The first thing that hit him was the smell. A faint, but opressive stench of decay and death; of rotting trees and mucid soil, mixed with his own stink: body odor, a tang of oily, sweat-soaked denim, gunpowder, cosmoline and crude oil. He flinched at the thought of walking through this boggy carpet of dead moss that was festering on sodden ground. Usually he had nothing against getting dirty, but there was something appalling about this forest. Something sinister and distressing.

"Come," Gabriel urged from behind Dean's back. The man didn't turn to face him, "we have to reach a shelter before it gets dark."

"Why?"

"You'll see."

-xXx-xXx-xXx-

It took Dean a while to get over the strange sensation of being defiled or infected by the sick, dying forest as he was following the archangel in a fatiguing walk. The path wound between uprooted trees and landslides. There was something eerie about this place; something surreal, but disturbingly familiar. Like reminiscing something without certainty if it had been dream or reality.

Gabriel waited patiently for a good moment to speak.

"You know, I'm proud of you, Dean-o. Really. I thought it would take you longer," he began, not looking at his companion.

"What would take longer?" Dean snapped, focused on getting as little of the smelly, putrid mud into his shoes as he could.

"Digging the game."

"I scored a point or something?" Winchester sneered, "When?"

"Oh, so you didn't get it," Gabriel tilted his head and clucked his tongue, "My bad. It's about what you said to poor Samuel."

The Winchester stopped to ponder, frowning and looking at Gabriel askance.

"And that's it? I say some random sappy crap and you tick a box and zap me to a next world?"

"Exactly."

The archangel turned around; his expression was inscrutable for a moment before he threw his head back and burst into laughter.

"Just kidding. I can read your mind, so don't even think about cheating," he explained, pointing a finger at Dean, "You really get it, you just don't about know it yet."

They resumed their walk - Gabriel easy and cheerful, Dean het up and frustrated. After a couple of minutes the shorter man spoke again, gesturing widely.

"Anyway, how do you like it?"

"What?" Winchester barked grimly.

"The worlds. The ideas. You know, the surname for instance," Gabriel turned to face Dean and walked backwards for a while, "Don't tell me you didn't get it," he frowned, having noticed no spark of recognition, "Oh, come on. Hel-lo, gun manufacturers? Winchester? Llamas-Gabilondo? Rings a bell? No? Geez, I never hoped you were a genius, but really..." he concluded with an inarticulate - or maybe Enochian - mutter and an eyeroll.

Before Dean could come up with a retort, the sight that emerged from behind a group of trees stopped him in tracks. He had suspected it for some time, but Impala's wreck and the faded wooden gate with an inscription that read Camp Chitaqua left no doubts.

"What the hell is this?"

"So now you can't even read?" squawked Gabriel.

Dean took a step back.

"No. No way. I'm not going back there."

"Yes, you are."

"Fuck you, Gabe. Seriously? Cribbing ideas from Zachariach? Dude, I didn't think you'd sink so low as that."

"It's not me who cribbed the idea and this is one of the best universes. Second on my list of personal favs. Anyway, you know it was a vision, not real timetravel?"

The archangel rose his eyebrows; his poise - a bit less disdainful, a little more attentive - convinced Dean to pick up the gauntlet. He took a couple of deep breaths to calm down.

"It took me a while, but I got it," he admitted wearily, sitting down on a stump near the path.

"What tipped you off?"

Winchester pursed his lips, wondering.

"Lucifer. He was too sane. That junkless ape didn't even have the imagination to create a proper basket case."

"And?"

A long, jerky sigh was the only answer. Gabriel waited for a while before he magicked up another stump for himself to sit down next to the hunter.

"Oh, don't mind me," he taunted, "Keep talking. I'm getting used to your verbal diarrhea. I've spent some time in silence, you know. It's actually nice to listen to your prattle for a change. I always appreciate a good chat with people who speak their minds like you. Just, you know, watch your breath. We don't want you to suffo..."

"Damnit! All righ, have it your way," Winchester surrendered, "It was Cas. There was something off about him. He was... I don't know. Too unmoved, cut up. This... Apathy. I know the guy. I know he'd never throw in the towel like this. And this whole love guru thing? Orgies? That just wasn't him."

"How do you know?"

Though Dean would never admit it, his heart skipped a beat when he realized they were actually getting somewhere.

"Casual sex is not his cup of tea," he explained, fighting his own shame.

In response Gabriel rolled his eyes; no, he rolled his whole head before he sent Dean a dark look.

"Du-uh..."

The hunter was poleaxed.

"So? Wasn't it the big lightbulb over my head?" he growled.

"M-hm. Not yet."

Having stood up, Winchester started to pace back and forth edgily.

"Damnit. What do you want me to say?"

"Whatever you fell like."

Dean snorted.

"Want me to burst out crying ? Or write a poem? Buy him flowers, tattoo I'm a sorry asshole on my forehead, what? What do you want?"

With the last word he landed a blow on Gabriel's jaw. To his shock the figure broke with a dry crackle, revealing a heap of colorful candies that spilled from the archangel's cracked head.

The real Gabriel appeared next to the pinata a split second later; he answered Dean's scowl with an apologetic, innocent smile.

"Just a weird connotation. Lucifer being a bag of dicks. Me being a bag of sweets and goodies, and... Oh, gimme a break. Not all of my jokes have to be brilliant!"

Dean just exhaled furiously, not intending to dignify Gabriel's excuses with an answer.

"Get me out of here now."

"Nay. No can do."

"I said get me out of here, you puffy asshead. You have no right to judge me. It's between me and Cas and he gets it. He gets it. He doesn't need me to be perfect, so fuck off!"

-xXx-xXx-xXx-

Dean hardly registered how reality around him melted again to solidify in the shape of an underground garage; he didn't care. All he was aware of was the rage swelling in him, barely contained, a hot pressure in his chest that hurt almost physically.

"You sonofabitch!" he bellowed into the dark, "I had a shitty life, but I had it. Nobody asked you to stick your bib in. I wasn't good but I knew what I was doing. Nobody cares that I am a fucked up disaster and sure as hell I don't care either so you can go The Swan on someone else. You can't fuck with people's lives like this. Fuck off to your candy Wonderland and leave me the hell alone!"

Gabriel's silhouette loomed in the dim, cool light; Dean lurched forward, readying his fists...

-xXx-xXx-xXx-

He lurched forward and landed on all fours, but didn't feel any pain or even impact. A quick look around left him thunderstruck.

The world around was nearly two-dimensional, with separate plains emerging from behind one another like cheap theater props or paper screens. Everything was just represented in simplified images, painted in nauseatingly pastel colors and outlined in black. Bright green hills were house-sized. Trees had single balls of leaves instead of crowns and there were flat, impossibly red apples stuck onto them. Dean's eyes and brain took their sweet time adjusting to the change before he could attempt to stand up. It proved almost impossible, as if his spine suddenly went stiff and oddly shaped. Dean tried to palpate his own body to check what was wrong. It was impossible too.

He had no arms.

A bright, beaming shape descended from the baby blue sky that was studded with small, flat, identically shaped clouds. After a couple of seconds Dean recognized a six-winged golden horse with a bright white horn. When the alicorn came closer Winchester was able to kind of recognize his... its... face.

The sight was so ludicrous that Winchester forgot to continue his effing and blinding.

"What the fuck is this supposed to... "

"Why don't you see for yourself?" Gabe cooed with noticeable amusement, gesturing towards a nearby pond with his head. Something crunched in his mouth as he was chewing continuously. Sugar cubes?

Dean took a few shaky steps to approach the pond. Though it was physically and geometrically impossible, he saw his own reflection or rather his side view in a perfectly still surface of perfectly opaque, blueish water.

He was a horse.

A cartoon horse.

For the second time in his life the hunter was utterly and undeniably horror-stricken. Every instinct was telling him to run or fight, but his body was petrified and out of control. He had no choice but stand there, gaping at the simplified image of a beige stallion with green eyes, flaxen mane and tail, an antiposession-symbol-shaped birthmark on the haunch and a pinkish horseshoe-shaped scar on the left front leg. He looked like he was made of play-doh.

Jesus Christ, he didn't have hoofs, just blunt studs.

He shrieked, knocked out of the shell shock by a sudden appearance. Next to him stood a black deer with bright, silvery eyes shaded by long eyelashes. Somehow Winchester knew that the deer was female, and even... kinda... sexy?

"Hi, Dean..." the animal's voice was alluring; a bit husky, but overall melodious and deep, "wanna ride me?"

In his confusion Dean had a hard time putting two and two together until it eventually clicked. It wasn't a deer. It was an antelope.

It was the straw that broke the camel's back. Winchester's brain simply stopped processing new information and the absurdity of the situation, replacing the welter of thoughts with a detached, a tad unhealthy quietude.

"Ha. Ha. Fuck you." he mumbled blankly.

"My poor, little Dean-o," Alicorn-Gabriel begun in a pontifical tone, "If I wanted to mess with you, I could give you the worst possible bad trip just like that," he twitched weirdly; Dean realized that the archangel wanted to illustrate the speech by snapping his fingers, but he had no fingers. The thought made the hunter snicker in bitter satisfaction.

"You see?" Gabriel continued, "I wanna help you. I don't know why, I mean you are obviously not worth the trouble, but perhaps this is just how I roll. Do you get it now? Will you listen to me?"

Winchester confirmed with a faint, uncertain nod.

"Come on, Dean-o. Let's get outta here. I don't like this world either."

Thank you for your wonderful reviews, they make my day!

As to MLP: the hoofprint wasn't my idea, I googled Dean pony version and it was so adorable. There are nearly all main and recurring SPN characters ponified and OMG someone made a Gabriel pony plushie! It even has two pairs of wings.

BTW there is a girl who cosplayed a humanized version of the Impala. So meta!