Castiel heard it first, what with his angel powers and all. He motioned for Sam and Dean to be quiet, then pointed upstairs. They all heard it this time, a loud, pain-filled scream. Without further hesitation, the three of them silently made their way up rotting wooden steps, to a hallway with five doors in it. The door at the end of the hallway was cracked, and they could just barely see the face of a demon through it. Sam looked at Cas questioningly and Cas mouthed, They have an angel. Sam's eyes widened in surprise, and he relayed the information to Dean. The three of them carefully stepped down the hallway, and poised by the door. Then, with a nod from Cas, they burst through the door, catching the demons by surprise. That advantage was soon lost, however, when the hunters saw how many demons they were dealing with. At least twenty pairs of black eyes stared at them, surrounding a man tied to a chair who the hunters could just barely see.
Then, all at once, the demons attacked. Sam slashed left and right with his knife, and on the other side of the room he could see Cas killing demon after demon with his mojo. By the time the demons were dead, they were all extremely tired, but otherwise unhurt. Dean had been untying the angel, and Sam gasped when he finally saw who it was. Gabriel lay limp in Dean's arms, six golden wings protruding from his back and dragging across the floor. He looked terrible. There were multiple stab wounds all over his body, a few of them leaking Grace, and his arms and legs were a mess of bruises and cuts. From what Sam could see of his back, he was covered in whip-lashes and burns. The worst were his wings, though. They were bleeding and bent at odd angles, obviously broken. There were multiple cuts all along them, and pierced through each wing was a thick metal cuff. The golden feathers were almost all broken or bent out of place.
"Gabriel? I thought Lucifer killed him." Sam's voice held the confusion he felt at seeing the angel alive.
"Well, obviously Satan had other plans for his brother," Dean snapped. "We have to hurry and get out of here before more demons come back." The three of them left, not caring about stealth anymore. The whole way to the Impala, Cas kept throwing worried looks at his brother. When they finally reached the car, they didn't know how they were going to fit Gabriel's six, ten-foot wings in the car.
"Dean," Cas said. "I know you don't like flying with angels, but it's the only way to get us all to Bobby's." Dean looked at his car, then at Cas, then at the unconscious angel in his arms.
"Fine," he growled. Dean squinted as Cas' fingers touched Sam and Dean's foreheads, and they found themselves in Bobby's living room. "Bobby! Get down here, we have an emergency!" Sam and Cas moved the furniture out of the way and Dean laid the archangel on the space they had created. When Bobby finally trumped down the stairs, Sam had already cut off Gabriel's shirt and was washing the blood off of his skin. Dean pulled Bobby aside to explain, while Cas hovered protectively around his brother. With near expert fingers, Sam cleaned, stitched and bandaged every wound. Then carefully flipping him onto his back, he started on the burns and lacerations. By the time he had finished, Bobby was up to speed, and he and Dean had left to give Sam more space to work.
"Cas, I don't know how to fix angel wings." Sam looked at the angel to find him looking thoughtfully back at Sam.
"Since they are on the physical plane, I would assume you treat them like any other broken bone. Sam nodded and positioned himself next to the first wing.
"I'll need you to hold him down, this is going to hurt." Cas obeyed and held onto Gabriel's shoulders. When Cas nodded that he was ready, Sam took a deep breath, grabbed the wing, and pulled. Instantly, Gabriel was up and screaming in pain. He tried to flap his wings to get away, and would have knocked Sam and Cas aside had Bobby and Dean not came and helped hold him down. "Gabriel! Gabriel, look at me." Sam's voice was gentle, but commanding and the archangel looked up at him with tears streaming down his face. "This is going to hurt, a lot, but we need to fix your wings, okay?" Gabriel nodded and buried his face into a pillow to muffle his screams as Sam set the bones in his wings and held them in place with splints.
By the third wing, though, the pain had become too much, for which Sam was glad, as it made his job a lot easier. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he continued to fix the archangel's broken wings. When he had finished, he lifted him up and made his way to the guest room. There he set the unconscious angel down gently and left, leaving the door open. He made his way downstairs and heard the others talking.
"...since the hotel where he attempted to take on Lucifer," Cas was saying. "If so, that means he's been tortured for weeks." Sam went to the fridge in the kitchen and brought back four beers. After passing them out, he sank onto the sofa with a tired groan.
"You don't look so good, Sammy," Dean said.
"I'm fine, just tired. I'll sleep after i finish my beer." Dean just nodded and turned back to the conversation. Sam sat lost in thought. IF he really had been Lucifer's captive since the hotel, that would make everything that had happened to him his and Dean's fault. True to his word, he went up to his room after finishing his beer. He didn't even bother putting on pajamas, just stripped off his jeans and flannel and flopped into bed. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
