Dean snaps his hand through the bars—what kind of idiot place has bars on their cells—and latches onto the guard's arm, yanking it toward him. And Dean snaps his other hand out to grab the guard's fingers, shattering them into the metal poles as the guard tilts. There's a violent crack, possibly more than one, and the guard lets out a strangled cry.
Dean pulls the guard's entire arm through the bars—wide freakin' bars—and Dean drags all his weight downward until the guard's shoulder catches on one of the horizontal bars and then he keeps pulling until it pops.
The guy is twisting his body at this point, trying to relieve the pressure, so Dean lets go with one arm and reaches out to snatch a leg, pulling it through the bars and releasing the guard's arm entirely to yank him to the floor.
"Keys." Dean shifts his grip, hands on either side of the ankle, one up, one down. "Keys or I break it." Dean flicks a glance over to the door—they're watching them, he's sure. There must be cameras somewhere.
The guard laughs and Dean feels chills roll down his spine. He busts the ankle. Wants to move up to the knee but can't get access through the bars of the cell. "Keys," he growls.
"They might want your angel alive," the guard says through teeth gritted with pain, "but they sure as hell don't care about me. And they're not stupid," he spits. "I don't have keys for all the cells. Just his. Let go before they decide you're not worth the trouble of keeping."
Dean tugs on the leg, the knee catching on the bars. He keeps tugging. "So give me his key," he murmurs darkly.
The guard just laughs again.
Cas is still shuddering and shaking and twitching in his cell, Sam trying to reach him, to get a barrier between his head and the concrete. Unsuccessfully.
"Key," Dean demands.
"Oh, don't worry," the guard says. He's just laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. "Don't worry." The syringe is beside him on the floor.
Dean lets out a sound that starts as a growl and ends as a roar with bared teeth. He lifts the guard's foot and slams it into the ground and then barrels up and tears at the guard's arm again. He pulls the man toward him, heaving the man to sitting with his back against the bars.
The guard lets him. His leg is still in Dean's cell from the shin down, turned now—and it'll be a real challenge for him to pull his foot back through at that angle.
Dean wraps his arm around the man's throat. Not too tight, just a warning. "Key."
The guard elbows Dean in the gut—loosening Dean's hold for a split second—and then twists away and turns and stabs something into Dean's arm.
"Gah!" It's another syringe and Dean has a split second of violent panic while he waits to start seizing. He doesn't.
But that second is all the guard needs to twist his leg and pull it through the bars.
Dean snaps forward too late, hand just grazing the shoe as the man hauls himself backward across the floor. Dean pulls the syringe from his arm, swearing.
The man overcorrects. A shadow moves behind him. Sam. Latching onto the collar of the guard's shirt and hauling him into the bars. "Key," Sam says, and he's careful to keep himself shielded when the man tries to writhe away. "Now. Or I'll bash your head in and find it myself."
Cas lets out a strangled sound—a whine—while his head and limbs bang against the ground. It hits Dean just as hard as the screaming did. A scream is torn from a throat. A whine is tortured from it.
Sam darkens. "Might anyway," he whispers to the guard.
"Screw you and your key," he spits. "I don't got nothin' to lose." He rolls his head back and stares at the ceiling of Dean's cell. "Might anyway," he echoes. "Real motivation killer there. Sorry, lads, but I'm afraid." He stops there. That's the end of his sentence; 'I'm afraid.'
Dean waits for him to tack on more and he doesn't. Dean's getting tense, waiting for someone to come running in, for alarms to start screeching, for this suicidal moron to finish his statements.
The guard just stares at the ceiling.
"I will kill you," Sam says. "Just give me the key. Empty your pockets."
"Go ahead and kill me. British bastards have destroyed her already, I'm sure. I don't got nothin' left."
Dean narrows his eyes. "You tryin' to imply somethin' there?"
Sam pulls on the shirt collar, tightening it. "That we should be bargaining with you instead of threatening, maybe?"
"What do you want?" Dean asks, expression unreadable.
The guard tilts his head down to meet Dean's eyes. It's the first time he's done so and it makes Dean unsettled. There's no life in those eyes.
"The angel."
"Screw that," Dean spits. He flicks his eyes up. "Sam?"
But Sam hesitates. "What do you want him for?"
"Sam!"
"You know who you were captured by?" The guard asks.
"Didn't bother to introduce themselves," Sam says.
"Men of Letters. British Chapter." He's talking slowly. Calmly. Like they have all the time in the world. "They're in the business of weapon development. I want a certain one to see completion."
"What one?" Sam asks.
Dean just glares.
"An angel exorcism."
Dean bristles. "What would R & D even look like for that?"
The guard turns his head. Stares at Cas still shaking on the floor.
"Oh hell no."
"They're still experimenting, obviously. Unfortunately they killed off quite a few of the specimens. They're being idiots about it. I want him"—the guy jerks his head toward Cas— "so I can start up a few experiments of my own."
Sam, thinking with his head like always, purses his lips. "That's not gonna happen. But," his chin tilts down, "we know quite a bit about angels. What works and what doesn't. Where you could go looking to find exorcisms. Help us out, we'll hook you up. But you don't touch Cas."
The guard grinds his jaw. "How much do you know?"
"Well we work with an angel, don't we?"
The guard narrows his eyes as he considers. He stares at Cas for a moment. Then nods. "I need a guarantee."
Sam tightens his grip. "The guarantee is I don't kill you right now."
"Right. Fine."
Dean bobs his head. "They got cameras in here? Microphones? Guards at the door? What?"
"They're recording but no one's watching. Too much time wasted. They quadruple the speed before they sit down and take notes." He tilts his head. "Nine men between us and our exit. Assuming no one overstayed a shift to chat."
"Can you get the keys to our cells? Or something to pick it with?"
The guard dips a hand into his pocket.
Sam tenses, ready for anything, half-expecting a weapon.
But the man just pulls out a ring with keys on it. "I have them right here."
"All of them?" Dean asks, insult making his voice rise.
He nods, smirking.
Sam lets go of the guard and snatches them, the metal jangling as he pulls it through the bars. He finds a key that looks the right size and attempts to jam it into the lock. It doesn't fit. He moves to another one. Another one. And finally one slides inside and Sam twists it, hurriedly throwing open the door. He stops, staring down at the guard, and a muscle in his jaw shifts. He tosses the keys to Dean.
Dean unlocks his cell and then races to the cell opposite him, trusting Sam to watch the guy.
"Cas?"
Cas groans.
Dean barrels inside and drops down next to him. He jams the keys into his pocket. Cas is still spasming, just less continuously and violently. "Okay, buddy." Dean slips an arm behind Cas's back and starts to leverage him up.
"I can walk," Cas manages, the words as jerky as the rest of him. His neck flops backwards as his torso lifts.
"You can't even support your head." Dean keeps pulling him up and then Sam is there, helping, and Dean flicks a glance to the guard. He's just sitting there—busted ankle, Dean remembers. And a dislocated shoulder. Shouldn't be too much trouble.
They get Cas into a fireman carry over Dean's shoulder. Sam pulls his jacket off the floor.
Dean can feel and hear the way Cas's breaths are hitching with his spasms, like he stops breathing every time he convulses. "You holding your breath, Cas?"
"May—be."
"Why?"
"I don't wanna—" he jerks—"scream anymore." He jerks again and groans, "They'll… hear."
"Okay." Truth be told, Dean's not sure how well he could handle hearing it anymore. "Just don't hold it too long and pass out on me."
Cas spasms. "Right."
Sam walks out of the cell and bends down to give the guard a hand. He pats him down for weapons first, finding only a few syringes which Sam immediately hurls at the wall. He throws the guard's arm over his shoulder and heaves him up. "You gotta tell us the right way out of here."
Dean follows.
Sam hesitates at the door leading to the outside room. He's not sure he believes that there are no security cameras or silent alarms or something that will be informing everyone of their escape. "Sam."
"Yeah?" Sam is right beside him, staring warily at the door.
"Might be time to start prayin' again."
Cas holds his breath and jerks, then exhales heavily.
They make it out. Miracle of miracles, bursting past ten guards. Sam takes the first one. They come up on him by surprise. Sam drops their maybe-ally on his ass and then delivers one solid punch to the guard's face. When he pats him down, he discovers a gun. And that makes things a whole lot simpler from there on out.
Dean's ready to take the nearest car when Sam finds the impala. There's a spare set of keys hidden behind one of the wheels.
Sam drops the guard a good ten feet away. Then he unlocks the door, squeezes onto the floor of the backseat, and turns. He catches Cas as Dean tilts him off his back, supporting his back and head all the way down. Dean carefully tucks Cas's legs into the car and then closes the door.
Cas spasms and his arm hits Sam. "Sorry."
"That's okay." Sam gently shifts the arm back onto Cas's chest. "Like you said, you can't control it." He drapes his jacket over the shuddering angel. "Guess you really weren't shivering, huh?"
Cas's head jerks to the side, his hands and legs twitching. "I… told you." His chest is hitching.
Dean looks at the guard. It's his left ankle that's broken, so he can drive away himself just fine. In his own car. "What do you wanna know?"
"You'll have to verify it somehow, you can't just—"
"What do you want to know?" Dean pounds out every syllable.
The guard doesn't ask for much.
Dean gives him as much as he can. As much as he's willing to. Simple, straightforward. No time to waste. Then he gets in the driver's seat of the impala and pulls out.
"You know," says Sam, looking down at Cas, still folded awkwardly in the backseat, "We're a decent distance away now. You don't have to hold your breath like that. Looks like it hurts."
"What?" Cas asks, breath huffing.
"You can scream, Cas. It might help."
"I—I'm okay." Cas is staring up at the roof of the car. Dean's not altogether sure he can move his head.
"Okay," says Sam, "But Dean and I, we can take it, so if it gets worse you don't have to hold back, alright?"
Cas jerks. "Alright."
"Good. Maybe you should try to get some sleep."
Cas's head jerks. "I don't thi—ink I can."
"Just close your eyes and try for me."
Cas's eyes don't close. They roll up into his skull and then he's seizing again.
Sam braces his head, murmuring to him.
It only lasts five minutes, but toward the end of it Cas has tears streaming down his face. Sam brushes them away. "Okay, you're okay."
Cas spasms and sobs, and his panting is getting weaker, slower. "S-rr-y." The word is shredded as he convulses.
Sam starts massaging the corded muscles of his neck. "Shhhhh. You don't have anything to be sorry for, Cas. Everything's gonna be okay. We're gonna get you home and clear this crap outta your system, and then you can sleep a good long while. Just hold out 'til then. Feel free to scream."
"I don't—wanna."
"Okay."
He seizes twice more while they're driving, and by the time they reach the bunker, he's too weak to loll his head. Even his spasms are weaker, like his muscles have been torn apart and can barely contract. His eyes are closed.
Dean puts the car in park and opens the back door. Sam climbs most of the way out, then ducks back in and pulls Cas's arm over his shoulder. He picks him up in a bridal carry and Cas is shuddering—but it's not shuddering, he's just jerking weakly in Sam's grasp, his head craning backward toward the floor. His hand is twitching at the fabric of Sam's sleeve, trying to hold his arm up across the shoulders. It keeps falling off and then jerking back on.
Dean gently grabs Cas's head and tilts it upright, leaning it against Sam's shoulder and neck. Cas doesn't open his eyes. Dean closes the door.
They take him to his room.
Dean pulls back the covers and Sam lowers Cas, his arm shifting up from Cas's back so that he can cradle his head as he lays him down. Dean pulls the angel's legs straight and takes his shoes off. Sam shifts the blankets up over him, hands lingering to brush his arm and his cheek, wiping away a stray tear. "Sleep, Cas. Just go to sleep."