They're barely out of the car, doors closed, when Cas drops like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
"Cas!" Sam and Dean both race forward and fall to their knees beside him. His eyes are open but not moving, his chest still, his body completely limp. Is he dead?
"Sorry about that, boys." A woman steps out of the bunker's shadow, a gun aimed straight at them.
Dean stands, between her and Sam and Cas.
"Had to get the angel out of the way. It seems the paralyzing sigils work perfectly." She smirks. "The ones carved into the bullet, that is."
Sam swears. He starts patting Cas down. His head, his neck, his torso, his arms, and further down. His hands stop, smeared with blood. "Left knee." His voice lowers, "You're gonna be okay, Cas. We'll get it out."
"Those sigils ain't gonna work on us, sweetheart. You can maybe get one of us before the other is right on top of you."
Sam stands.
"Oh, but didn't I mention? I'm not alone."
They're surrounded in seconds.
The voice is recognizable instantly, that edge of grittiness. It's Cas, and as grateful as Dean is that his vocal cords are working and they've taken the bullet out, this is worse. He's screaming. He's been screaming for hours. Dean bangs the doors again. He's yelling at the guards. Invisible ones, but they're watching them somehow, he's sure. Cameras maybe. Threatening them doesn't seem to have any effect.
The screaming dies down slowly, soft and hoarse like Cas just doesn't have the air anymore. Five minutes later, it starts up again with an even greater intensity. His angel voice is seeping through and the pitch is deafening. The guards probably can't hear a word Dean is saying. It takes another hour for it to die down. Dean knows because there's a clock on the wall right outside the cells.
It doesn't start up again and now Dean is forced to wonder if they've killed him.
And then the door at the end of the cell block bangs open and a parade of guards march down the hallway, two of them dragging a limp trench-coated figure. They drop him into the cell next to Sam, ignoring whatever Dean is creative enough to shout at them.
Cas just drops straight to the floor, one arm rolled beneath him. He's on his front and Dean can't see his face. He's alive though, he's gotta be alive, you don't let a dead man take up cell space. And he's limp, but his body is rolling with tremors.
The guards leave and Sam is thrusting his arm between the bars, trying to reach their angel. "Cas?"
Cas's head lolls to the side. "I'm fine," he says, and his voice sounds awful. Hoarse and sore and strained. His breaths are hitching.
"Sure you are. Can you move closer to me?"
Cas sort of spasms onto his back, and Dean can see that his eyes are fluttering. "What do you need?" Cas asks.
Dean almost kicks the bars.
Sam is still reaching as far as he can through the bars. "Nothing, Cas, just come closer."
Cas does, inch by inch, sliding across the floor over to where his cell meets Sam's. He's panting by the time he's moved the three feet to get there.
Sam is immediately patting him down, "Where are you hurt?"
Cas lifts his hands to try and stop him and Dean can tell from where he's watching that it's way too easy for Sam to gently shift Cas's hands out of the way. He goes limp again, like that took every ounce of his energy.
"Your head's bleeding," says Sam.
Cas's eyes flutter closed. "I hit it."
"On what?"
"The floor."
Sam keeps patting him down, checking for blood and broken bones, and he starts to frown, his eyebrows pinching. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"
He's gotta be, he's been screaming bloody murder for five hours and he's weak as kitten.
"I'm fine," says Cas.
Sam's frown deepens and then he's pulling open the trenchcoat and lifting Cas's shirt. "You're all bruised."
"They dropped me."
"No," says Sam, "No this isn't from that." He pulls the shirt higher. Then he tilts Cas onto his side a little and squints at his back. "You're all bruised. It's everywhere."
"They're just bruises."
Sam shifts Cas onto his back and starts rolling up the angel's sleeves. Cas jerks away. "I'm fine." Sam ignores him and the weak pulling of the arm in his grasp. He rolls the sleeve up to the elbow and stops, fingers touching the inside of the joint, "Did they inject you with something?"
"Once or… or twice."
Sam looks up at Cas's face and his jaw shifts. "Turn your head for me."
Cas opens his eyes, squinting. "What?"
"Like this," and Sam turns his head to the side, "Turn it toward me."
Cas does. Sam reaches through the bars and brushes the far side of his neck. "Once or twice? There's gotta be over a dozen needle marks here." He pulls back and shifts down a few bars, "Let me see your other arm."
Cas doesn't move it but Sam's close enough to reach. He rolls up the sleeve and his face falls. "Two dozen."
"What'd they get you with?" asks Dean.
Cas's shuddering becomes more pronounced. "Demon blood," he says, and his eyes close again.
Sam peels off his jacket and slips it through the bars to lay it over Cas's torso. "What's that do to angels?"
Cas lolls his head. "Nothing good." His fingers twitch at the jacket, "You'll get… cold."
"I'm fine. You're shivering."
"It's not shivering. I'm not… cold. I can't… control it."
"Can't control shivering. Keep it." Sam rearranges the jacket over his arm. "You should get some sleep."
"Angels…" His eyes stop fluttering. His breathing settles a little.
"There you go," Sam murmurs. "We'll watch over you this time."
It's too soon when the doors scrape open off to Dean's left. Much too soon. Dean starts yelling.
Sam nudges Cas awake and Cas just rolls his head and watches as several men of letters approach his cell-and it is his cell they're approaching. It's not until one of them reaches into his pocket and pulls out a syringe that Cas starts moving.
Cas's movements are weak but he sits up, back against the bars that connect his cell to Sam's. "Don't," he says, hands up to defend or attack.
Another man unlocks the cell-Dean is careful to memorize their faces so he'll know who to come for first when they get out of this, even as he yells, "Don't touch him! You sons of bitches. Touch him and I'll kill you. I'll melt your gun down and drown you with it!" They all ignore him.
Two men break the barrier into Castiel's cell and the person holding the syringe follows. Demon blood, Cas said. That must be more demon blood.
Cas stands using the bars of the cells. Sam's jacket falls to the floor. "I can't take any more," he says. "It'll kill me. Your bosses want me alive."
"Oh don't worry," one of them says, voice reedy and hollow-the one holding the syringe. That's all he says. And it leaves Dean unsettled because it feels unfinished. Where's the threat? The insult?
The others don't say anything at all. They walk slow and careful toward Castiel and Castiel walks slow and careful toward the corner of the cell. They snap forward and grab him, wresting him down to his knees while Cas struggles and fights. They pin him down-Cas must be weak because there's no way two men could hold him otherwise-and the syringe moves forward. The British bastard stabs it into Cas's neck. It takes less than a minute for Cas to start screaming.
Cas writhes on the floor, shaking and jerking and screaming as they exit and lock the cell. Two of the men walk out of the room entirely and only one stays, walking past the cells to take up a post by the door, but Dean has eyes only for Cas.
"Cas! Cas!"
When Cas doesn't respond-can't respond because he's having a flippin' seizure-Dean's focus pulls toward the other man in the room. "I'll kill you. You son of a bitch, I'll kill you."
Two hours. Two hours before Cas stops seizing and screaming. The guard breaks forward, another needle in his hand, and he comes just through the edge of Dean's reach. His mistake.