No spoiler warnings for this chapter.

Remember: Feel free to criticize and give pointers, as I am always searching to better my writing skills. Also, as I am my own editor, please let me know if you spot any mistakes.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own any of these beautiful people, nor do I own the characters or SUPERNATURAL itself. All rights go to The CW, Eric Kripke, and everyone else involved.

The door squealed and creaked as Sam pushed it open, the high pitch sound only made worse by the echo emulating from the dark room. As he stepped through the boundary, his eyes squinting as they tried to adjust to the lack of lighting, at his right he noticed the outlines of what was surely a switch on the wall. He reached to flip it up.

A small buzzing sound hit his ears instantly—an electric current trying to power up a circuit—and as if on cue the light on the ceiling flickered to life. Sam still did not understand how and why the basement had power, but he was not about to complain.

His eyes panned the space of the small room. To his dismay, he found it fairly empty save for the few crates and boxes stacked in the corner, layered with dust. The room looked like it had not been visited in years.

A frown deepened around the corners his mouth and a familiar heaviness began to roll in his stomach. Him and his brother have fought tooth and nail to get this close to finding the angel, and the reality that Castiel may have never been here at all was a concerning, but more so depressing thought.

"Dammit." He ran a weary hand through his hair, making it only halfway through the strands when... he heard it.

"Cas!"

Sam startled at, what was certainly, his brother's cry. Something so desperate to be heard coming from his brother had all the alarms going off in his head. He whirled around to focus on the open but empty doorway across the room, and it was only then that he realized the name that Dean had called.

He broke off into a sprint across the small basement, clearing the bodies with a couple ill-made hurdles and stumbling through doorway. His shoulder screamed at him in disturbance when it collided into the door-frame in his rush, but his adrenaline spike fortunately smothered his body's complaints for now.

"Dean...?" He called warily through the darkness, reaching in and padding a palm along the inside wall, searching for a light source. He was greeted with a dim, yellow glow from the ceiling, and unlike the other room, it was hardly a working bulb as far as lighting standards go. But it was just enough to cast eerie shadows on the two figures in the middle of the room, and glisten weakly off two thick chains.

He looked up to where the chains were bolted to the ceiling. The two lengths were spread at least ten feet from each other and made a wide 'V' as it traveled downward. A set of trembling arms made the bottom peak, with a dark patch of messy hair hanging between shoulder-blades. Cas...

Cas, who was hanging by chains from the freakin' ceiling.

Sam swallowed hard, and with a new found urgency he made the short distance to his brother. He was unable to withhold a grimace when their friends' condition was shone in a whole new light—literally. A mixture of relief and concern washed over him when Castiel raised two baby blue's in his general direction, carrying all the pain and misery and innocent hope of an abused animal. But as soon as he saw it, he was forced to watch them fade, and Castiel's eyelids began to flutter.

He raised a hand to his friend's neck and squeezed. Voice wavering as he urged the angel awake. "Hey. Hey, buddy. Hold on..."

He tore his eyes from Castiel as a soft clink rang from Sam's left, and he could not have been happier to see his brother removing the cuff from their best friends right wrist. Some flesh peeled aside with the metal, and deep, raw grooves remained as Dean gingerly tore it away.

Cas hissed weakly through his teeth, body visibly tensing and then laxing as his body seemed to lose energy with the frivolous of movements.

"It's okay. We gotcha, Cas," Dean soothed, passing the lock pick to Sam in exchange for holding Castiel up, not wanting to put stress on the other wrist still attached to the chain.

As his older brother let out strings of comforting words, Sam worked on the final metal cuff, his throat bobbing when he unlocked the handcuff and found that this wrist fared no better, if not worse and completely mangled.

After removing it carefully, together the brother's shuffled to ease the angel safely to the ground. A weak groan came from Castiel with the movement.

Sam knelt somewhat behind their friend, forced to be cautious of Castiel's... Castiel's wings.

He was forced to swallow back bile as he finally became aware of their presence. God, they were visible. And worse, they were maimed. Cruelly and painfully, judging by the way it looked and the permanent pain lines on Cas's face. How all of it was possible, he did not know, but it all made Sam's gut churn sickly.

"We've got you," he croaked softly, emphasizing Dean's original statement as he supported Castiel against his torso. Snaking an arm carefully beneath his right wing and under his arm to secure around Castiel's chest, Sam made a barrier between their friend and that who-knows-what multicolored filth splattering the ground below.

Attentively, Dean crouched in front of them both, raising a hand to palm the angel's clammy cheek to supply some sort of comfort, as well as check the damage. Though it was a plethora of angry scabs and cuts, the worst of it was not the condition of Cas's face, but rather the slices, burns, and gaping, oozing hole in his gut.

Sam saw the pain in his brother's eyes as Dean stroked away the tear tracks and wetness from their friend's face. It was such an odd sort of weakness neither of them have ever seen come from the angel, whose demeanor was usually comparable to that of a plastic doll.

Each Winchester brother realized minutely, and all too suddenly, that Castiel was no longer moving. His head bowed and chin to his chest, his face free of creases as if he was asleep and no longer feeling a thing.

"No no no, hey— Cas!" Dean gave Castiel's face a subtle but firm slap in his own panic to try and rouse him. Blood became slick on his older brother's hand, where Dean must have jostled scabs. "Stay with us, buddy. Come on."

The slight crack Sam heard in Dean's voice made him wince.

Looking down at the motionless angel cradled in his arms, it was near impossible to tell if Castiel was breathing. He swallowed down the ever-rising dread and moved his hand flat over Castiel's left breast-bone. If the angel had died right then, he doubted Dean would ever forgive himself. And neither would Sam. Not when they were so close to getting their friend out of there.

It took a few agonizing seconds, but a gentle thudding soon came from beneath his palm.

Suddenly, he felt like he could breathe again. "Looks like he just passed out." He observed out-loud mostly for his brother, who had been worrying himself into the ground as he swapped between caressing, stroking, and tapping Castiel's face between shaky palms.

Apparently though, Sam's notion didn't subdue his older brother's panic as much as it did his own, because Dean tore his eyes from their injured friend and pinned him with a glare.

"Angels don't pass out, Sam," Dean bit back with frustration. "They're angels."

Despite the disturbance in his voice, the underlining fear and complete helplessness in his big brothers eyes made the situation all the worse for Sam.

"Well," Sam muttered, "I guess in this case, they do..."

He glanced back down to his hand resting over Castiel's heart. It was drumming rather fast for someone who was unconscious, and Sam didn't know whether he should be concerned or not. But, the fact that Jimmy Novak's heart continued to pump was all Sam could ask for right now. They would get Castiel through this as long as it kept beating.

The rest, him and Dean could handle.

"Let's get him out of here." Making the quick decision that they need to be at least a hundred miles away from this place by the time Castiel woke up—not to mention before the demon returned with a new vessel and back-up—he shifted his hold on the angel, trying to maneuver around Castiel's wings and get in a better position to carry him.

Dean remained focused on their friend for a long beat, before placing a hand on Castiel's chest, intervening. "I'll take him."

Sam paused and, even through the dim lighting, glanced up to find Dean's green eyes boring into his. "You sure?"

Wordlessly, he watched Dean shuffle closer, felt him nudge Sam's arm out of the way to slip beneath Castiel's shoulders with one of his own. Dean's other hand simultaneously dug through his pocket, pulling out a set of jingling keys. "Go pull up the car. I got him."

He passed them to Sam, who nodded and took them without complaint.

"Okay. Just... Careful up the stairs," Sam said, voicing his concern. "They are pretty steep."

The nod was stiff, Dean's emotions had vanished without a trace; if it wasn't for the impatient ticking of his jaw, no one would've known it had been there. It was metaphorical mask, a trait that had been embedded into Dean from a young age by John Winchester himself.

Stow the crap for a later date, get shit done now.

While it was a good facet to have in situations like these, Sam still had major disagreements on how their father had raised them, moreover how he had raised Dean. A child shouldn't of had to stow his crap, because he shouldn't of had any in the first place.

Dean waved him off without so much as a glance. "I'll be fine. Go."

And Sam did not bother to say otherwise. "I'll hurry," he assured his brother and their unconscious friend. However, on both accounts, awake or non, the notion had fallen on deaf ears.

Sam breathed with determination despite this and climbed to his feet. One of the handcuffs rebounded lightly off the back of his head before he could reach his full height, and he ducked around it as to not have a repeat incident. However, he took fate as it came to him and sparred a glance to the sigil carved into the metal of the cuffs, imprinting the design on his brain for future research before ultimately vacating through the doorway.

A/N: Yes indeed, comments do feed the writer's soul!