Note to the mods: apologies if this comes through twice: my first attempt to post seems to have disappeared into the ether :(

Title:Five Times Gabriel Tried to Trick Dean
Author: lt_indigo
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: R (to be safe)
Length: 1,539 words
Summary: ...the premise of which is fairly self-explanatory
Timeline: Set a little ways after 'Field Trip'.

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Missouri was awesome, Gabriel decided. She might have frowned a bit, but she hadn’t said a word about her drowning her pancakes in strawberry syrup. Sam had pulled a face that had looked a bit pained, and told Gabriel to grow up. Ellie was cringing and wondering how the hell Gabriel enjoyed something she hated when they used the same taste buds. But Missouri just chattered away, asking after Cas and Heaven as if it was the most normal thing in the world to have archangels in her kitchen.

She looked up when she heard Dean’s footsteps coming in. He looked rough, like he’d had a bad night’s sleep. Ellie pointed out that Dean, like most hunters, suffered from nightmares, and he had seen some spectacular shit during the course of his life. Of course he didn’t sleep well.

“Sam,” Dean said, blearily as he stumbled over to the coffee maker and helped himself. “Missouri, E… Gabriel? What you doing here?”

“Hitting on your brother,” Gabriel informed him with a grin.

Sam flushed and kicked her under the table. “She’s… No, Dean, I…”

“So cute when he’s all nervous,” Gabriel said wickedly. She took a bite of the pancakes.

‘You owe me, Opa,’ Ellie informed her smugly. ‘One passport and visa.’

‘You know I’d have done that anyway, right?’ Gabriel pointed out. Okay, so technically she had lost the bet with her vessel about whether or not Dean would notice, and that had been the price, but Gabriel wasn’t so heartless as to leave Ellie in the lurch completely. Even if she would have to get Cas to help out a bit with the visa part, since he had all the mojo right now. And it would be good training for him.

But how the hell had Dean known?

‘Because I would never have had that for breakfast,’ Ellie informed him smugly.

.oOo.

She picked Ellie’s cereal this time, which made her a lot happier than the sweet food did, even if she knew damn well Gabriel was only doing it to try and fool Dean. The stakes this time were a little more personal: their favourite memory. Having Ellie have a stake made it a little more fair to Gabriel, and gave her an incentive to not do anything to jeopardise the bet.

Dean was late coming downstairs, and it really wasn’t difficult to work out why since Cas came down right behind him. Given all the lightbulbs were intact, Gabriel really didn’t think Dean had given in to his desires and fucked her little brother’s brains out, but something had delayed them.

‘Oh my God, what are you, twelve?’ Ellie asked incredulously. ‘They’re grown beings; if they want to have sex, they can, and they deserve some privacy.’

Great. She was being nagged by her own great-great-granddaughter about her maturity.

“Hey Bobby,” Dean said cheerfully as he and Cas entered the kitchen. “Hey Gabriel. Thanks for the vacation.”

Goddammit, how had he done it this time?

Ellie just snickered.

.oOo.

The next morning she sat on the porch enjoying some toast (another acceptably ‘Ellie’ breakfast), so that Dean couldn’t see her face when he came outside.

‘He’ll still know,’ Ellie said smugly. ‘He always does.’

Nope, because there was too much riding on this one: most embarrassing memory. If Dean guessed right, he was going to have to tell her about the horse, and there was no way that was happening.

She had just taken a bite when Dean poked his head out into the bright sunshine.

“Hey, Gabi, you want some coffee?”

“…sure. Could do with a refill.”

She handed her half-empty mug to Dean, who frowned when he saw the contents.

“You trying to fool me or something?” he asked, his eyes shining as he met hers. “Having Ellie’s coffee?”

“How’d you know I’m not Ellie?” Gabriel asked, giving a mysterious smile. “We’re identical.”

Dean grinned. “Nah you’re not.” Then he let out a laugh. “You were trying to trick me, weren’t you?”

When Gabriel didn’t answer, Dean laughed again and took the mug away, leaving Gabriel to frantically question her stealth capabilities. She had lived on Earth, amongst demi-gods, for thousands of years undetected (well, mostly: Kali didn't count). She had fooled Sam and Dean enough times before: why wasn’t she managing now? Was her lack of mojo really making that much of a difference? Had she relied on it too much in the past?

Ellie was no help at all: she was slouched smugly against Gabriel, demanding the memory with grabby hands and snappy fingers.

.oOo.

Gabriel jumped out while Dean was out getting beer and watched his return home from the safety of Heaven. She got to watch Dean blink in surprise and welcome Ellie back without a moment’s hesitation.

“Where’d Gabi go? Everything okay upstairs?”

Ellie cracked up, the little cow. “Everything’s fine: she was trying to catch you out again. But thanks for earlier: I got some great blackmail material out of it.”

Gabriel was going to kill her if she ever found a new vessel (and therefore didn't need the treacherous creature any more).

.oOo.

Ellie was sunbathing alone in a secluded spot in the junkyard when Gabriel nabbed her. Cas was arguing his point with Raphael, and Gabriel was just getting in the way, so she decided she wanted some skin time. Being away from a vessel after spending so long in one was really disconcerting.

She was lying on her front, soaking up the rays and twirling a piece of grass around her fingers when Dean found her.

“Hey Gabi, didn’t expect you,” he said cheerfully. “How’s things upstairs?”

Fucking fuckity fuck! How was the little bastard doing it? Sam was the psychic one, not Dean, and even he needed a minute or two to work out when Gabriel was crashing.

“Awesome,” Gabriel grumbled. “Raph’s really coming round.”

“Really?”

“No. He’s a moron.”

Dean’s face fell, and Gabriel felt kind of bad for getting his hopes up. Dean probably thought Cas was coming home.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I hate this. Dad could turn it round in an instant if he got off his arse and did something for a change. Instead it’s me and Cas arguing with a brick wall. And I piss the brick wall off.”

Dean tossed his shirt on the nearest junker and lay down beside her.

“That sucks. So, you worked out how I always know it’s you yet?”

Gabriel scowled. “No.”

Dean gave her a gentle smile. “Ellie’s left handed.”

“So?”

Dean gestured at her hands. “You’re not.”

Jesus, was it really that simple? Because Gabriel was only using his right hand to toy with the grass; Dean was right about that. They had even switched the pencil from hand to hand back in England, when they had been annotating the books in the library there.

“You’re shitting me?”

“Lately, since you and Ellie started this stupid bet thing, yeah. Before, it was more obvious.”

Gabriel gave a wry laugh. “Force of habit: I had a right handed vessel for so long, that’s the way round I think.”

Dean chuckled. “Just…”

“What?”

“Don’t up your game tomorrow, yeah? I need to know who I’ve got on my side if something goes down – you or Ellie. Changes the strategy.”

“Paranoid much, Winchester?”

Dean shrugged. “Been ambushed before,” he admitted. “Been attacked here before. And by the sounds of it, your lot aren’t any friendlier this time round. I need to know if I’ve got your mojo in play, or if it’s Ellie doing something stupid that might get her killed.”

Gabriel nodded. She’d been a hunter once; she’d been a soldier once, albeit reluctantly: she knew how important it was to know your allies, so that you could trust them, rely on them for your life. Dean had to do that every day.

“Fair enough. Cas might find some creatively painful things to do to me if I get you killed.”

Dean’s eyes danced with humour. “And don’t you forget it. He’s a scary SOB when he wants to be. I’ve seen Raphael scared of him.”

“Really?” Gabriel was intrigued: as Dean had told it, Cas hadn’t had the mojo to take Raph on last time. He must have done something really impressive or really stupid to manage that. Knowing Cas, probably both.

Dean chuckled. “Yeah, that was awesome, the first time. And kind of terrifying, actually, but mostly awesome. The second time, it was just fucking scary. But it wasn’t really Cas by that point.”

Gabriel sighed. “You know you’re going to have to tell me exactly what happened, one day. No halfway shit just to save Cassie’s feelings.”

“Yeah, I know. Just… It’s not easy, you know.”

“I know. But if I know, I can help you protect him better.”

Dean dropped his head back to the parched ground with a soft thud. “Yeah.”

Gabriel stopped suddenly, her mind tuned into the sudden ruckus in Heaven instead of Dean. Something was going on upstairs; something big.

“I know that look,” Dean said, his eyes suddenly sharp. He was already rolling over, pushing himself up onto his feet. “Go. We’ll be ready.”

Gabriel nodded and pulled himself away from Ellie, racing towards Heaven, Castiel and Raphael.