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Gabriel was dead. Killed by Lucifer to give the Winchesters time to escape the hotel with Kali. Castiel had heard it directly from Sam and Dean, but it still seemed impossible to believe. Gabriel was powerful. Gabriel was clever. Clever enough to be able to avoid all contact with their family for longer than Castiel really cares to count.

They say the first stage of grief is denial, and Castiel would even deny he's grieving for the estranged older brother he hasn't really spoken to in at least centuries. Despite that, though, he still leaves the motel room without so much as a word, just a rush of air as he takes flight. He can't even begin to imagine how many times, as the Trickster, Gabriel has faked his death, so he wants to confirm it for himself.

Within seconds, he reappears in the ballroom of the Elysian Fields Hotel. His eyes land on Gabriel, laying on the floor and he sighs. No, this certainly didn't look like another trick.

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Gabriel is gradually able to breathe easier the more progress Castiel makes. The blood taste stays in the back of his throat but doesn't get joined my any more. At least, not enough for him to notice.

As the need to be focused entirely on survival and not passing out fades, he's allowed to shift his attention more to what's going on around him; which, granted, isn't much. Beyond little brother wearing himself out, anyway.

"'Nough," he croaks out before coughing again when the blood decides to remind him of its presence. Castiel will do no one any good if he keels over.

Castiel's distracted again when Gabriel manages a whole syllable, and for the moment, since it seems like his older brother's out of immediate danger, he decides to give in, and stop for at least a brief break.

"Try not to move, all right?" The last thing either one of them needs is for any of Castiel's efforts at healing to be undone.

Gabriel pries his eyes open to aim a glare at Castiel that shows what he thinks of the prospect of going anywhere is before letting them drift shut again. Letting his attention be focused inwards, he looks for the more minor things that need fixing as a test to see what he was up to dealing with.

The answer, it turns out, is not much and he stops making the effort with a grimace. So much for taking over when little brother stops. Maybe if he passes out for a day or so as a way of forcing himself to get enough rest, he'll actually be useful instead of useless.

Castiel will take that as a good sign, that Gabriel has the energy to glare at him. At least it looks like he's out of immediate danger. He glances around the room briefly; he's not sure how long it'll take until they'll be able to travel, and it occurs to him how vulnerable they are. His top concern is that Lucifer might return, of course.

"If you're all right for a few moments, I should put up some wards to keep anyone else from coming to pay their last respects."

"'Kay." Gabriel hates that he has so little energy, just that one syllable was an effort. Being stabbed by Lucifer sucks, he decides. He'll take a pass on a repeat of this experience.

He listens to Castiel move around, his awareness becoming a little fuzzy. He fights it for a moment before letting himself pass out. He was as safe as he was going to get for the moment, may as well take the chance for some sort of rest.

As soon he's given the okay, Castiel gets up and goes to work drawing runes on the wall to prevent them from being detected by other angels. Once he's done, he takes a moment to check on Gabriel, but he doesn't disturb him. Instead, feeling relatively assured that they're reasonably well protected, he makes a trip upstairs.

He gathers up a few blankets and pillows from one of the rooms, and returns to the ballroom, closing the doors behind him. They're not necessary, sure, but Gabriel might still appreciate it. He drapes the blankets over him and carefully eases the pillow under his head, trying not to disturb his rest. Content that he's done what he's can, Castiel settles back down beside him to keep watch.

If Gabriel was conscious, he'd appreciate the self-restraint involved in not drawing on him with a sharpie pen.

He finally regains consciousness a couple of hours later, feeling slightly better. He's pretty sure he's still useless, but he should be able to handle actual sentences. He thinks. Time to put that to the test.

"The floor's a terr'ble bed," he says slowly and with effort, opening his eyes again. Yes, he's noticed the pillow and blankets.

Castiel's mostly spent the last couple hours sitting on the floor next to Gabriel. He's gotten up a couple times to investigate a noise or two that was probably just a rodent scurrying off on the search for food, and he's since used the corner of a tablecloth to clean off the Archangel blade, but that is about as far as he's gone.

Relieved when Gabriel speaks again, he glances down, managing a small smile. "Yes, I suppose there's a reason why most people don't normally sleep on the floor. I didn't want to risk moving you, though."

"I know." He'll let Castiel decide what that's in answer to. He's quiet for another couple of minutes as he takes stock of himself and the shape he's in. Okay, while better, he's still in crap shape physically.

Then he takes a look at the condition of his Grace and winces. That really had a number done on it. He gathers up some energy, infusing it back into his Grace in an attempt to repair it and successfully getting a loop going where energy produced goes right back into repair. There, that should hopefully do it, even if the job will probably take a couple of days if not more.

He opens his eyes, having let them drift shut as he concentrated on other things to look at Castiel. "We can't stay here."

Castiel looks around the ballroom and sighs. Gabriel has a good point, and he knows it. "I know we can't. But you don't look like you're in any condition to do any travelling yet either. The room is warded, and the last I saw of Lucifer, his vessel was already beginning to degrade. As long as he believes you're dead, he has no reason to come back here. We should be safe until you're feeling stronger."

Gabriel takes a breath and prepares to talk slowly to make sure he can get through everything he wants to say. "Doesn't matter if I'm in shape or not. We need to go. There were a bunch of people here that the others were gonna eat that Sam and Dean managed to get out. While sure, they'll sound like crazy people to the authorities, they'll agree that something happened here. I'm surprised that the place isn't crawling with cops already."

So yes. Need to boogy on out ahead of the law types.

Well, that changes things, doesn't it? It doesn't escape Castiel that being found in the middle of all the carnage around them by police is going to lead to some uncomfortable questions.

He gives in with a nod. "All right. We'll go. Do you have somewhere in mind?" Otherwise, one of Bobby's safehouses it is.

Gabriel shakes his head. They're lucky he was even up to thinking about skipping out ahead of the cops. "Might be passing out again soon."

"All right. I know somewhere. Hold on." Castiel grabs the Archangel blade and tucks it under his coat for safe keeping. He moves to a crouch beside Gabriel and reaches down to grip his shoulder, hearing the faint wail of approaching sirens.

He takes off once again, both of them vanishing from the hotel and reappearing in moments in a small cabin that serves as a safe house for hunters on the road.

Gabriel grits his teeth, trying to ignore how much the travel hurts, it driving in what terrible shape his wings are in. If he wasn't already laying flat on the floor, he'd fall over. As it is, he goes limp and closes his eyes. "Passin' out now."

Carefully, Castiel moves Gabriel to the bed and lifts him onto it. He watches him for moment, frowning in concern before turning away to go find some paint to ward the cottage against any intruders.

Once he's content with his efforts, he sets the paintcan down by the table and returns to Gabriel's side. He rests a hand on his brother's chest and makes another attempt at healing, infusing Gabriel with more of his Grace, trying to undo the damage Lucifer's done.

He'll probably notice the feedback loop Gabriel managed to get going to help with the Grace side of things. Fortunately, it doesn't require Gabriel to be paying attention or even conscious to keep running.

Gabriel stays unconscious longer this time although at least this time it was to aid in healing faster rather than just shutting down. When he wakes up again several hours later, he feels considerably better although still nowhere near a hundred percent. He estimates about another week after taking a moment to mentally check himself over.

Then he opens his eyes and frowns down at himself. It was time to do something about that shirt. What with the hole and being soaked through with dried blood, it has to go. ~~One less reminder of what Lucifer did to stick around.~~ It finally belatedly occurs to him to look around for Castiel.

Since Gabriel seems to be doing all right on his own with his feedback loop running, Castiel's spent his last few hours a bit more productively than he did at the hotel. He's been in touch with Bobby and Sam and Dean to let them know where he is, but figuring Gabriel would prefer discretion, he's been deliberately vague on the details, promising to explain fully at a more appropriate time.

He's put the paint back where he found it, and turned on the radio, but the volume is low, and when Gabriel wakes, he's busying himself by taking stock of how well the cabin's supplied. As soon as he realizes his older brother is conscious again, though, he's back by the bed.

"How do you feel?"

"I think I can get up without falling over." That's enough detail, right? He sits up slowly and carefully swings his legs around to sit on the edge of the bed. "One, where's the bathroom, and two, are there any clean shirts around? I've gotta get cleaned up."

He's pretty sure that wasting energy on snapping himself clean would be a bad idea and just have him flat on his back again.

He'll accept it for now, but he'll also just kind of... hover close by, prepared to help in case Gabriel's overestimating his ability to get up on his own.

"I found some clothes earlier when I was looking around." Castiel goes to the closet to retrieve a shirt and brings it back to Gabriel. It's one of Bobby's, so probably a bit big, and plaid. Sorry.

"The bathroom is down the hall, on the left hand side."

He'll live with plaid. At least he's alive to wear it. He shrugs off his jacket as Castiel retrieves the shirt for him, doing a once over to check it for blood before setting it down.

Gabriel takes the shirt and stands, making his way slowly to the bathroom. "If you hear a crashing sound, it's probably just me falling over and taking something with me."

Castiel follows Gabriel down the hall to the bathroom and pushes the door open for him. Alive is a good start, alive and not doing further injury to yourself is even better. He stops short of following him right inside, though, figuring that probably wouldn't be welcome.

"I'll stay here in case you need help."

If he tried to follow him in, he'd get subjected to 'what are you, my mother?' style snark and locked out.

"I'm just gonna use a wet washcloth to wipe off the blood, nothing major." Although now that he thinks about it, a hot bath sounds amazing. Sure, overkill on the getting clean part, but sitting there and soaking in the heat would give him something relaxing to do and he deserves it, dammit.

He closes the door firmly, giving himself to have a few minutes alone. He has the feeling that little brother will be following him everywhere. May as well take a moment to himself while he can.

The shirt is peeled off slowly, allowing him a chance to see the amount of blood on both him and it. Clean-up comes next while trying not to think too much about who was responsible for it, followed by shrugging on and buttoning up the new shirt, not bothering to tuck it into his jeans. Then the door is opened again and he raises his eyebrow at Castiel as if to ask 'well?'.

Castiel has learned that most people don't appreciate him being in the bathroom with them, but of course he stays right by the door just in case Gabriel falls. Yeah, following his older brother everywhere might be a thing for awhile, but it's only done out of concern and good intentions. Besides, what are little brothers for?

He steps back when the door opens so he's not blocking the way. "You should go back to bed. Get some more rest."

"Yes, Mom," he deadpans, carefully making his way back to the bed. He takes a moment to get his shoes off before curling up on the bed, closing his eyes to rest quietly. "Anyone know what you're up to?"