Febuwhump Day Eight: No Anesthesia. Cas is captured and used to sell an endless supply of organs. Dean searches for him.

Title: Scalpel

Cas lay on the surgical table, body heavy as a lead weight. He willed himself to move his arms, but they didn't respond. Something had happened to his body. When he came to the house and knocked on the door, a man wearing a strange necklace allowed him inside. As soon as he took a step, he could smell it, the fetid stench of death, but it was already too late.

He turned to the man and he rubbed the orb around his neck and it glowed bright purple. Cas raised his hand out to attack, but found he couldn't move. The man compelled him to walk into the dim, grimy back room of the house and lay on the operating table with the single, naked lightbulb hanging above it.

"How are you doing this?" Cas snarled.

The man rolled a surgical tray towards him from one of the dark corners close to the table. Cas heard the sound of instruments clink as they were jostled.

"I know what you are," the man spoke in an unnervingly cheery tone, "You're an angel."

"Then you know you can't kill me."

"Why would I want to kill you?"

Cas focused on his left hand, using all of his might to lift it, but it didn't so much as flinch. "What do you want from me then?"

The man picked out a scalpel and looked down at Cas. "I'm not a rich man. I have an affliction: I'm a gambling addict."
"I'm so sorry to hear that," Cas spat.

"It's been a real problem for me, but that's why I met you. You can heal yourself. Do you know what that means? You have an endless supply of organs."

"You want my organs?"

"You would be surprised what a liver," he tapped Cas's diaphragm, "or a lung," he touched his ribcage, "or a heart," he dragged his finger above Cas's heart and allowed it to linger, "costs on the black market."

"Let me go," Cas growled, losing patience. Anxiety like electricity crackled in his chest. He hadn't told Dean where he was going and now he was at the mercy of this maniac until he could come up with some sort of plan to free himself despite having no control over his body.

The man unbuttoned Cas's shirt, revealing his vulnerable skin. He held the scalpel beneath Cas's rib cage, the cold blade against his skin, ready to strike, but not yet slicing in. "Wait-"

The man pushed down and pain blossomed as skin opened. Cas cried out and struggled with his body to move, but remained frozen. "We're starting with a kidney," the man explained. The scalpel moved steadily, creating a careful line through him and freeing blood that oozed down his side. It was like the scalpel had turned from cold to burning and it ran across him and set his skin on fire.

The man picked up the scalpel and cut perpendicular lines across the top and the bottom of the incision, then stopped. Cas breathed heavily, trying to get a grip. He couldn't think like this. There was no way he could make a plan while being cut open.

The man reached to touch him again and Cas craned his neck to watch. The man had created flaps to maximize the exposed area. He parted Cas's skin and revealed what was beneath, but all it looked like was a mass of blood, dark inside of him and bright red as it waterfalled down his side. His head pounded like someone was hitting his skull with a hammer and he was growing woozy, but he refused to let himself pass out.

The man took a different knife and began to probe inside him. Cas threw his head back and screamed. It was like he was being turned inside out. All he could see, think, and feel was pain. He concentrated on the wound and tried to heal it, but the agony didn't subside. Somehow, the lunatic was preventing him from it.

"AGH," there were hands inside him. Real, human hands, digging into his body. "Dean!" he shouted, but Dean was far away in Lebanon and not coming to save him. There was no rescue coming and there was no way to distract himself. There was only the sensation of his organs exploding. He wasn't sure if he was blind or if his eyes were closed, but everything had gone dark.

Then the hands weren't in him anymore. He gulped for breath and when his vision returned, he saw that the man had the kidney in his hand and blood slid off of it and pattered onto the floor. He bent down and Cas heard the sound of a box opening, then he returned and gave Cas a satisfied smile. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Cas tried to speak, but his throat wasn't working. His words were labored when he managed to force them out, "Screw you."

"I'll let you heal yourself now," he pet the sphere on his necklace, "Go ahead."

Cas leered at him, unwilling to follow any commands, but the pain was still excruciating, so he let out a slow breath and allowed himself to heal. When it was done, the pain subsided, but the ghost of it remained, like a phantom limb.

"The good news is it was a success. Bad news is, we're just getting started," the man grabbed his trusty scalpel, the silver metal now entirely maroon from blood.

"No," Cas tried to writhe. There was something more humiliating about the fact he couldn't fight back. He just had to sit there and take it without lifting a finger.

"This might be less fun," he slit the blade across the left side of Cas's chest, "Your heart. You'll die for a little bit, but I'll let you heal as soon as I'm done, okay?"

"Stop," Cas tried to sound gruff and unafraid, the way that Dean always did in the most dire of situations, but truthfully, he was losing it.

Cas began to yell as hands explored the inside of his chest, but he couldn't hear himself. A high-pitched bell shrieked in his ears, beating through his skull, getting louder until it was all he could hear. His vision faded and everything was pitch dark.

Cas didn't know he had died until he woke. He blinked into consciousness and tried to sit up, but found himself pressed to the slab of metal. He twisted his neck to gather his surroundings and the memories dawned on him. The room was empty now, all that accompanied him was the surgical tray on its stand to his side.

Cas, getting kinda worried about you. You're not picking up your phone. I don't know if you can hear this, but can you give me a call?

Dean's words sang in Cas's ears. He had noticed Cas was missing and prayed to him. His voice was the most beautiful music Cas had ever heard. "Dean," Cas murmured.

Cas lost count of the days. Dean was a human, and he couldn't hear a prayer, but Cas still spoke to him. "Dean, please find me. I need you. I can't get out of this alone. I'm afraid."

The man cut out the same organs from him over and over: kidneys, liver, lungs, heart, intestines, pancreas, eyes... It never got less painful. It was easiest when he died and was able to check out for the DIY surgery, but he hated himself for preferring death.

The only moments of comfort he had were when Dean prayed to him.

Cas, me and Sammy are gonna find you. Wherever you are, just hang tight.

Cas, please be okay. I can't lose you, man. We're trying a tracking spell, but I don't know if it's gonna work.

Cas, I'm so sorry. Every day I feel like we're getting farther away. But we'll figure it out. We always do. I'm not gonna stop looking for you. I promise I'll get you.

For a long time, Cas filled up the empty time with thinking. He thought of ways to escape, he thought of Dean, he thought of how he would kill the man when he finally was free, but eventually, his mind turned to static. He barely existed until his organs were being ripped out and he was screaming at the top of his lungs, and then it was over, and he wasn't real anymore.

Cas lay beneath the knife on the operating table. The slice was long, all the way down his chest like an autopsy on a corpse, and the man sifted through and gripped his lung, tugging it out of his chest.

Cas cried and bells in his ears pealed until everything went dark.

"Cas! Cas! Please, stay with me."

Cas squinted into the light as he came to.

"Oh thank God," that was Dean's voice. He stood above Cas and cupped his face in his hands.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, it's me, buddy. He's dead. I killed him. Are you okay?"

Cas sat up and Dean pulled him into an embrace, but he could barely register the touch. His forehead wrinkled and when Dean drew away, he looked around, but didn't see the body.

Dean frowned with worry. "We should get you out of here. C'mon."

Cas studied the floor before placing a tentative foot on it. When he stood, he wobbled and nearly fell over, but Dean caught him in his arms immediately.

"You're okay," Dean said. Cas furrowed his eyebrows and regarded Dean, then drew away from his touch and moved towards the door. Dean walked nervously behind him, prepared to catch him at any moment.

When they walked out the front door, Cas recoiled at the afternoon light, throwing his hands over his head protectively and shrinking down. "Cas," Dean rested a hand on his back.

He didn't rush Cas in his slow, shuffling steps to the car. Dean opened the door for him and watched as he crawled inside the Impala. Cas saw the way Dean's hands vibrated when he slid in the driver's seat and turned the keys in the ignition.

"I'm sorry," Dean blurted out.

Cas's brain was fuzzy. He wasn't sure what required a response and what didn't. He felt like an animated mannequin, in the shape of a person and moving through the world, but hollow and unaware.

"I looked everywhere. I never stopped looking," he took his hands off the wheel and stared seriously at the driveway, "I knew something happened the first day you were gone," when Cas said nothing, Dean shifted to face him, "Please talk to me."

"What do you want me to say?"

"What happened to you in there?"

"He harvested my organs and then would allow me to heal myself so that he could sell them illegally," Cas said in a monotone voice.

"Oh, God," Dean breathed.

"How long was I there?"

Dean bit his lip. "Six weeks."

Cas nodded, unsure what to do with the information.

"I know you're messed up right now, but it's going to be okay. We'll get you right."

Cas wasn't sure that was possible. Something in him had broken in those six weeks and it wasn't something he could heal, but feeling was gradually flowing back into him. He was free.

"I was overpowered by a human," Cas said. It was a shameful, pathetic admission, one that Dean already knew, but it still felt like a confession.

"Humans are crazy. It's not your fault. He had some weird crystal thingy a witch gave him. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I feel different."

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

Cas shook his head, searching for the words. "I don't feel real."

Dean took Cas's hand from his lap and squeezed it. "Can you feel this?"

Cas focused on the touch, the feeling of Dean's rugged hand against his own, the heat of his body, the pressure he put on it. "Yes."

"That's how you know you're real," he paused, "Did you hear my prayers?"

"I heard some of them, but after a while, I disassociated. If you were praying, I wasn't receiving it."

"Oh," Dean sounded sad, "Cas, I- I just want you to know that I'd do anything to get you back. You're my family. I could barely sleep while you were gone. I was losing my mind."

Cas's face softened. "I missed you too, Dean."