Author's note: Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Maddy Love Castiel, Keefer, Kirabaros, PercyJfan1802, Pizzapig, CherylB1964, FireChildSlytherin5, Lewlou15, eiahlaie, Improbabile, baileylovesyou0400, XxZessxX, Riceball-1989 and Chichi-10018 for last chapter's reviews!

Special thanks to Treeni for beta reading!

18

Despite Sam's protests, Gabriel fully approved when Dean put a couple of bang snaps under the doormat of the guy who had opened the door for the kids just to tell them that he wasn't going to give them anything for a fucking godless holiday. If the jerk hadn't opened the door at all, the archangel might have backed the younger Winchester's argument that not everybody was into Halloween and that not celebrating the holiday was no reason to play pranks on people. Opening the door just to yell at a couple of kids, trying to have fun, was grade A douchebaggery. Not to mention that Gabriel was a pagan god who was all for Halloween, so first the guy had been wrong in saying that it was a godless holiday and second he'd better be glad that he'd only get a scare the next time he stepped on his doormat for his attitude.

Other than that one incident, their trick or treating tour was coming along nicely and both Winchesters had collected enough sweets to spoil their appetite for the next couple of meals. Sam lost track of how often he had been told that he was just too cute in his costume, but he didn't mind too much, because the people always smiled at him and gave him good sweets. Of course, he still tried to kick or push Dean whenever his older brother laughed at him because of it. The way Gabriel always had that little, happy smile on his face when they walked away from another house where someone had complimented Sam's costume and had generally been nice to him made everything just that much better.

Dean got attention mostly from the other kids running around, especially from the girls around his age who thought he looked too cool and from some of the boys who liked all the weapons he had. The older Winchester would have died from embarrassment, if mothers and old women had called him cute as frequently as they did with Sammy, anyway. He didn't want even a single one of them to call him cute, period. That first old lady who had pinched both their cheeks had been bad enough, in Dean's opinion.

"We'll go down that road," Gabriel announced when they reached an interception that had equally promising looking houses at both sides. The archangel had his reasons why he wanted them to turn right, of course. He still had a little surprise for the boys up his sleeve.

"Why? What's down there?" Dean asked, narrowing his eyes at the adult suspiciously. The older Winchester of course, would have turned left, so Gabriel had to have a damn good reason why he wanted them to go the other way.

"The local High School," the archangel replied, smirking when Dean immediately shuddered. Gabriel wondered if it was a sort of Pavlovian reaction that had made the older Winchester respond like he had. Sam's ears had perked up noticeably at the mention of a school, adding further proof to the archangel's theory about Winchesters and Pavlovian conditioning.

"That's a good enough reason to go the other way," Dean groaned, refusing to take one more step to the right until he heard a good reason to move again. While Sam might enjoy it, something like 'The school library is having a sale tonight' wasn't going to cut it! There better be something good like…

"They have a haunted house going," Gabriel explained, grinning when Dean's expression went from vaguely annoyed to excited, in under a second.

"What are we waiting for?" the older Winchester asked, suddenly a few steps ahead of his younger brother and their guardian already. A haunted house sounded like the perfect surroundings for a monster hunter and there probably were a few girls – and boys – around Dean's age there, he could impress with his braveness.

"Don't worry, munchkin, if there's anything clown-themed, you just close your eyes and I'll carry you through," Gabriel promised in a conspiratorial whisper once Dean was far enough ahead of them to not hear it. It wasn't unreasonable to assume that something in the haunted house might play straight into Sam's phobia. Clowns gave a lot of people the creeps, after all.

"You could just… maybe, if you held my hand, that'd be okay too," the younger Winchester replied in a hushed tone, looking toward his older brother nervously. It wasn't only about Dean teasing him mercilessly, if he overheard what Sam had just said. It was much more that the conversation the younger Winchester was having with Gabriel felt private, the moment belonged to Sam and Sam alone. There were very few things that were solely his, but he was determined to keep this for himself.

"You got it, Sambo," the archangel smiled, winking at the kid and offering his hand.

"And I'll hold your hand if there are any stallions," Sam promised with a grin, taking the adult's hand. Somehow, the thought of encountering a bunch of clowns wasn't that scary to the younger Winchester when Gabriel was standing right next to him. Dean always tried to help his brother when Sam got too scared too, but the older Winchester didn't really take his brother's fear of clowns all that seriously.

They walked in silence for a minute before Gabriel's cell phone announced that he had gotten a text message. This time the archangel wasn't surprised to see that it came from his trench coat clad brother.

"Hey, Dean-o," Gabriel stated as soon as he had read the message, "Cassy will join us in a bit."

"Awesome!" Dean exclaimed happily, while the adult typed a message back. The older Winchester liked the thought of showing off his costume to Cas, a lot. It was too bad that the adult hadn't let them know that he would be around for Halloween earlier. Dean could have dressed the blue-eyed man up as his sidekick or something. That would have been awesome!

What Gabriel wasn't telling the kids, was that his little brother apparently was worried, because Zachariah's goons had renewed their efforts to find the Winchesters. Of course, the spell was going to end sometime the next day, so it made sense that everyone and their grandmother would be out searching for the two children. Not that Sam and Dean had anything to worry about while they were walking around with an archangel/pagan god, but if it would make Castiel feel better to join them to see for himself that everything was alright, Gabriel wasn't going to object.

"I say, let's go in," the archangel suggested when they arrived at the High School and Castiel was nowhere to be seen, "Cassy will find us when he arrives."

Actually, Castiel – just like any other angel in existence – wouldn't be able to find the Winchesters by sensing them. The marks on their ribs hadn't disappeared when they had been turned into children, which likely was the only reason why Castiel had managed to get to them before one of Zachariah's goons.

However, the blue-eyed seraph would know to look for Loki and Gabriel didn't intend to make finding him too hard for his little brother. Despite the archangel's complicated relationship with parts of his adopted pagan family and various other beings, he was on at least friendly terms with most of them. Friendly enough terms that they wouldn't attack him the moment they saw him, as long as he didn't meddle with their affairs that was. So walking around with two human children on Halloween, letting everyone who was able to see the aura of power Gabriel didn't bother to conceal see him for the Norse god for mischief and chaos, wasn't putting the kids or himself in danger.

"Don't worry, Sammy, I'll go ahead and make sure it's safe for you," Dean announced in a teasing tone with a wide grin, drawing one of the plastic blades he had strapped to his back for effect.

The haunted house the High School had put together, was impressive. Enough so that Gabriel vowed to make a donation in addition to the price he had paid for their tickets. The decorations were creatively creepy and the students, who had dressed up as various monsters to scare the visitors, were doing an excellent job. It was even better that some of the teenagers were playing along when Dean was threatening them with one of his plastic weapons.

"You show 'em who's boss, Dean-o!" Gabriel cheered the preteen on, while keeping the younger Winchester close to his side. It was obvious that the eight year old was fascinated by the entire experience, but that it also made him a little anxious. Sam's unease was nothing that couldn't be fixed with a slight squeeze of Gabriel's hand whenever the younger Winchester got too tense, however.

They had just entered the next segment of the haunted house, which was decorated to look like a pharaoh's tomb, and Dean was chasing a mummy with his sword drawn, when Gabriel felt a flicker of angelic energy behind him. The archangel hadn't even fully turned around to greet Castiel when an angel blade was embedded into his chest.

Gabriel's eyes widened in surprise and shock, as he let go of Sam's hand and fell to the floor. The younger Winchester screamed, terrified and tried to grab any part of Gabriel to shake the adult and get him to move, but his older brother reacted quickly and dragged his younger sibling away from the unmoving body, then shoved Sam behind himself to shield him from their bald attacker.

"I have to give it to Castiel, he knows how to hide things where nobody would think to look for them," Zachariah commented, fixing the two children with a hard stare. They weren't going to disappear on him now that he finally had them!

Dean didn't know how the hell the bald man knew Castiel or what baldy was even talking about, but he still puffed up his chest and made sure that his little brother was staying behind him. The teenager dressed up as the mummy the older Winchester had been chasing earlier surely would run to alert others of what was happening. Somebody was bound to come and help them soon. They just had to be smart and survive until that happened!

A big part of Gabriel was screaming at him to get up and help the children, but a blow like the one he had received would have killed the average pagan god. Giving away that Zachariah's angel blade had only hurt him momentarily, would give away that he was not the pagan god he was posing as. The archangel would have to give up his cover and take a stand. In the end, it wasn't Gabriel's head that made the decision for him.

"You two mud monkeys are way more trouble than you're worth," Zachariah stated with a huff, "But we'll finally put an end to all that."

The moment the angel moved one step closer to the children, was the moment Dean pushed his hysterical brother hard to get him to move, so they could try to run away. There were a lot of people around the building, they just had to get to a part where they could disappear in the crowd. The older Winchester wasn't quite sure what they were going to do after that, but he could still make that decision later.

However, they ran no further than a few steps before the bald man was suddenly standing in front of them.

"You are going to be a good boy for us now," Zachariah stated, looking directly at Dean, "Or we'll have to see how long you can stand to hear your little brother squeal like a pig and scream for mercy."

There was no doubt that one night would be enough to break the spirit of a twelve year old, especially since the children knew nothing about angel banishing sigils or why their older selves had gotten it into their heads to resist against all reason. Having an entire week to work with the older Winchester would have been preferable, they might have even been able to play a little nicer that way, but as things were, they would just have to use Zachariah's preferred method of convincing unwilling subjects to cooperate immediately.

"You're not going to touch either one of them," Gabriel announced, throwing aside the angel blade he had removed from his chest. The archangel rolled his shoulders for a moment before he unleashed his wings, their massive shadows falling on the wall behind him. Gabriel's usually golden-brown eyes glowing with heavenly power unseen in centuries.

Zachariah suddenly didn't look quite as smug and sure of himself anymore. In fact, he looked like he was about to start groveling. Not that the archangel was in the mood to hear any of it. Gabriel hadn't forgotten the feeling of wanting to punish Zachariah for what he had done to Tarot and the fact that his stupid brother had dared to threaten the archangel's boys only made that feeling stronger.

The bald angel opened his mouth to speak, but Gabriel interrupted him harshly before the first sound came over his lips.

"Shut it, Zach, you've said enough," the archangel commanded, moving in front of Zachariah within the blink of an eye, closing his hands around the other angel's throat, "I'd be tempted to remove your vocal cords or something alike, but that'd be a little… redundant."

A good old classic smiting done by an archangel wasn't something that would stay undetected by heaven and especially the other archangels, but Gabriel wasn't going to half-ass this. The archangel didn't get so mad that he wanted to burn someone's grace out often, but when he did, the anger needed to be let out.

Zachariah's lifeless body fell to the ground as Gabriel stood above him, breathing heavily. Killing one of his siblings – no matter what kind of a bastard he had been – didn't give the archangel any joy, but sometimes it was unavoidable.

"I knew it!" Sam suddenly exclaimed in an awed tone, looking at the shadows of Gabriel's wings still on full display and then directly in the adult's face. There were tear tracks on the younger Winchester's cheeks, but he was smiling at the archangel. Sam had known from the start that Gabriel was an angel watching over them! That was the part of all the things that had just happened, the younger Winchester could safely focus on.

Dean, of course, wasn't quite as enthusiastic about the new discovery that their babysitter wasn't an ordinary human being. The older Winchester was still shielding his little brother as best as he could, even though Sam was making it hard, trying to get a better look at the adult and his wings. At least, Dean had been able to keep Sam from running up to the freak!

"We better get out of here," Gabriel sighed, giving the boys a small smile before he snapped his fingers and transported them back to their apartment. The archangel could – and would have to – deal with Dean's freak-out later.