

Gabriel giggled. "I never thought of that one. But the rest of the ceremony is simple. There's this goopy bit where we talk and explain our feelings, blah, blah, blah, and then we're sort of supposed to kiss, but it doesn't actually do anything. Oh, and then the next bit will hurt, I forgot about that. Oops, sorry."

"Okay- you have to extract my wisdom teeth with no anaesthetic? Come on, be specific."

"I have to touch your soul," Gabriel explained. "And it'll hurt, like, a lot. I'll put a little of my grace in your soul, and steal a little piece of your soul and it'll do this weird thing and bind itself onto my grace."

I blinked. "Didn't you have to touch my soul twice to make sure Voldemort didn't have it? Is that the same thing? Also, what's grace?"

"It's the same thing," Gabriel agreed. "It might hurt a little more this time, but it should be about the same. Your soul will want me to take the piece I have to break off, so it won't be like I'm chopping your soul into bits or something. And grace is- it's what makes me an angel, and it's sort of an energy source thing. Basically it's the glowy silver blue stuff on our rings."

"Okay," I said. "Is that it? Is that the whole thing?"

"No," Gabriel said. "You have to see me for who I really am, or it won't work. And that would normally burn your eyes out, so-" he trailed off uncertainly.

"Um, but it won't, right? Why not?"

"Did I explain that I'm possessing a human?" Gabriel asked.

"No," I said. "We barely got past you're an archangel. You won't even let me help you with your wings yet. So I'm not terribly surprised that you haven't mentioned that yet, but it is a good time to iron all this stuff out."

"Yeah," Gabriel said. "So, I can possess people. And if I'm possessing someone, then they can see a lot more than a normal person could. For you to be able to see my true face, you need to let me possess you. So, that's- uh, that's the last thing in the ceremony? Please don't be mad."

Normally, I would have spared Gabriel's feelings and pretended I was okay, but he kind of just said not to do that, and I was already too upset to hide it very well.

I curled up into a little ball and clenched my fists and bit my cheek and cried anyway.

"I- thought this one would be- happy. And stuff. Not like that other one," I sobbed.

"Angelic possession isn't really that bad," Gabriel pleaded. "And it's only for a minute. You won't even have to give me control, just let me in." And then he was crying too.

"You're gonna tear a piece off my soul," I said. "Like some stupid Horcrux. Like Voldemort. No wonder I'm going to live forever. I'll have an archangel as a freaking Horcrux! And then you're going to basically burn my eyes out and still expect me to let you- possess me! Maybe I have some of this wrong, but if not- it sounds terrible. I don't want to do it. I don't think I can do that. I'll probably have a breakdown."

"I don't even know what a horcrux is!" Gabriel wailed. "How can you expect me to make one? I have no idea what we're talking about, but it sounds awful!"

It's something Voldemort did when he was my age. A lot of evil wizards used a Horcrux to protect them so they couldn't die. You take a little piece of your soul, do some other crappy stuff- decent people don't ask what exactly- and put the piece of your soul in an object. It can be alive. One of Voldemort's was a snake named Nagini. Everybody thought Voldemort was crazy- he made seven. Or maybe eight, counting Harry. He didn't mean to make Harry his Horcrux, but I heard he maybe did. But he killed Harry, for whatever reason, so that got rid of that Horcrux. I think he still has like two left. Not Nagini. Neville killed Nagini.

That's another stupid mistake I made- I assumed that because Neville's bad at Potions, not as smart as me, and on Dad's bad list, meant he was stupid and deserved me to pick on him all the time and totally write him off. But I was wrong. I wish now I'd considered being friends with him or at least showed him some respect. He turned out to be a pretty cool guy.

I- Horcruxes keep you alive; if you die, it just doesn't work. Like, you can use the Horcrux to come back. But they are NOT a good thing. Only really bad wizards who really don't care about their souls and just greedily want to live forever make them. And- I mean, I do want to live forever with you, but- I don't know if this is worth it. It really sounds like a really bad idea. I mean, it just sounds an awful lot like something I KNOW is a really bad idea. I'm sorry, Gabriel. I guess this would've meant a lot to you.

"I don't th-think it sounds much like a horcrux at all," Gabriel protested. "Maybe I explained it really badly. Like, really badly. I'm not going to- it doesn't work like that- ugh, I have no idea how to explain this."

"Then don't," I said miserably. "Just forget about me, and I'll curl up in a little ball and die."

"What?" Gabriel asked, confused and horrified. "Draco, stop it! That's awful. Aah! What am I supposed to do?"

"I dunno," I said. "We're out of luck. This has been great, but-" Gabriel cut me off.

"Wait," he gasped. "Are you dumping me?"

Oh, right, I forgot. Even if the universe is ending, nothing is more important than making sure Gabriel knows I am not and never will dump him.

"No," I mumbled. "I'm dumping everything except you. Including me. I'm done. You can make me stay alive if it makes you happy, but I can't promise to be nice."

"But-" Gabriel stared at me. He tilted his head to the side. "OK." He hugged me. "I have no idea what exactly happened, but I think you need to calm down right now and stop worrying about anything."

Worry, huh? I wasn't sure I was capable of doing anything at all. Everything was up to Gabriel now. I don't know why he was still bothering to talk to me. It's not like I could help. I mean, if I had to act to save his life, I would, but barring that, I couldn't really see myself having any voluntary control.

"It's ok," he told me gently. "You don't have to do anything." He kissed my forehead and rocked me softly.

Well, good. I just hoped I didn't do or say anything stupid that could kill me or make Gabriel think I was dumping him. I still remembered how much that scared him, and I didn't want to go there.

"As long as you don't dump me, it can't get that bad," Gabriel said, but he sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "So we can figure this out. Somehow. Hopefully."

I shook my head. "We need help," I said. "I know you've been used to being a loner, but I have a lot of issues to work through, and you can't handle it by yourself."

"Who do I call?" he asked lostly. "I don't have any friends anymore."

"It doesn't have to be somebody more powerful than you. Anybody we could trust would help. You mentioned you're friends with Loki and that you could call Michael or Raphael if we needed help protecting the little mini-Winchesters from Lucifer." I smiled reluctantly at the thought of Sam and Dean being little kids.

"I could call Michael I guess," Gabriel said. "But I dumped Heaven and everything and- I don't know. I'd just feel stupid calling him. I probably should anyway."

"Maybe he misses you," I said. "I mean, I'm all for assuming the universe might be terrible, but we can't ignore the things that might be okay."

"Yeah, probably," Gabriel said. "What would I even say? It's been six thousand ish years of no contact, and now?"

"Tell him you think you found the one, but it's a helpless fragile human who's freaking out about nothing and you don't know what to do. If you miss him, tell him you missed him. Tell him he's still your brother and he's the only one you could think of to call."

"That would be true," Gabriel admitted. "Do you think- d'you think he'll really come?"

"Would you come if he was in trouble and sent you that message?"

"Of course," Gabriel said. "I wouldn't even think about it first."

"So maybe try it. The worst thing he can do is not show up, right? He wouldn't get mad and scream and throw things, would he?"

Gabriel burst out laughing. "OK, ok, I'll call him," he said. "Wait, how do I start?"

"How about something like, 'Uh, Michael? It's your brother Gabriel.' Then just start talking."

"But-but," Gabriel stammered. "Oh dear."

"Are you going to actually call me, or just sit there discussing it?" Michael asked, appearing next to us.