"Gabriel! Don't eat the sand!"

How had he gotten himself into this?

" Um, Dean. I really, um, like your hair... Can I, um, plait it?" Dean cast a look down at the small, blonde haired girl, who already had her hair in plaits. She was fiddling with the hem of her rose-patterned dress.

"Thanks for the compliment on my hair, Emma. But no, you can't plait it."

"Oh." And the girl walked off.

His dad was hunting a monster that was killing kids. All the parents had reported their child speaking of a new friend they had made at this nursery.

So he had gotten a job... And now:

"Jonathan! Did you not hear what I said to Gabriel?" The dark-haired boy looked up, sand crumbling from the corners of his mouth.

"It wasn't me this time!" Shrieked Gabriel as he ran past. A magnetic C was stuck on his lip like a piercing.

Dean ran a hand through his hair, he was going through an emo phase, so it was longer than usual. Apparently three-year-old girls liked that.

God, he hoped Gabriel had not accidentally pierced his lip with that C.

"Dean! Gabriel bit me." What idiot would think of having kids?

He tried not to strangle Gabriel. He almost wished that the kid was the demon, just so he could shoot him.

Oops, going on too strong there Dean.

"Okay. Gabriel, do not bite people. Its frankly disgusting and you don't know where they've been."

"But he dared me to!" Dean pulled a hand down over his face.

"He did. I heard him." A dark-haired girl stared up at Dean, from her place by Gabriel's side. She looked like the girl with the cat from 'Frankenweenie' her eyes were massive and damned creepy.

"Yeah! See, Lilith says so. Lilith is my new best friend!" Gabriel cheered, hugging Lilith.

Whoa, Lilith? Who the heck calls their kid Lilith?

"Okay. Don't do it again... Kid, you go to the reading corner and you," he pointed at Gabriel, who grinned crookedly and flipped his shaggy, honey hair out of his face.

"Go and do something else... No sand and no biting."

They all bounded off to do... Something and Dean sighed.

10 minutes until home-time.

Bloody hell.

He walked over to a chair in the corner and sat down.

Wait, Lilith? As in Lilith the bloody demon? His head snapped up, if the dead kid's parents said they had made a new friend from this nursery and they had claimed to be friends.

Gabriel. He scanned the heaving mob of kids for the golden haired boy bobbing around.

He finally spotted him, bending over a pot of red paint, plunging his fingers into it and smearing it on the table. Whatever.

Lilith was standing next to him, her white frilled dress spotless. Her dark eyes were watching Dean, a small smile curving her face.

Oh shit shit shit.

Slowly, without breaking eye contact with Dean, she leaned over to Gabriel and hugged him sideways.

"My friend." she mouthed.

A bell rang and everyone jumped up, leaving paintings, sand mounds and Play-Doh sculptures, and ran for coats and bags.

"EVERYONE WAIT HERE UNTIL YOUR PARENTS COME IN" he yelled, trying to keep Gabriel in sight.

The first person to come in was a pale boy with ruffled black hair.

"Gabriel?" he yelled. He dipped a hand down into the wave of three-year-olds at his knees and grabbed one by the hat-clad head. Dean waded over to them, he needed to check Gabriel was okay and not bloody possessed.

As he reached the boy holding Gabriel he noticed that he was barely 16, same age as him.

"Dean-ie!" Yelled Gabriel, craning his neck to see behind him.

"I presume you are the minder?" Asked the boy, he had beautiful eyes. God must've been drunk when he picked the pigment.

"Yup. He yours?" Dean joked, nodding at Gabriel, who pulled the wool-y hat on his head further down on his head.

The blue-eyed boy nodded. "Yup."

Dean's eyes widened, yeah he had a messed up life, but damn, Blue-Eyes was way too young.

The boy's eyes widened too.

"Wait, no... He's not... Brothers. We're brothers."

Dean breathed again and laughed.

"I'm Castiel by the way." He carried on.

"Dean."

"Cassie, have you brought chocolate?" Gabriel patted his bigger brother eye, frowning.

"In the car, yeah."

Gabriel grinned and jumped, or he tried.

Surprisingly, jumping whilst in somebody's arms is not the best idea.

Dean lunged for the irritating three feet of idiocy that he had spent the past five hours hating. Because of some dude with the brightest, bluest eyes he had seen.

A few hours ago, he would checked the floor was concrete and stepped back.

He caught Gabriel upside-down, his hat hanging off his floppy hair. Castiel latched his hands on Gabriel half a second after him, right where Dean's hands were.

Dean froze, he couldn't take his hands off, he looked up at Castiel to find him looking back at him.

They stood there for a while, just staring into each others eyes.

"Cassie, I can see black spots."

Could he drop the kid now?

Castiel cleared his throat and Dean flipped Gabriel over.

"I gotta go... D- Michael will be worried." Dean didn't question it and nodded.

"Okay, see you tomorrow?"

"Yup." Grinned Castiel.

Gabriel ran out of the room, empty of kids, screaming: "CHOCOLATE!" at the top of, what Dean now knew were very large, lungs.

"Bye!" Dean called, just a bit too cheerily and they were gone.

He was halfway through clearing the sand table and remembering the feel of Castiel's hands, when he remembered Lilith and the case.

"Shit. Shit. Shit." he yelled, shaking his hands to free them of sand before reaching for his phone.

The dialling tone in his ear, he stared out of the window, hoping desperately that Lilith would be there so he could see if she was the thing killing the kids.

He drummed his fingers on his jeans as he tapped his foot, waiting for his dad to pick up.

Her next victim seemed to be Gabriel and if Gabriel died then... Would Castiel blame him? He wouldn't know, but if he did...

Then, from behind him:

"Oh, Dean. Did you forget me?"

Oh shit.