A/N: Hello everyone, here's another chapter! I'm writing these pretty fast now, so updates should start coming sooner. I don't really have much to talk about besides that.

A big thank you to everyone who has faved, followed and reviewed! Please keep it coming, it's an incredible motivator to finish.

Enjoy!

The next morning, Dean, Sammy, Cas, John and Bobby were all packed into the Impala at eight, ready for the long, two hour drive that awaited them. Sammy had gone to sleep almost as soon as they put him in the car, but Dean was fidgety and whiney. He obviously was not happy to be in the car again.

"Daddy, I gotta pee." Dean said, wiggling in his seat. Bobby was driving, so John looked back at Dean with a frown.

"We stopped twenty minutes ago, why didn't you go then?" John questioned. Castiel could see Bobby roll his eyes in the rear-view mirror.

"I didn't havta go that time!" Dean exclaimed. "I gotta go now!" He said, distressed.

John ran a hand through his hair. "How bad?" He asked.

"Really, really, really bad!" Dean said, wiggling in his spot some more. John sighed and looked at the road signs to see if there was a rest stop coming up.

"There's a rest stop in ten minutes, we'll stop there." John said finally, after seeing a sign for one.

Dean let out a long whine, but nodded. Bobby rolled his eyes again and Castiel patted Dean awkwardly on the back, unsure of what he was supposed to do. Despite Dean whining and wiggling in the backseat and Castiel shuffling uncomfortably every couple of seconds, the ten minutes passed quickly and they pulled into a small rest stop on the side of the road. It wasn't anything special, just a few picnic tables and a building that housed the bathrooms. As soon as the car had stopped, Dean unbuckled himself and rocketed out of the backseat, making a beeline for the bathrooms. Cas followed close behind him.

"Dean! Wait!" John called from the passenger side door, before unbuckling and running after them.

"I'll be here when you get back!" Bobby called after him. He then reached into the glove box of the car, rifling through some of John's fake IDs and such. "This ain't a good place for these things." He commented before gathering them up and placing them under the driver's seat. He leaned back into his seat, looking over the passenger side to see if John and the kids were back yet, and was met with the honey colored eyes and childish face of Loki. He flinched away violently before pulling out his gun.

"Hey." Loki said casually. "This is a bad place to be right now." His tone was a tad darker when he said this, but he had an easy smirk that sent a bad shiver down Bobby's spine.

"Yeah, for you." Bobby replied, firing a shot past Loki's head. The bullet shattered the glass of the car window behind him. Loki merely lifted an eyebrow at the display.

"Did you want to miss me?" He asked. His smirk cracked into a slight grin. Bobby glowered at him.

"It was a warning shot, ya' moron." Bobby shouted, shaking his gun with his words. "Not that it'd do much good, shootin' ya'. What do you want?" Bobby demanded, putting the gun down and crossing his arms.

"Exactly what I said, this isn't a good place to be right now, neither is the place you're headed." Loki said, he was frowning now and looking distant.

"Why?" Bobby asked suspiciously, he desperately wished he could make a break for the trunk of the car. There were a few stakes back there that had Loki's name on them.

"Demons." Loki replied simply. They just ransacked the town you're headed to, and they're headed this way." Loki said.

"How do you know that?" Bobby asked curiously. Then his demeanor changed, remembering who he was talking to. "Do you have anything to do with that?"

"No!" Loki said and then paused for a moment. "Well… Yes and no."

"What?!" Bobby asked, equal parts confused and alarmed. "What do you mean?"

"Well… The head honcho's missing, so… By default I have something to do with the demons going crazy, but at the same time I don't." He shrugged.

"Head honcho?" Bobby questioned. He snaked his hand to his gun again, intent on drawing. "Whose head honcho?"

"Mi-" Loki began, but cut himself off with a frown. "You know…" He gave Bobby a look like everyone knew who the head honcho was. He made a vague waving motion with his hand. "God." He settled on.

"God?" Bobby asked incredulously.

"Yeah, you know, the guy in charge of everything?" Loki prompted. "Painted with a beard a lot, wears a robe, strikes down evil doers with lightening and fire?"

It was Bobby's turn to raise an eyebrow. "He's missing…?" Bobby asked. He did not seem to believe Loki's story at all.

"Well, he left, took a vacation, I guess." Loki said. "Course' I knew about it, but nobody else did, so there's panic." He explained.

"Why would you know about God going missing?" Bobby asked, he had his gun out now, but it was resting in his hand on the seat, curiosity eating his "shoot first ask questions later" course of action.

"Well… Uh…" Loki made a face like he didn't expect Bobby to have caught onto that. "Well, you know. I'm a god, he's God, we're tight." He twisted his forefinger and middle finger around each other to demonstrate.

"You're more of a demi-god." Bobby corrected. "And nice try, but I ain't buying it. What are you, really?"

Loki, if that was who he really was, sighed exasperatedly. "It's always the ones who look stupid that aren't stupid." He commented, Bobby frowned at him, but didn't say anything. Loki sighed again. "You're not gonna believe my answer any more than you believed the other one…" He warned, hanging his head slightly.

"Try me." Bobby said. He tried to make himself sound uninterested, or frustrated, but it really came out as curious and expectant.

Loki paused, giving Bobby a sideways glance before taking in a deep breath. "I'm an angel. An archangel, actually."

Bobby stared at him blankly for a moment. "Angels don't exist." He said dryly.

"Demons exist, why can't angels?" The self-proclaimed archangel shot back.

"That's just it. The world's a bad place. Demons exist and angels don't." Bobby reasoned. "Besides, even if you were an angel, why are you running around under the moniker of a Trickster? I doubt Loki takes kindly to you stealing his name." Bobby said incredulously.

The angel or the trickster or the whatever-he-was, blew air through his lips making a sound akin to a horse. "I asked him about it first, duh." He said childishly. "He was perfectly fine with it, I think he's vacationing right now" He then smiled a bit fondly and a bit mischievously. "Course' after having a relationship with Kali, I'd need a vacation too."

Bobby looked at him like he'd grown another head, momentarily speechless. The angel turned trickster grinned like a loon. "It was the best plan! Nobody even suspected I'd do it!" He said, rather pleased with himself.

"If you are an angel, why'd you take Loki's identity? Why can't you use your own identity?" Bobby asked, resigning himself, for the time being, to the fact that angels existed and apparently were full of themselves or at least this one was.

"Cause I'm a big shot up there!" The angel bragged. "I'm an archangel! There aren't very many of those." He explained, rather proudly, puffing himself up like a bird, despite his small stature. "I'm popular too. That's why I had to get away."

"Why? I'm thinking being popular in Heaven is a good thing." Bobby remarked.

"It was." The archangel said and then sighed. "But once your name gets mentioned in the Bible, things get tiring. Angels revere you, sure, but they also always come to you for help and the Big Guy gives you so many extra jobs to do, since humans recognize you." He crossed his arms and pushed himself back into the seat a bit more. "I'm the messenger for Him, you know. It's tiring, especially when He wants to answer prayer personally, so I ran away." He looked out the front of the Impala and pouted.

"How old are you?!" Bobby reprimanded out of impulse. This angel, or archangel or whatever was acting like a teenager that didn't like his boss.

"Older than dirt." The angel said. "Doesn't mean I have to act my age, though." He fished into his pocket and pulled out two chocolate bars, offering one to Bobby. Bobby declined. The angel shrugged and started eating his own, throwing another sideways glance at Bobby.

"What?" Bobby demanded.

"You aren't going to ask which archangel I am? Maybe you've heard of me! Scratch that, I know you've heard of me." He said around a mouth full of chocolate.

"Fine, I'll bite. Which archangel are you?" Bobby asked, rolling his eyes.

"Guess!" The archangel demanded, hopping in his seat excitedly. "I gave you lots of clues, guess!" Bobby balked at him. This angel was absolutely nuts.

"I don't know didly squat about archangels, boy." Bobby said angrily, crossing his arms.

The angel through an unhappy frown at Bobby and huffed. "Hey! If anyone should call anyone boy, it should be me calling you that." The angel said with mock insult. "And are you sure you don't know?" He leaned in a little bit, causing Bobby to lean back. "The messenger…? That doesn't ring a bell?" He asked in a whisper.

"No, it doesn't."

"Damn." He said, Bobby supposed he should be surprised to hear an angel swear, but he just ignored it. "I'm Archangel Gabriel, divine messenger of the Lord." He said his full name with a flourish, causing the chocolate bar in his hand to disappear as he brought his hand to his chest. "Are you surprised?" He asked proudly, looking expectantly at Bobby.

"No. And if you're done, get out of the car." Bobby said, losing all patience for this overly theatrical and childish angel. "

"Are you going to listen to my warning?" Gabriel asked expectantly, as if the very mention of his name would inspire Bobby to trust him.

"No. I'll take it into consideration, but we've got an appointment with a psychic." Bobby said.

"Why?" The angel, Gabriel, if that was his real name, asked curiously.

"Make sure you didn't do anything to the kids." Bobby said in an almost scolding tone. "And between you and me, something's weird about the Castiel kid. He's way too mature for his age." Bobby said, looking in the direction of the bathrooms.

Gabriel smirked at him. "Of course!" His smirk turned into another grin as Bobby gave him a questioning look. "He's an angel too. My favorite little brother, in fact!" He said happily. "When I heard he was sent down here I had to come check on him." He continued. "And pick on him a little..." He said mischievously.

"Does he know who you are?" Bobby asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Nope! I couldn't have let him know who I am, he would have flipped!" Gabriel said animatedly. "Probably would've turned me in, too."

"Why, kid didn't rat you out when he thought you were the Trickster, why would he rat you out as an angel?" Bobby asked.

"Heaven's... Not as good a place for angels as you'd think." Gabriel said. "After I left, they probably brain washed him, made him obedient." Gabriel said, almost remorsefully. "That's another reason why I left, I'm a bit more rebellious than they'd like."

Bobby was a little put off by this information. If Castiel was trained to do whatever Heaven said, then how safe were they? Would he kill them if one of the angels told him too? How powerful was he? How powerful was Gabriel? All of these thoughts were swirling around in his head, making him more and more anxious as each one popped up.

Gabriel seemed to catch on, his expression became concerned. "If you're wondering why Cas is down here, he's protecting the Winchesters. That much I know. Although, that's not a prophetical mandate, at least not until much, much later." He said. "Knowing Dad, it's probably some kind of change of plans. He probably looked ahead and saw something not going His way." He looked thoughtfully towards the restrooms and frowned.

"What was the original plan?" Bobby asked. He was curious, he had a lot of questions, but this one was the most important to him at the moment.

"They are taking an awfully long time in there, aren't they?" Gabriel said, whether it was actual concern or an attempt to change the subject, Bobby didn't know. He frowned and opened the driver's side door. "If you're an angel, then that knife you gave me really kills demons, doesn't it?" Bobby asked, expecting Gabriel to follow him to the trunk of the Impala. Instead he was already standing there when Bobby came around.

"Yeah, of course it does. I might lie a lot, but I wouldn't lie about that." He said around a lollipop he had in his mouth.

Without another word, Bobby opened the duffle bag with the weapons and grabbed the knife, conveniently sitting on top of the other weapons where he'd thrown it earlier. "Watch my back." He commanded. Gabriel frowned, no one ordered around an archangel, except God, of course.

"Was gonna do that anyway." He said cheekily. He sauntered behind Bobby as they approached the restroom.

Bobby cautiously opened the door to the men's restroom to find John, Dean and Castiel all cornered by about three demons. John was standing in front of Cas who was standing protectively in front of Dean, hand stretched in front of him, presumably holding the demons back with some kind of power.

"We want the angel and the kid." One of the demons said, a woman, probably the leader, Bobby reasoned, since she was positioned behind the other two. He silently snuck up behind them, knife at the ready. He managed to stab the woman in the back with the knife. She screamed in both confusion and pain and a yellow light flickered behind her skin. She hit the ground with a thud as Bobby attempted to move on to the next demon. Instead he pinned Bobby to the wall easily, causing him to drop the knife. At this point Dean was shouting in fear, John was shouting in confusing and Castiel had the strangest, confused look on hi s face.

"What is that?!" The demon pinning Bobby asked his partner, motioning to the knife, now on the floor, several feet from him.

"It killed her!" Said the other one. He stared at it, dumbfounded.

Bobby could see from behind the demon pinning him that Castiel was taking action, making up for both Dean and John who were merely standing there in shock and shouting. He quickly made his way behind the other demon and jumped, just barely reaching the back of his head. There was a bright light that emanated from Castiel's eyes and then the demon's nose and mouth. The demon screamed and fell to the floor, eyes burnt out of his skull.

The other demon rounded on Cas at that point, forgetting Bobby, but was intercepted by Gabriel suddenly appearing between him and the child. The demon blinked in confusion for a second before Gabriel smirked, placing a hand on the demon's forehead. The light Bobby had seen before emanated from Gabriel this time as the demon screamed and fell. After that, there was only silence.

Gabriel was the first to break it, laughing a bit and saying. "Surprise!" As he turned to Castiel.

Castiel bit his lip and frowned, a thoughtful wrinkle forming between his brows as he processed what had just happened. He looked over at Gabriel and then to the demons on the floor and then back to Gabriel.

"Gabriel…?" He questioned accusingly. There was confusion on his face, as well as a bit of anger and quite a lot of hurt.

"The one and only." Gabriel said weakly, giving a nervous chuckle. "Long time no see, well I guess not really. Did I ever tell you you've grown a lot.?" He commented sheepishly, trying to avert the inevitable fit Castiel was going to throw.

"I don't understand." Castiel said firmly. "Why—"

"Wait a minute." John interrupted. "I thought that was Loki. Who's Gabriel?"

"An angel." Gabriel retorted hotly. "Archangel, if you want to be technical. Loki was just a cover story." He explained.

"I knew it!" Dean shouted. It echoed off the walls of the bathroom, causing everyone to look at him.

"Did you?" Gabriel asked, surprised.

"How?!" John demanded. No one was quite sure who he was asking, but Dean answered anyway.

"I don't know…" Dean said, crossing his arms. "I just knew it." He turned his gaze to the floor, refusing to talk anymore.

Dean's silence set off another long silence as everyone took everything in. Once again, Gabriel was the one to break it. "Do you mind if we move this whole conversation outside?" He said, motioning to the bathroom. "It stinks in here, and nobody's watching the baby."

Ba ba ba ba! Loki is actually Gabriel. All of you saw that coming... Oh well! That isn't the only plot twist I have up my sleeve!

(TBC...)