The fight was going well, and then it wasn't. Gabriel drives his blade through the last demon's chest, sitting back and breathing out. It seemed like the fight was over as fast as it had begun. Gabriel could feel blood trickling down his cheek, Sam's clothes were red and Castiel had blood splatters up his neck. Even so, it seemed that they had, at least, survived relatively unhamred.

"Well... so much for your grand plan to kill us." Dean, wiping the blood off his angel blade, turns to smirk at the trapped demon.

This was when Gabriel first noticed something was wrong. The demon was gone, someone had broken the devil's trap. 

"Shit." He's on his feet in seconds, looking around for the missing demon. 

It's Castiel's raw shout of fear that draws his attention back to where he stood watching Dean.

The demon had appeared in front of Dean, moving so fast that the angel had no time to react. 

"Dean!" Sam and Castiel's shouts join each other in the air, both filled of a similar pain. 

"This is a warning." The demon stabs Dean, and the crossroads is instantly filled with a bright light. 

Gabriel raises an arm instinctively, in too much shock to do anything other than squint as the impossibly bright light fills the area. As the light faded, everyone seemed to be frozen in place, unable to move or speak as they look upon the horrible scene. 

It was Sam that broke the sudden silence first. Sam, the angel who had always seemed to be in control, who never seemed to experience any pesky 'human' emotions. This normally collected angel was now shaking his head, mumbling, "no, no, no," over and over as he stumbled over to his brother's body. 

"Dean?" Sam shook the other angels shoulder, "De, please..." 

Gabriel hesitates, gripped with indecision as he could only watch on in shock. He had known that this particular hunt wouldn't end without bloodshed, but he hadn't expect one of them to die this early in. The sight of Sam crying and hugging his brother's body was jarring, he wasn't sure how to approach the now emotion angel. 

"De... Dean?" Castiel, blood smeared across his forehead, had stumbled forward. Gabriel blinks, unsure as to what to think of his brother's reaction. Castiel proceeds to kneel on the other side of Dean, grabbing his arm. "Dean?" 

Gabriel had never seen that look in his brother's eyes before, it was a heart wrenching look of pain that made Gabriel want to hide his brother away from all the harshness in the world. He starts walking over to them, everything had happened so fast, his brain was still catching up. One thing he knew for sure though, was that they were well and truly screwed. Obviously the demons weren't going to let their little group of unlikely allies get in the way of whatever they had planned. Without Dean, their odds of succeeding were going to be even lower, especially if these demons had been able to kill an angel with such ease. 

Troubled by his thoughts, he looks down at the wing marks scorched into the ground. Dean had been the... easiest of all the angels to get along with, he had also been one hell of a fighter. 

What was Gabriel thinking? They were the freaking Novaks, they didn't back down from a fight. They had won bigger fights than this without the help of the angels, they had stopped the freaking apocalypse without the help of the asshat angels, in fact they had been going against the angels then. Dean dying meant nothing, he was just an angel and if Gabriel was certain of anything, it was that angels were giant dicks. 

"We need to get back to the motel, make a plan." Gabriel turns away from the wingmarks. "Before they come back."

"You're kidding, right?" Sam's voice was taunt with emotion, far from its usual cool tones. "My brother is fuc-"

"Dead? Yeah well we will be too if we don't move." Gabriel snaps, turning back to look at the tall angel.

"You really are a heartless bastard, I just watched my brother die." Sam was staring Gabe directly in the eye. "Would you just leave Castiel if it were him?"

"Please, we all know that thats different, Cas is actually my blood, you angels are all just 'brothers' and 'sisters'."

Sam's eyes flash with anger, and he moves towards Gabriel. "Don't you dare say that, Dean was- is my brother, more so than all the other angels are." He reaches Gabriel, standing close to him. "He and I have been through so much together, and yet he died sacrificing himself for a town full of people who will never give a damn." 

Sam takes half a step closer, his shirt brushing Gabe's. "You say angel's are dicks and don't care? Take a look at your own species," he was glaring right into Gabriel's eyes and Gabe couldn't make himself look away. "You humans are disgusting, full of such hatred for each other, murdering innocent people without batting an eyelash and ignoring those in need... and yet we're the bad guys?"

"What makes you so good?" Gabriel meets Sam's challenging gaze with one of his own. "Sure, humans are flawed, but are angel's much better?" 

"Gu...guys, I really don't think that this is the time for this." Castiel's quiet voice breaks through the rising tension. 

"We need to go." Gabriel states, refusing to be the first to step back or break eye contact. He should have never have agreed to work with the angels.

"We can't just leave Dean." 

"He's dead, we need to go."

"I'm not leaving my brother here."

Well, that was fine with Gabe, he really didn't care anymore if the angel came or stayed. "Fine, stay here then."

"I will." 

They glare at each other for a long time, neither willing to be the first to break away. 

"I'm not leaving Dean like this either."

Gabriel looks over at his brother in surprise, breaking the rising tension between Sam and himself. "What?"

Castiel was still kneeling next to Dean, tear tracks clear on his grubby cheeks. "I said, I'm not leaving Dean."

"Why do you care so much about this angel?"

Cas looks down, and Gabriel couldn't read his expression. "Cassie?"

When Castiel does look up, a single tear cutting through the drying blood on his cheek, his eyes are glassy. "Because he was the one who saved me from hell." 

They never talked about that. The whole topic of Cas going to hell had become taboo, mostly because every time it was brought up, Gabriel felt such guilt and anger that he usually shut it down. It was his fault Cassie had even ended up down there, and then he hadn't even been able to save him, some angel had. 

He realized, then, why Castiel had reacted so much to seeing Dean. Why they had seemed to have some sort of... bond. 

Gabe didn't like it. But he wanted to hear the story.