Title: Wings to the Wall
Authors: Seven Hyde and Twisted Skyward, also known as Legolyn Fay and Avery
Rated M: For graphic violence and foul language.
Pairing: None, although you could read it as Dean/Castiel if you wanted too.

Disclaimer: Supernatural, it's characters and concepts do not belong to us. This is a non-profit, non-riot fic, written solely for enjoyment. No infringement is intended.

Authors' Note: This story is a work in progress, in that we are working on it as we go along. It's an AU to the extent that it doesn't fall in the realm of the series, but the characters and their world are the same. Enjoy!

Dean's eyes fluttered as he was dragged back to consciousness. Pain was already flickering through his body, not sharp, not yet, but it made him groan all the same. He looked around, trying to remember where he was. Sam. Where was Sam?

Zachariah stepped out of the darkness, looking at him with pity and smugness. "Dean. Oh, Dean..." He shook his head. "We warned you about this. We told you, the Might of Heaven would strike down on you, and you would suffer worse fates than those of hell. But even I never thought it would get this far..."

Dean dragged himself to his knees and pushed himself up to his feet. He swayed for a moment as blackness washed over his vision, but he remained upright. Breaths. Deep breaths. Something sharp stabbed at his side with every breath. A few ribs were definitely fractured. What the hell had happened? "Fuck you, you winged freak, where the hell is my brother?"

"Sam is already here, Dean. He is waiting for you in the next room, as is Castiel." Zachariah sighed. "You all had such promise, all three of you. Breaking you will not be easy." He looked at Dean. "But it will be done."

Dean glared at Zachariah. "What have you done to them? You bastard, what are you doing?"

"Come with me." Zachariah dragged him, partly physically, partly with his angelic mojo to the next room. Dean's eyes widened when he saw Sam, chained to a similar six pointed rack as the one Dean had experienced in Hell. He was stripped to the waist and already his skin was marked and torn. Blood painted his body and bone showed white and pale in places. He was wide awake, and his eyes widened in panic when he saw Dean. "Dean! Zachariah has lost his mind, he's-"

Zachariah silenced him with a wave of his hand

Dean started towards his brother, but Zachariah stopped him with a hand on his collar. Dean spun, raising his arm to push at the arm that held him, but Zachariah held fast, pulling Dean close to his face.

"You haven't let me finish." He turned Dean towards the far wall. There Castiel was chained, his wings extended and nailed in place with heavy spikes to the wall. His feathers were stained with blood, clumping them together, and his feet hung a good six inches off the ground, all his weight on the nails holding him in place. His eyes met Dean, silent, but racked with pain, physical and emotional.

Dean stared, his mind trying to register what he was seeing. His brother and his angel… both in pain he couldn't fix. Dean's shoulders tightened, and when he whirled towards Zachariah, who had wisely stepped out of reach, his face was twisted with rage. "What the fuck are you doing? What do you want?" Without waiting for an answer, he stalked over to where Sam was bound to the hated rack. He reached for the manacles, searching for the lock.

"There is no lock, Dean. They're angel-forged; you won't be able to break them. And, as we speak, the spikes in Castiel's wings are depositing a poison in his bloodstream that will slowly drain first his grace, then his sanity, and finally his life, all before your eyes. It will be painful, very painful. You remember pain, Dean? The pain you endured in hell? The pain you caused?" Zachariah nodded to a nearby table covered in nasty looking implements. "Do you remember?"

Dean remembered everything. The tools of the trade, the trade in which he'd been so aptly trained by Alastair. He remembered being on the wrong end of the tools for 30 years. He knew what everything on that table could do. Dean jerked as flashbacks ripped through his mind. Pain. Blood. His bones visible to the air. His body torn into pieces, only to be put together again. "What do you want?" he whispered.

"I have the antidote to the poison slowly killing the one guardian of Heaven who would stand up for you before our Father. But," he nodded to Sam. "You have to destroy the vessel of Lucifer. If you will not accept Michael, you must do it on your own."

Dean reeled back from the angel. The words pierced him like needles, sharp and deep. He shook his head. "No. Fuck, no. You know what you're asking me to do?" He took a step towards the angel. "You really think I would destroy my brother? You've lost your mind!"

Zachariah stood his ground. "You will, Dean. Or you, along with your hell-spawn brother, will rot in this room for eternity, while Castiel dies before your eyes." He smiled. "I'll leave you to think about it. But no one will leave this room until at least one of you is dead."

"Wait!" Dean held up his hands. "Wait, fine, I say yes. I'll let Michael use me, please, but let my brother go. Let them both go." Dean knew he was begging, but fuck it. If begging would free them, then he'd do it. He would kneel and lick Zachariah's shoes if it would save them.

"Dean, no!" Sam yelled. "Shut up, Sam." Dean's eyes never left Zachariah's. "I'll be Michael's freakin' angel condom if you let them both go free now."

"No!" Zachariah roared. "No, it is too late for that! You have defied us for the last time, and this time, we will show no mercy. You will kill one of them. They are as good as dead already." He motioned to the table. "Get to work. I will check back shortly." And then he's gone.

"No!" Dean yelled. He ran for the door, yanking desperately at the handle, but it did not budge, as he knew it wouldn't. It may as well have been painted onto the wall for all it gave. Dean leaned his forehead into the door as he racked his brain for an answer. A sound of pain from Castiel made him turn and face the room again.

"Dean." Castiel hissed. "Don't. Do not let them win. Michael can find-" he groaned, biting his lip hard. "Find other vessels. You won't find another brother." He looked Dean in the eye. "I'm not afraid of dying."

"I can't do this. I can't." He walked over and touched one of Castiel's wings. They were soft, but under that was hard muscle. "I can't just let you die." He looked over at Sam, whose face was pinched from the pain of the manacles. "I can't kill my brother." He dropped to his knees. He would have taken a thousand years in Hell over this.

"You have to." Castiel murmured, meeting Sam's eyes across the room, asking him silently to help him convince Dean. "You have to let me go. You and Sam, together, you can stop this. You can stop more people from dying." Sam shook his head, wanting to say something, something to get them all three out, alive, and whole. But he could see no way.

Dean glanced at the table that held all the wicked instruments on it. "If..." he took a shuddering breath."If I just...hurt Sam, instead of killing him. Would he let us go?" He didn't know if he could even do that much, but if it was an option, it was worth considering. At least they would all be alive.

Castiel shook his head. "No. Zachariah...I've seen it before. Angels mad with fury. He won't stop, Dean, he won't let you stop. Not until you are destroyed." He looked away, then at the ground. "It...I know it is not my place to ask, but there is one thing, you might do for me."

Dean looked at him. "Yeah. Name it."

The angel looked at the table with the implements, then at his wings, feeling the toxin burning its way through his wings, towards his body. "This poison is...it is slow acting. It will take days to kill me, and you and Sam do not have time to waste." He looked up, steel in his eyes, almost, but not quite masking the fear in them. "Make it quick. Get it over with, now. And get out."

Dean's heart seized at the quiet resolve in the angel's voice. He looked at the expanse of wings on the wall, then at the table. "Cas..." He when to the table, looking at the weapons laid out on it. "Is the poison already in your body, or is it just in your wings?" He walked back towards the trapped angel, saw hanging from his right hand.

If anything, Castiel looks more terrified, pulling at the chains around his wrists. "Dean, no. Please, don't. Just do what I said. Take Sam and go, the device will unlock with the blood of an angel, just...please. Please, listen to me, just once more."

Dean shook his head. "I'm not leaving here without you. Both of you are coming with me." He laid the jagged teeth of the saw against the upper bone of Castiel's wing. "And for both of you to come with me, we have to free you, and with your blood, we can free Sam." He looked at Castiel's terrified face, then turned back to the wing and dragged the saw down, digging into flesh and bone.

Castiel's scream, when Dean cut into him, rocked the room. The lights flickered, the chains around him rattled as he thrashed. "Dean, stop, stop, please, just kill me, Dean don't do this." he begged.

Dean ignored the screams as he had ignored thousands of souls beneath his hands. Blood spattered his face, hands, and clothes. A sharp crack sounded as he cut all the way through the main supporting bone. All that was left was to cut through the flesh and tendons. For that, he needed something smaller. He went to the table and returned with a large, curved knife. Tears were mixing with the holy blood on his face. "I'm so sorry, Cas." And he set knife to flesh.

Castiel's body was racked with sobs as he begged Dean to stop. "Please, Dean. Let me die whole, I beg you!" He looked to Sam for help, blue eyes wide with fear and pain, but Sam turned away, letting his brother lead. It was the only way for them all to survive.

The knife bit its way through the meat of the wing and pain seared through Castiel. He screamed again, his body arching back from the wall, trying vainly to free himself, to be rid of the pain. Red and black swam across his vision and if only he were able to pass out, he would have. But no, his very being, his essence, kept him awake, alert, and horribly aware.

Dean took a step back, wiping the blood from his face. One wing was now completely severed from Castiel's body, held up only by the nails driven through it. A good six inches of wing still stuck out from the angel's back, and Dean knew it would have to be removed later. He shoved that thought to the back of his head, not wanting to picture what that would be like. He picked up the saw from the floor and set it against the bone of the second wing, swallowing bile at the anguish in the angel's blue eyes. "God, Cas, forgive me."

"Dean." Sam's voice cut through the room. "Wait."

Dean jerked back from the angel just in time. "Fuck, Sammy." He turned to his brother. "What?"

"You...you don't have to..." he twisted in the manacles holding him."Let me go. I'll...I'll finish it. You shouldn't have to..."

Dean shook his head. "I'm not letting you do this. God only knows what happens to people who remove the wings from angels." But he dragged his hand through a puddle of Castiel's blood and walked over to where Sam lay captive. The moment the holy blood touched the manacles, they vanished.

Sam reached out and grabbed his brother's sleeve. "Dean. This...this too much, even for you." Castiel looked up, from where his head was hanging, panting. "Dean...please. Just...kill me."

Dean shook free of his brother's grip. "I started it. I'm going to fucking finish it." He retreated back to where Castiel hung by one wing and set the saw to bone again. Fresh blood seared his skin and the screaming began again.

Sam looked away, unable to watch. Castiel was sobbing now, hysterical, begging Dean to stop. "Why, Dean, why, please. I've never hurt you, I've stood by you, why…." Dean wished he would just pass out, every word an arrow of truth, but angels don't faint from pain, and even when Castiel fell silent, he still stared at Dean, his face streaked with tears, his mouth twisted in agony.

The bone broke with a snap as Dean cut through it, and Castiel fell a few inches, now hanging on only by skin and tendons. His weight began to tear the wing from his body, and he keened in sheer agony. Dean grabbed the knife, cutting as quickly as he could, trying to free his angel, to spare him more pain. Finally, the wing was severed, and the wingless angel collapsed to the floor, drenched in his own blood and sobbing. Dean threw the knife across the room, and knelt beside him. "Castiel, I'm sorry, God, I'm so sorry. Forgive me, please, I had to, please-"

"What. Have you. DONE!" Zachariah's voice ripped through the room.

"Dean." Sam swallowed, looking over their heads to where Zachariah was standing, open-mouthed and livid. The room began to shake as the angry angel took in the sight before him.

Castiel lifted his head slightly, looking at Zachariah, eyes awash with pain. "The sigil....draw it. Place my hand on it. Now."

Dean swallowed hard, looking at the blood pooling around them. He coated one hand, holding Castiel tight to his chest with the other, daring Zachariah to take him from him. On the wall between the two wings, he drew the sigil that banished angels at the touch of a hand. Grasping Castiel's wrist with his still bloody hand, he pulled the angel's arm up, reaching his hand towards the symbols as Zachariah stormed towards them.

Zachariah vanished in a flash and a yell, and Castiel looked away from the blood. "We must go...now. Sam...The blood. Mark the panels of the door." His voice was slightly stronger, but he wouldn't meet Dean's eyes.

Sam did as he was told, covering his hand in blood with a wince, then touched it to the door. A brief flash of light blinded them for a moment, and the door clicked open. Dean hauled Castiel to his feet, supporting his weight as best he could. Sam came to Castiel's other side, sharing the weight as they worked their way towards the door and then through it. Castiel's breathing became sharper with each step, eyes set straight ahead, blue and blazing with pain, tears streaking his face. His mouth stayed set, and he bore as much of his own weight as he could. Every nerve in what was left of his wings burned with pain, down to his bones, and he stumbled, crying out.

Dean caught him, but the weight was too much, and all three men fell to the floor in a heap. Castiel whimpered, burying his face in Dean's shoulder as pain seared from the stubs of his wings through his entire body. His skin was cold and clammy, and his breathing was no longer sharp, but shallow. Sam looked at Dean, who met his eyes over the weeping angel, lost and tortured. "This is not good." Sam murmured, gently touching Castiel's hand where it clenched the material of Dean's coat.

"I mean, blood loss aside, who knows what losing their wings does to an angel. What the hell do we do now?"

Dean was at a loss, the guilt of what he had done shuddering through him with every sound Castiel made.

"I don't know, Sammy. He won't die from blood loss. I mean, Bobby and I shot him till we could see daylight through his chest when we met him, and he didn't die." He looked at the damage he'd done to his friend, heart clenching. "But losing his wings..." he shook his head; the horror of what he'd just done hitting him like a wall.

He sighed and hung his head for a moment. "All right. First things first, we need to get the hell out of here. Help me get him up. You take his left side, I'll take his right. Sam nodded. "Ok." Gently as he can, he helped his brother lift the angel off the ground. Castiel moaned, head falling forward limply. "Dean, please. Let me die..."

"Shut up." Dean hissed. "No one is dying today, none of us. Got it?" Castiel said nothing, and Dean swallowed hard. If Cas died, after all this...he'd never forgive himself.

They made their way down the hallway, until they came to a split. They had three directions to choose from. "Oh shit." Dean said. "Um, I don't even know where we are. I don't even know if we're still on freaking planet Earth."

Castiel raised his head. "East. He nodded to the rightmost path. "Stay east. Towards the sun."