Author's Note: Brief warning that there is torture in this chapter if that's not something you want to see.
The Marigold Room only vaguely resembled the Petunia Room. It was a hell of a lot bigger, over twice as long and wide and an entire wall was covered with closets, drawers, and counters, all faced in a horrifying shade of washed-out red, like blood that'd already set before you tossed your shirt into the bucket to soak. He wondered if his own blood would stain the white tiles the same color.
And he was sure that there was going to be blood. When they'd moved rooms, he'd expected that Alistair would have to unstrap him from the chair, give him an opening, no matter how small, to escape. But the demon had just picked up the entire thing, chair, stand, and Hunter, and swept them away into the end of the gigantic room. The blood wall was to his left, the door just beyond that. Right before he plunked horizontal once again, he caught a glimpse of a row of chairs on the opposite wall, like they were expecting an audience. Dean couldn't be sure if that was what made him sweat or if the room was just hotter.
Flat on his back, all he could see was the ceiling, and he was surprised to find the stark white broken up by spidery black lines, almost like a demon trap, but never one he'd seen before. And the thing was huge, exploding out of the edges in starbursts of glyphs and sigils, crawling out to the very edges of his vision. Kind of creepy, really.
"Well, it looks like you're all set up here. I'm just gonna go check up on some of my projects," the voice Dean had learned to associate with Lucifer called out from somewhere in the corner where the door was. It was weird that this place even had doors. The angels and the yellow-eyed demons just seemed to zip in and out wherever the hell they wanted.
"You will remain here," Michael commanded, voice echoing slightly in the giant room, resonating with the low rumble of the vents.
"Please, Michael. I have things to do. I'm in the middle of a very important project. I won't go near Cassie, I swear. You'd know if I did anyways."
"What project?" Dean could practically hear the narrowed eyes. He tried to focus on the two arguing angels even as Alistair trailed a finger over his arm, stopping occasionally to pinch his skin.
"It's just a follow-up to the Lilith project," Lucifer said, words even and calm to the point where it could be nothing but a cover for excitement.
"You didn't-"
"No," Lucifer complained. "You said to stay away from them so I'm staying away from them. Now can I go play?"
Dean shivered at his words.
"If you stay, you may help me with Mr. Winchester."
"But humans are boring."
Alistair's hand clenched suddenly where they'd trailed their way up to his shoulders.
"Nevertheless, you will remain with me while they are here," Michael said firmly.
There was a moment of silence before the strangely incongruent sound of a raspberry being blown cut across the tension. "Spoilsport," Lucifer whined, but the slipslide of metal chair legs on tile screeched its way through Dean's eardrums.
"Alistair," Michael called to the demon still circling Dean like a hungry shark. "Please make Mr Winchester more comfortable. I wish to speak with him."
A crank of a lever and the back of the chair flipped upright, sending dark stars through Dean's vision at the sudden rush of blood from his head. It took Dean a moment to realize he wasn't seeing double, and that the two angels in front of him were separate beings. Michael, sitting in the center of the room, white wings carefully relaxed, held just off the floor, knees stuck together. And that had to be Lucifer, slumped lazily, fingers and wings trailing over the tiles. Both of them had blinding white wings, though Lucifer's were tattered and messy, sandy blond hair, light blue eyes. While Michael wore the dark blue uniform of the HAS, Lucifer was in a rumpled navy shirt, just a few shades darker than his jeans, light cotton fray ringing the hem. They could have been brothers.
"Hello, Dean," Michael said, like they were having a conversation and one of them wasn't bound and gagged. "I believe we got off on the wrong foot." His smile didn't reach his eyes.
Dean snorted, hoping it conveyed his sentiment of So that's seriously what you're going with?
"And I realize that you be wholly innocent in this, but you must understand that precautions had to be taken. I was trying to avoid the current situation, but it seems fate has converged at this point. Lucifer, would you like to remove the tape over Dean's mouth?"
The other angel shot Michael a dirty look, but swayed up from the chair to saunter over on his heels, hands shoved deep in his pockets. A single blunt fingernail dug into Dean's cheek.
"On three now," Lucifer sang with a wide grin. "One. Two."
Dean braced himself for the burn.
"Three."
Nothing happened. Lucifer was checking the nails on his other hand. What the hell? he mumbled, and as soon as the words left his mouth, the angel yanked hard, tape ripping a strangled yelp from the Hunter.
"Son of a bitch!" Dean hand automatically went up to rub at his face, but the metal clamps kept his wrists locked tight so all he could do was swivel his jaw, stretching the tender skin.
"Thank you," Michael said curtly and Lucifer sauntered back to the wall of chairs, slapping the strip of duct tape onto Michael's shoulder as he passed. The Director ignored it completely.
There was probably a diplomatic way out of this situation, a way to get Michael to let him go without a fight. It would take carefully picked words and subtle phrasing. What came out of Dean's mouth instead was "What the fuck do you want?"
Michael regarded Dean coolly and reached inside his uniform jacket to pull out a single white feather nearly the length of his arm. Lucifer's eyebrows popped up when Michael held it up to the light.
"Do you know what this is?"
"A big-ass feather?" Dean guessed.
"We found this in Castiel's possession. And yes, this is a feather, unusually large compared to the common avian, but a standard size for an angel's secondary coverts. What makes this feather unique, however, is its coloring."
Dean had no idea why he'd been kidnapped to talk about feathers. Maybe they were all just insane. He really had to find where that bitch took Cas and get them the hell out of here before Plan B kicked in. When he didn't respond Michael leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, feather twirling between his fingers.
"There are only two angels in the world with feathers like this," Michael told him.
That got Dean's attention, but only because of how badly the statement failed to impress. "It's white, dude. Hate to break it to you, but lots of angels have white wings."
"White, maybe, but not pure white. Take a closer look. There are no color variations, no streaking, no staining."
"Yea, you're right. Looks like it's made of plastic," Dean admitted.
"It is not artificial," Michael snapped. "It is perfection handed down directly from our Father's hand."
"Sure," Dean agreed and would have moved his eyebrows if they weren't covered in tape.
The angel took a calming breath and bland indifference returned to his face. "There are only two angels in creation with wings this pure. Lucifer and myself. I have not lost any feathers recently, and the ones I have are all accounted for."
"Seriously? You know where every feather you've ever lost is?"
"You are mistaking angels for common fowl, Dean. Angels do not shed."
Dean snickered, then thought better of it when both angels looked a few seconds short of kicking his ass.
"Ok, fine, so what's the big deal? Cas had one of Luc's feathers. Sorry, man," he turned to the angel in question, "I get that you're not a giant chicken but your wings look like they're dropping feathers all over the place."
"The problem," Michael said, like Dean was a particularly troubled kid who didn't know what was going on because he was always doing something else in class. Dean was pretty well acquainted with the tone. "Is that Lucifer never leaves this facility."
"So the guy got cabin fever and took a trip, not some big mystery here, Mike," Dean scoffed.
"I would know," Michael retorted sharply, not quite losing his cool. "But that is not what I am asking. Has Castiel mentioned this to you or spoken of how he received it?"
"No," Dean said slowly. "What the hell is the big deal anyways? So Cas has his feather. What's he going to do? Sell it to one if those new-age hippies for a couple hundred bucks?"
"The big deal, as you say, is what the feather implies. That feather is a threat, the only question now is whether that threat has already been made or if it never had the chance."
"Hold up. You're saying that someone is threatening Cas with a feather?"
"Or," Michael said firmly, "Castiel is threatening us."
"Bullshit! Even after all this crap you pulled, he still practically worships the shit falling from your ass."
"You have only known Castiel for a very short time. How well do you actually know him? How do you know you can trust anything he says?" Michael asked, sitting back stiffly on his stool.
"I trust him a hell of a lot more than I trust you," Dean spat out. He didn't need reasons. Michael made every hair on the back of his neck stand up like they were trying to escape. Cas could fling Dean halfway across the world without triggering any red flags, like they had known each other for years even though he could barely tell you a dozen things about the guy.
"I see," Michael sighed, standing up fluidly from the chair, white wings utterly still behind him. "I believe that you have no knowledge or bearing in this issue." He tucked the feather gingerly back inside his jacket and picked up his chair, moving it back into the row.
"That's it? That's all this has been about? A feather?" Dean demanded, not believing for a second that a feather was what got them locked up, what made them into fugitives.
"Of course not," Michael said offhandedly as he held the phone up to his ear. "Yes, Alistair, please return."
Dean bit back a curse when a moment later the demon burst into the room a foot from his head, humming the alphabet. He grunted as the back of the chair fell down once again.
"Now that your loyalty has been ascertained, we can proceed." Michael moved to stand by the opposite wall where Dean could barely see the tips of his wings.
"Fuck you, my loyalty ain't touching you with a ten foot pole."
"Not to me, Dean. Loyalty to the people you have sworn to protect. This matter extends farther than just you and me. At the end of this, you will be a hero. Your name will be remembered for countless millennia. Your face will be recognized by every man, woman, and child. You will be have more influence than the pope."
"More famous than Jesus?" Dean sneered, trying to follow the demon with his eyes as it circled his chair, still humming, providing the weirdest soundtrack to Michael's big speech.
"Yes, Dean. You understand, then, what it is we have to do now?"
He had a pretty good idea what Michael wanted to happen. He also had a pretty good idea that he wasn't about to enjoy the process. The only thing he could think to do was stall, stall until something changed.
"No clue, dude. I'm like the red crayon of that kid in kindergarten who was obsessed with strawberries. Kind of dull, you know?"
"I very much doubt that," Michael's voice floated across the room, vibrating strangely with the muffled rattle of the vents and Alistair's breathy hums. "But if you insist. Your bond holds endless potential, and yet you have done nothing to tap into that potential."
"Believe me," Dean joked, forcing a strained laugh from his lungs. "If I could access some sort of super powers right now I really would."
"No," Michael said, wings twitching in the corner of his eye. "You wouldn't. But Alistair is here to provide some extra motivation. If you will?"
"My pleasure," Alistair hissed.
Dean clenched his jaw and tried to remember what they had gone through in basic training.
Don't antagonize your captors, that lead to being singled out.
Well that one was a bust. He was pretty sure he had all of Alistair's attention from the first sniff.
"You see, Dean," Michael started, his voice a persistent drone just louder than the vents. "The world is descending into chaos. Militia groups erupting in Cuba, pagan cults blooming like weeds across the Eastern block."
The torture stopped when the captors heard what they wanted to hear, not when they heard the truth.
Dean would lie his ass off if that was all it took, but what Michael wanted here was for him to do something that Dean could just come out and say or do. It wasn't even something he could fake his way through.
Alistair scraped a yellowed fingernail under the edge of the tape over his eyebrow, leaning so close that Dean could feel the wet breath on his cheek.
"Good boy," Alistair cooed and with a sharp jerk of his wrist, took Dean's eyebrow from his face.
Exaggerate the pain.
The hunter jerked and shouted, adding a little moan into the mix.
Accept the situation.
Alistair grabbed of tape in his hairlines and yanked, and this time Dean yelled for real. The dangling strip held not just sandy blond hair, but a few chunks of bloody skin that made Dean want to gag.
Stay calm.
The rest of the tape came off in sharp succession and Dean stopped thinking about training. He stopped thinking about anything past the burning streaks across his scalp and face and focusing on breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. When the final piece was held, bloody and chunky over his face, Dean forced a smirk and gritted out, "That all you got?"
Alistair's grin grew bigger, like it could split the bottom half of his face right in two. "Oh, that was just me having a little fun, an appetizer if you will." The demon tossed the tape to one side and pulled out a pair of pliers, snapping them together a few times before leaning down to breath into Dean's ear. "Are you ready for the main course?"
His fingernails went first.
"Doubt," Michael snapped in time with the pliers. "Angels and demons aren't enough proof anymore."
His pinky first.
"Doubt leading to dissension."
His ring finger.
"Dissension to anarchy."
His middle finger.
"Anarchy to death."
Forefinger.
"Destruction of everything we've managed to build in the last two thousand years."
Thumb. Dean's groan drowned out whatever it was Michael was ranting about now.
His toenails went next. And everything was okay. He could take this. He'd run a mile on a broken ankle once. This was nothing.
"The people need a champion, Dean. They need miracles that the angels can not provide. They need you and they will come like ants to a fallen fruit. You will be the one to save them."
"You know, if you can get it up," Lucifer spoke up for the first time since Alistair returned.
"You will," Michael insisted.
He started crying about the time the pliers were fastened around his molar. The metal trap kept his head still, even though the pressure built higher and higher, like successive strikes of lightning. It squeezed tears from his eyes before the tooth cracked and Dean screamed.
When Alistair started on the second molar, trying to find purchase around the blood that filled Dean's mouth, Michael cut in. "He can't lose that much blood."
A vacuum was stuck in Dean' mouth, making obscene slurping sounds as the blood gurgled down its throat. A wad of bitter gauze was jammed into the hole where his tooth had once been, a mocking echo of the pain and the loss.
"We have time," Alistair crooned and the chair dropped away from under Dean. His head jerked back against the rest, making him bite his tongue. He barely past the ache of his jaw.
After a while he sank into the pain. Alistair stayed away from things that made him bleed, but there were just as many ways to make a man scream without breaking the skin. Even if he stopped screaming after it started getting him lungfuls of water that produced a new kind of burn from the inside out.
"Stop." The word didn't make any sense. Pain didn't stop. It just was. "He's not even trying."
Dean braced himself for the next blow against the soles of his feet, but it didn't come.
"Just give me more time," Alistair huffed.
"No, you'll kill him before you get him to reach for the Bond. He has been surviving pain too long without it. But there are other things we can try. Go get the angel."
"Cassie?" Lucifer asked, finally perking up from where he'd been slumped in his chair the entire time, as if Dean's miniature hell was just annoying background noise to the symphony he'd been drumming onto the plastic seats.
"Not for you," Michael said, amusement glinting in his eyes. Dean wanted to claw them out.
Fucking angels, he cursed, words slurred even in his own head. His face was too swollen for him to say anything out-loud. The chair suddenly tilted down and his head swam with the sudden loss of blood. He blinked away the dark edges and peered around the room. Alistair was already gone. Michael wasn't looking at him, instead peering at something on his phone. The only eyes on him belonged to Lucifer. He stared groggily back, not trying to be defiant or pleading or much of anything other than conscious.
Lucifer smiled slightly, propping his chin on the heel of his palm. "This could be fun."
Dean sucked in a breath a little too hard and his throat clenched up before he was coughing in fits, each jerk sending pain radiating through his head and down his ribs.
The sharp triple beep of Michael's phone cut through his own wheezing.
"Yes, I sent Alistair. You may retire. Thank you, Zachariah."
Fucking angels, Dean thought again, sharper this time, even as he felt himself slide away.
A sharp jerk to his wrist woke him up, then sudden gut-wrenching disorientation before he landed on the ground with a sharp oomph and someone yelling wordlessly next to his ear. Warm arms were locked around his back and a familiar gray covered everything else.
"Cas?" he gurgled out before remembering he couldn't talk.
"Get the collar on him," Michael voice ordered and sharp fingers pried Dean up and over, jamming him against the wall.
They were sprawled a couple yards from the chair, Castiel gasping on his back, their legs still tangled together from when they'd fallen. Alistair clapped a silver collar around the angel's neck, covered in scratchy black glyphs. The angel's wings spasmed once before falling still on the ground, but there was only a minute before the demon was hauling the angel to his feet.
That's when Dean noticed the mass of white gauze and bandages wound up the angel's side, spots of red poking through in a line like splattered paint. The tacky flex of his own fingers, covered now in the same blood made his stomach turn.
Alistair dropped Cas with a careless thud to the ground near the center of the room before coming back for Dean. The hunter could barely stand, the soles of his feet still tender from the beating, but he kicked out wildly at the demon as he was half-carried back to the chair.
"What is this?" Castiel's deep rasp accused from where he'd struggled onto his knees, fingers of one hand hooked under the collar's edge.
"Just keeping you grounded, angel," Alistair growled, slamming the cuffs back down around Dean's wrists. He didn't bother with the rest of the straps this time, which was just another clue that something was about to go horribly wrong.
"Cas, you okay?" Dean slurred out, blood and saliva dribbling out of the side of his lips. The gauze in his mouth was little better than mush by then.
"Oh, he's fine right now," the demon purred. "Just feeling a little bogged down by life's little distractions."
Alistair slid across the floor, slipping in close enough to the angel that Cas stumbled back a step before the demon caught a finger beneath the collar. Anger boiled up in Dean as the demon gave jerked on the metal ring, snapping the angel's head to one side.
"Stop this," Castiel gasped, grabbing the demon's wrist. "Michael, you must see that this isn't the right course."
The other angel didn't say anything. The dick barely looked at Castiel, just kept tapping away at his phone and occasionally glancing up at Dean or Alistair. Lucifer couldn't seem to decide whether he liked gloating at the hunter more or at the angel, look of triumph glinting in his beady eyes.
"Interesting fact," Alistair hummed. "It takes the average human six weeks to heal a simple fracture of the bone. The average angel's arm won't even break." He laughed. "But Castiel here isn't exactly your average angel is he?" Suddenly he grabbed the angel's forearm and kicked out his knees, twisting the limb behind his back with a sickening crack.
"No!" Dean yelled, lunging forward against his restraints, nearly yanking his arms out of their sockets. His words were loud but garbled. "He's not your stupid prophet, okay? I am! You can't get anything from him! Fuck, Cas," he cursed, willing the angel to open his eyes. He was about to ask if he was okay, but he could guess from the unnatural sheen of sweat on his pale face. All that he could hear was the pained wheezing of breath as it whistled through his guardian's nostrils.
"Without the warding, it'd take him, oh, three days? But now, well, how does it feel to be human, angel?" Alistair let go of the angel's wrist and Castiel cried out as his arm swung down to hit the ground. He only had a moment to cradle his arm before a sharp kick came down on his side.
"Stop it! Stop!" Dean snarled, feeling sluggish senses sharpened by fury. "I'll do it, okay! I'll use the stupid bond!" And he tried, eyes locking on Castiel's. They were open now, wide and blue and blank.
"No," Castiel choked out. "I'm still an angel. This won't kill m-" His words cut off with a cry as heavy boot came down on his left knee.
"Fuck!" Dean shook in his binds, desperately trying to slip his hands out of the cuffs, scraping a raw line of red across his wrists. His thumbs. He had to get his thumbs out. And then he could give that son of a bitch demon what was coming to him.
And Michael too. All of them. Sick twisted bastards. Shit.
A heel dug itself into the bandaging and Castiel keened, voice shriveling up into little more than a breathy moan. Dean couldn't breath. He felt like he was stuck on the edge of a yawning abyss, frigid air pouring down his neck, frozen.
"Don't," Castiel whispered.
"You can make it stop," Michael soothed. "You can make it all stop."
"Don't," Castiel hissed again before an arm was wrapped around his neck, crushing his windpipe. His eyes rolled shut.
Dean didn't even know what either of them was asking anymore. All he knew was that Michael was right. This was worse than Alistair ripping out his tooth, like all the pain from Castiel was being flooded right into Dean's chest, stalling his lungs and painting his throat with bile.
The crack of a fist across the angel's nose. The snap of his wrist, so that both arms hung awkwardly in that tentative balance between keeping them still and keeping the weight off the broken joints.
Don't. Castiel's voice echoed in his head. And Dean did nothing. He could do nothing. He was absolutely useless, even as Alistair produced the scalpel and rammed it into Castiel's eye. He did nothing as an angry red cross was carved across the angel's back.
He wanted to scream, to cry, to rip through the chair and wring the necks of everyone else in that room, but he could barely breath, much less move.
The sharp trill of the triple beep left claw marks across his mind. Beep beep beep. Again and again until he realized it was an alarm of some sort. Alistair was gone again. But this time Michael and Lucifer had disappeared as well.
"Cas," he choked and didn't recognize the rough scrape that was his own voice. The angel didn't move, just lay sprawled across the floor, blood pooling from his back and face and soaking into the gray feathers, staining them black. "Oh god, Cas!" He tasted salt on his tongue.
The collar glinted mockingly under the artificial lights.
Dean registered numbly the state of his own hands, nail beds clotted black and lumpy, skin nearly completely scraped off the heel of his palm. Still he had trouble prying his fingers off the arm rest, slowly unfolding each one until he could twist his arms, palms face up and open in supplication.
"Please," Dean pleaded to no one in particular. "Please."
The angel whimpered.
"Cas? I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he chanted until it was a sort of breathy mantra. He was past the point of desperation, of exhaustion. They had bled him dry, wrung him out until was was hollow, an aching hole that clenched periodically to the throb of his heart. He was so focused on Cas, on watching the faint rise and fall of his chest just to make sure he was still alive, that you really couldn't kill an angel without holy oil, that he didn't register the fact that Michael and Alistair had returned until a familiar grunt locked every muscle in his body.
"Angels," Alistair wheezed, laughing. "They last longer, but it's not as much fun when there's no real danger. But humans, oh humans, they are so soft, so sensitive, so deliciously mortal."
Dean's head snapped up in horror to see Alistair wrapped firmly around his brother, flipping Dean across the abyss and into the fire. Every fiber of Dean burned as his eyes met Sam's.
"And this one," Alistair chuckled darkly, "I don't have to be careful with this one."
