"Gabriel." Castiel tugged at his brother's sleeve. "What are you doing?"
The trickster started and turned to him with a look of surprise. "How the hell'd you get up here?"
Castiel blinked. "I flew."
Here was approximately fifty feet off the ground, up a tree, over a company of specks who could be seen very vaguely if you shielded your eyes from the sun and squinted.
It was an extremely hot day, and the rocks sizzled if you splashed them. Gabriel had prior to this, seen Raphael sit on one and leap up like he had burnt his butt, which he had. The very, very responsible archangel made sure to spread the warning via small fledglings with nothing to do. Rocks were dangerous today.
To his credit, he made sure that Lucifer was not told. His big brother had thrown him in the lake a few weeks ago, and Gabriel was just having a siesta. Lucifer's cry of pain gave him a warm feeling of smug satisfaction.
That was why he was in the tree. He was hiding. But how the hell had Castiel found him? He had made sure to put several glamours in place. To the casual observer, he would have looked like a puffin.
Castiel always won hide and seek. Nobody knew how he did it, and nobody wanted to be the first to bear the burden.
The little angel unnerved the archangel. No matter how sweet his brother seemed, with his curly head of black hair and pretty blue eyes, like the lake in winter, there was always something... off about him.
Like the way he was staring at him now. Unmoving.
Unblinking.
The rustling of leaves filled up the silence as Gabriel tried to form words. An eternity later, Castiel turned to stare at the small specks of life leaping and bobbing below the spreading boughs of the giant oak they were in.
"Who are they?" He asked querulously, tilting his head to the side. Rather endearing, if you got past the fact that he seemed a lot older than what he was - a fledgling seven summers old. "I've never seen them before."
At the last word, his eyes snapped back to Gabriel, who found he couldn't look away.
"Me neither." He finally got out. "I don't think they're angels.
"They don't have wings." The archangel added hastily, in an attempt to draw Castiel's gaze away from him. "And I don't think they're demons. I tried going close to them to investigate, and they didn't do anything... demony."
"Okay."
"Listen, Cas..." Gabriel began.
"Yes, brother?"
"Take this leaf to Lucifer." He said quickly, plucking one from a branch beside him.
"Why?"
"Because."
Castiel frowned and finally, finally nodded, taking the leaf and flapping off.
Down below, a shrill voice shouted: "Agh! What the hell?!"
Gabriel found himself glancing down. There were two of them, and one was lying flat on the grassy plain, upon flying lower to investigate. The other sprinted unsteadily toward the first. He couldn't have been more than two or three.
"Bean!" Shrieked the smaller one, tripping and tumbling a little short of his companion. "Wha- what was that?"
"I dunno, Sam. That was really weird. Are you okay?"
Sam patted his shoulder. "I am very okay." He said solemnly.
"Well, stop running off. Stay closer to me. What if you get hurt?"
"Sorry, Bean."
The one Gabriel identified as Bean sighed and ruffled Sam's hair. "Come on. Up."
The two made their way across the field, one piggybacking the other, who hummed tunelessly.
