A/N: I know this is late again but I was in London over the weekend and have been stupidly busy, also got hardly any reviews on the last chapter and just couldn't seem to get motivated gah! But don't worry; I break up from school this Friday for the Christmas holidays so I can update loads more. I spent ages doing research for this chapter, so all of the facts and things should be accurate because I wanted it to be realistic. I need a bit of Sabriel drama and hope you guys enjoy it. Please, please review with ideas, comments, anything at all, it all spurs me on to write more and I love hearing what you guys think, good or bad. Okay, enjoy.

They all stood around Adam's bed as they attempted to make sense of the doctor's words.

"Wait, so you mean something else is going on?" Dean tried, watching Adam's sweaty brow make no movement. The doctor nodded patiently.

"We believe the major problem which we couldn't identify in surgery was a mere distraction to hide the actual problem, which we were lucky and uncovered purely by chance. There's a toxic substance polluting his system, to be specific; venom. On closer inspection, the young man has punctures on the inside of his wrist, in accordance with those to be expected from a snake bite."

"A snake did this?" Gabriel said incredulously.

"We believe so. Unfortunately until the test results return we are unable to determine what species of snake the venom came from and therefore unable to administer any treatment or possible antivenom as going in blind to all the facts could have any number of consequences."

"A freaking snake bite! What, is this guy from the mafia or something?" Gabriel said loudly.

"Gabriel!" Sam scolded but Gabriel just scowled, they were still tense from their earlier argument. Sam sighed, aggravated but still feeling incredibly guilty. It was silent for a minute before the Doctor spoke again.

"The police officers are currently scouring an area where they received a tip off that the event occurred. Hopefully they'll find some evidence which could be useful to treating your brother. In the meantime there's nothing we can do but keep him on antibiotics for the pain, but we're unsure whether he's even aware of any right now."

"Yeah… Okay, thanks, Doc." The Doctor nodded with a professionally-sympathetic smile and left promptly. For a while everyone just stood, or sat in Castiel and Rosalie's case, both of which had been silent, enveloped in their own thoughts. Gabriel, uncomfortable with the tense and unbreakable silence cleared his throat.

"Well as great as this is I'm gonna' go to the place where the cops think it happened see if I can help, God knows it'll be better than sitting around here sobbing." He said with intended sarcasm but everyone saw his simple desire to do something to help.

"That's not a bad idea, Sammy, go with him." Dean said, his eyes not straying from his other little brother. He felt Sam's pleading eyes on his face and he turned and looked at him fiercely.

"Sammy." He pulled his 'I'm the big brother now do as you're told before I kick the crap out of you' look and Sam sighed in defeat. Gabriel didn't argue, but didn't wait to see if Sam would oblige and left immediately, making Sam jog slightly to catch up.

Dean leaned back against the wall and exhaled deeply, hating himself for wishing his Dad was here. Castiel reappeared from his reverie slightly upon Dean's anxiety.

"Dean-"

"I'm fine, Cas." He said, a tone of finality in his soft voice. Castiel had too many thoughts in his head to protest but added Dean to his list of ever present worries, not that he wasn't always worried about Dean…

The ride to what seemed like, and was; the middle of nowhere seemed to take an eternity and was silent. Gabriel was uncharacteristically unwilling to speak, still angry. Sam was unable to say anything, still guilty. When they arrived there were lots of police officers, many getting into cars and leaving. It was a desolate area and so it was surprising that anyone had seen Adam's attack but it was obvious that this was the place. It was a large field, grass dyed crimson. Gabriel and Sam weren't allowed into the middle of the field in case they disturbed any evidence, much to Gabe's annoyance, but were permitted to look around in the rest of the field. It was getting dark early now and the field soon flooded with an ocean of black.

They soon strayed onto the next field and then the next and steadily got further and further out until they could barely see the flashing lights from the cop cars. Gabriel wasn't even sure what they should be listening out for anymore. Gabriel finally spoke up after he couldn't hold himself back any longer.

"So what the hell are we even looking for?" He asked irritably but Sam still appreciated Gabriel's effort at slow reconciliation and was encouraged greatly.

"If I can see the snake I can narrow down what it might be hopefully." Gabriel gave him a very direct look and raised an eyebrow.

"What? I liked reptiles as a kid." He said awkwardly and Gabriel very nearly smiled. At last Sam really couldn't stop himself, he hated fighting with Gabriel.

"Gabe, listen-"

"Shh!" Gabriel urged suddenly. Sam sighed, but forced on not letting the subject drop.

"No Gabe, I need to say-"

"Sam, seriously shut up!" Sam caught on and listened as Gabriel resisted rolling his eyes. There was just a hint of something in the grass, the slight inclination of something sliding. Or maybe it was just the wind. They were both silent as they stood knee deep in grass as the crisp air played tricks on their ears. Gabriel's phone ringing made them both jump. Gabe shook his head as he pulled it out of his pocket, it was Dean.

"Ga- we've got the tes- -res-lts b-…" The line was crackling due to the lack of reception and was threatening to die.

"Who is it?" Sam asked.

"Dean." Gabriel snapped holding a hand to his other ear whilst attempting to hear better.

"Dean? I can barely hear you properly, what's going on, test what?" Gabriel shouted. Sam questioned but Gabe swatted him away and he sighed backing off.

"Test Results." Dean spoke incredibly slowly, half mocking, half genuinely trying to get him to hear.

"Sam knows about this crap."

"So he's said." And Sam shifted awkwardly as Gabe's gaze fell upon him.

"Okay, so the Doc says the res- say that Adam's got loads of neur… neuro… er, Doc, what the hell does that say?" There was a pause and Gabriel sighed aggravated.

"Neurotoxic venom."

"Neurotoxic?" Gabe repeated and Sam's brain immediately went to work, flying through mental encyclopaedias so loudly Gabriel could almost hear it, it was both annoying and annoyingly endearing.

"Yea- he s- someth- about it be- rare but-…" The line was cracking up again and Gabriel couldn't make out what Dean was saying. Suddenly Sam cried out and tumbled over with a thud. Gabriel gasped.

"Shit!" He shouted before he dropped the phone and ran over to Sam.

"No! Stop!" Sam shouted, pain seeping into his tone.

"It's around here, don't come over here or you'll get bitten too."

"What if it bites you again?!" Gabriel shouted.

"It won't."

"You don't know that!"

"Shut up and listen, Gabe." Sam said breathily, barely visible through the dark.

"I managed to catch a glimpse of it. Its approximate size and the fact it releases neurotoxic venom rather than haemotoxins or myotoxins like a normal venomous-" Gabriel cut him off.

"Sam!" He shouted, not understanding how Sam could still be giving a biology lesson after he'd been bitten by a freaking deadly snake! Sam made a pained noise and Gabriel thought, screw it. He moved forwards but Sam shouted out to him again.

"No, Gabe! You have to go back and tell the Doctor's it's venom from an elapid snake, a Death Adder." Gabriel tried to gulp but couldn't.

"Sam," He started but Sam carried on, realising Adam needed help and fast.

"Gabe, please, the venom targets the nervous system and causes paralysis and if the antivenom isn't administered in six hours the victim can die. Adam's running out of time, you can come back for me, but you need to get back to the hospital, now."

Gabriel thought he was going to be sick.

"What the hell, Sam? Are you crazy? I'm not leaving you here!"

"For God's sake Gabriel, don't come over here! If you get bitten we're all as good as dead."

"Sam, you can't expect me to-"

"Gabriel!" He shouted in desperation.

"Death Adders aren't territorial, soon it'll be gone and I'll be fine here for a while and you can come back for me!"

"Don't you dare! Don't you dare spout some crap to get me to leave you here Sam Winchester. It's okay, I've got my phone." He searched his pockets and then cursed himself when he remembered dropping it into the reeds of grass. He warily searched the jungle of weeds and finally found it. He dialled Castiel's number.

"Oh come on!" He shouted.

"What?" Sam's strained voice came out from the dark.

"There's no signal." Gabriel said and threw his phone as far as he could in frustration.

"Gabriel, please, run to the cops in the other field and tell them I'm here and then go straight to the hospital and get them to get the antivenom to-" He stopped and winced in pain. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stay conscious.

"The antivenom to the Death Adder's venom. It's really important they get the exact antivenom and as fast as they can."

"I'll help you back to the other field!" Gabriel said hurriedly.

"Gabe even as we're talking my brother's getting closer to dying! It'll take you ten minutes flat out running to get back to the car as it is, let alone dragging me along. Go tell the cops, get to the hospital, they'll get me help. I'll be fine. Go and save my brother's life, okay." Gabriel stood for a nano-second that stretched for a year, never feeling more tortured than he did at that moment. He turned to run but stopped when he heard Sam speak again.

"I'm sorry, Gabe." He said quietly, probably not intending on Gabriel even hearing. Gabe turned and ran to Sam finding him quickly kissing him with as much passion as three seconds could give.

"I love you. I'm coming back for you, understand?" And with that he turned and sprinted away from Winchester to save another, praying he wouldn't be too late, for either one.

A/N: I thought it'd been a while since my last cliffhanger so here you are. I hope it had a nice balance of stuff and it should all be factual or at least I hope so as I spent freaking ages researching everything! Please, please review with what you thought, liked, didn't like, ideas for new chapter/characters/plot lines or just something you'd like to see or want to say, it doesn't have to be to do with this chapter at all. It would help me soooo much. Thanks! Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading. Izzie.