Chapter Text
“Ugh,” Dean grunted, rubbing at the insides of his elbows where the chains had chafed. “What a sick fucking bastard. No wonder the Men of Letters kicked his ass out.”
“He didn’t… hurt you or anything, did he?” Sam asked carefully.
“No! Ugh, Jesus, no. Let’s just get out of here, everything about this place is giving me the heebie jeebies.”
“We should at least check the place out before we race off. There's got to be some really useful stuff in here, and without Magnus here to maintain the wards, eventually this place’ll probably just become visible again, and who knows whose hands this stuff’d fall into? Might as well be ours.”
“Yeah, good point,” Dean assented with a nod, though a scowl of disgust still lingered on his face. “We should take out whatever other monsters he’s got locked up in here, too. They’ll just end up loose eventually, otherwise.”
Sam nodded.
“Go wait outside,” Dean barked at Crowley.
“Seriously?” Crowley moaned, looking wounded. “I just saved the both of you miserable fuckheads and you’re going to kick me out for the fun part?”
“Yeah,” Sam glared.
“Unbelievable,” Crowley muttered loudly. Dean and Sam both glared at Crowley pointedly until he did as he was told and left.
Dean managed to find a dusty set of old leather luggage, which Sam considered a surprisingly pragmatic choice on Dean's part as far as things to go looking for in a house full of wacky, but they did turn out pretty handy as far as stuffing them full of all of the artifacts they wanted to "re-home." Once they’d taken everything they could fit, they left the suitcases by the door and went hunting for where Magnus kept his monsters.
It was Sam who eventually found a switch that opened a hidden door that led to the basement.
“It’s always a creepy basement,” Dean muttered as they descended the staircase. Looking around, he could hear the words sex torture dungeon in Kevin’s dismayed voice echoing in his head.
The walls were hung with implements, many of which had uses that Dean did not even want to guess at. There were several long tables, some of which were stocked with more supplies, but most of which were outfitted with restraints and drain holes. There were aisles of cages, almost all of which were filled. The cages were labeled with cards in Magnus’s elegant handwriting, labelling whatever type of monster was stored within, and, occasionally, a name. The cages were just tall enough to allow most of the monsters to stand, but not wide or long enough for any of them to lay down fully stretched out. Most of the monsters were awake, having heard or smelled the approach of strangers, but some were curled up fetal on the floor, either asleep or, possibly, dead.
“Fish in a barrel,” Dean said coldly, taking out his pistol. “At least this’ll be quick and easy.”
Sam grimaced but couldn’t argue. They were here to take out monsters, not hold court to see if any of them deserved better than execution inside a cage.
“What’ll we do with the ones that silver bullets don’t kill?” Sam asked, taking out his own gun.
Dean hesitated. “I… guess I can use the First Blade,” he eventually said. “It’ll probably kill anything.”
Sam nodded, and Dean shot the monster in the nearest cage in the head. The shot rang out, painfully loud in the concrete basement, and several monsters started howling and screaming. Others clawed at their cages, at the concrete floor, seeing what was coming and trying vainly to escape.
Sam took a deep, steadying breath, and shot the next monster in line.
By the time they’d finally finished butchering everything in Magnus’s collection, they were walking through streams of blood that all flowed toward a drain in the center of the floor. Their ears were ringing from the gunshots, and Dean was shaky and buzzing from having used the First Blade on three of the monsters. Sam had taken it away from him after that, for which Dean was quietly grateful.
They were about to leave when Sam noticed tracks in the dirt on the floor by the wall, sweeping out in an arc, a giveaway for a hidden door. He and Dean searched the wall and eventually found the switch that opened it.
This room had its own sink, and contained another table with restraints, walls hung with more torture devices and scientific instruments, another drain in the floor, and a single cage, larger than all the others. In it was an eyebolt in the floor, and chained to the eyebolt by a thick collar around his neck, huddled in the corner hugging his knees in cuffed and chained hands, was Cas, enormous, ragged, bloody wings visible behind him.
“Oh my God, Cas,” Dean breathed, holstering his gun and rushing over to the cage.
Cas’s eyes widened and he quickly pulled his shabby wings around himself, as if trying to hide. But the wings had only a smattering of feathers, so the effect was lost.
Dean’s hands were still shaking from using the First Blade, and from the anxiety rushing through him at seeing Castiel this way. He tried to pick the lock on the cage but he kept fumbling, and then dropped his lockpicks. He cursed as he bent to retrieve them, and Sam gently shouldered him out of the way so he could pick the lock, instead.
“It’s okay, Cas, it’s just me and Dean,” Sam said as he worked the lock. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”
Sam swung the door of the cage open. “C’mon, Cas,” he said gently. “Come let me get that chain off you.”
Dean was so devastated by the sight of Cas this way that he felt light-headed and breathless. He stared helplessly, shaking hands held in fists at his sides. He noticed a card in a label holder above the door of the cage, and in Magnus's ornate cursive it read Angel - "Castiel.”
Dean stared at it, sickened and furious.
* * *
Cuthbert was startled by a knock at his front door. No one had knocked on that door in 58 years.
Through the window, he saw a man, in perhaps late middle age, who appeared unarmed and had a friendly smile on his face as though making just an ordinary social call.
Cuthbert opened the door.
“Hello!” the man said, smiling. “I understand you’re Cuthbert Sinclair, and I have a deal I’d like to offer that I think you’ll be quite interested in hearing out.”
“Come in, then,” Cuthbert said, opening the door wider and gesturing the man in. He led the man to his parlor, and sat down.
“My name is Metatron,” the man said, extending a hand for Cuthbert to shake across a coffee table between their two chairs. “You may have heard of me.”
Cuthbert shook his hand, eyeing him curiously.
“What you may not have heard is that there is a lot of trouble with Heaven lately. And there are angels going rogue. And while I’m doing everything I can to fix this, it doesn’t help having my own kind gumming up the works. And I know that you happen to have a dungeon that is very difficult to break into or out of. And, I know that you have quite a penchant for expanding your collection. So, here’s the deal, Cuthbert. Can I call you Cuthbert? I’ll teach you how to contain an angel, top secret Enochian stuff, very, very dangerous stuff for any human to know, and I’ll even help you catch one. All you have to do is keep it. You get your very own angel, Cuthbert, and all I ask is that you take just the one I give you, and that you keep it forever.”
Cuthbert sat back in his chair, taking this all in. After a long and thorough consideration, he nodded, smiled at Metatron, and held out his hand.
“Yes, sir, you have yourself a deal.”
* * *
Castiel sat in the coffee shop where Metatron had been sighted recently multiple times. He was alone. He’d sent the other angels who’d been looking to him for orders to other locations in town, telling them to report back if they saw Metatron. In truth, he just wanted to keep them out of harm’s way in case Metatron did return to this shop. Castiel intended to handle Metatron alone, and to keep as many of the remaining angels safe as possible.
There was already so much suffering on Castiel’s hands. So much death. It was in Castiel’s nature to protect, and so he was doing what he could to take this on himself, and protect as many others from any further harm as he could.
“Is this seat taken?”
Castiel looked up, saw a handsome man smiling at him as he pulled a seat out at Cas’s table and sat down.
“I’m… waiting for someone,” Castiel said awkwardly, unsure how to handle this.
Before Castiel could get up to leave, the man reached across the table and pressed his hand on top of Cas’s. Cas felt a sigil burn into the back of his hand as the man whispered a few words of Enochian that instantly rendered him mute.
Castiel stared at the man, wide-eyed. The man then put his other hand on Castiel’s forehead and quickly whispered a spell in Latin. It shouldn’t have worked, not on an angel, but the sigil burned onto his hand was ancient magic, something no human should know, and it burdened Castiel with all the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of his human vessel. And so, when the man lowered his hand, his spell had fully taken hold, and Castiel’s will was drained away, leaving him pliant and obedient.
“Come with me, Castiel,” the man said, and Castiel stood up and followed him out of the coffee shop.
* * *
“Cas, I’m coming in, okay?” Sam said, stepping slowly into Cas’s cage.
Dean’s heart clenched at the way Cas trembled behind his tattered wings. This was wrong. Cas was strong and fearless, he was an angel, he was invincible. To see Cas afraid… it was disturbing and it hurt.
Sam stopped a step away from Cas, trying to decide what he should do. While he thought, he studied Cas’s wings, astonished to be able to see them. It was then that he noticed sigils crudely sewn into the flesh of Cas’s wings with black suture thread. He wondered if it was these sigils that rendered the wings visible and corporeal.
He knelt in front of Castiel, careful not to step on or jostle the chain leading to his collar. He studied the cuffs on Cas’s wrists, and the chain connecting them. The cuffs were thick leather, inscribed with sigils, and the chain had a sigil etched into each link as well.
“Cas,” Sam said softly. “It’s okay. It’s just me and Dean. We’re here to get you out of here, okay? Just… open up your wings, and let me get that collar off you.”
When Cas didn’t respond, Sam decided to try reaching out and moving a wing out of the way by hand. But the moment Sam’s fingers barely brushed against the raw, exposed flesh of one of his severely damaged wings, Cas gasped loudly and shoved away hard, scooting back across the floor. His wings flared out, bashing against the bars of the cage on either side.
“Don’t touch me! Leave me alone,” Cas said, voice desperate and weak.
Dean grabbed Sam and pulled him out of the cage.
“Stay back, Sammy.”
Sam nodded, unnerved by the display of Cas’s wings. They were intimidating, even as mutilated as they were.
Dean stepped slowly into Cas’s cage, holding up his empty hands in a placating gesture.
“Cas, buddy, we’re not gonna hurt you. We just wanna get that thing off you and get you out of here,” Dean said.
Cas only flattened himself back further against the bars of the cage, and his eyes flickered repeatedly to where the Mark of Cain was hidden behind Dean’s sleeve. The raw fear in Cas’s eyes made Dean question whether Cas even saw him at all, or only saw him as something bearing the Mark.
“Please, Cas, it’s me,” Dean said softly. “I don’t wanna do this the hard way, but we’ve gotta get you outta here, one way or another.”
Cas’s head shook minutely, and his wings slowly drew back up against his body, trying to shield himself. Dean could just barely hear, in a shaky whisper, Cas pleading, “Father, please, help me…”
It broke Dean’s heart, but, irrationally, it made him mad, too. He was furious that God could let his children suffer like this. He was furious that he’d already killed Magnus before he knew he’d done this, could never make him pay for this, now. And, most deeply of all, he hated himself, because he was the one who’d kicked Cas out of the bunker. He’d abandoned Cas at his most vulnerable, and this is where he’d ended up. And after all this time not hearing from him, not knowing where he’d gone or what he was doing, this is where he’d been.
He was furious, and this was wrong, and he couldn’t let this stand, not for another second. It was fury when he grabbed the chain leading to Cas’s neck with ungentle hands, pulling him up from the floor. Cas made a frightened noise, and his wings beat frantically, some of his precious few feathers breaking or falling as they slammed into the bars of the cage. Dean hauled him close by the chain, trying to see how the chain was secured to the collar so he could remove it.
“Sam, come help me, come pick this lock,” Dean said, grabbing Cas’s cuffed wrists to keep him from trying to shove Sam away. It was disturbing, how easily he could overpower Cas now, as easily as he would have overpowered an underfed Jimmy Novak.
Sam came into the cage, dodging Cas’s wings, a distressed look in his eyes.
“It’s just a padlock, I don’t see any sigils on it, just pick the lock,” Dean said, trying to keep Cas still. He eventually had to hold Cas’s wrists by one hand on the chain between them, and then grab Cas’s jaw in the other to hold his head up and out of the way while Sam worked.
“I’m so sorry, Cas, I’m working as fast as I can,” Sam said, graceful fingers working the lockpicks into the padlock at Cas’s throat.
Sam’s shoulders sagged with relief when the padlock popped open. He quickly pulled it free of Cas’s collar, and the heavy chain fell to the floor with a loud clatter.
“Can you get the collar off?” Dean asked, still gripping Cas’s jaw.
Sam studied the collar, running his fingers across it. It had a locking mechanism, but it didn’t appear to be something he could open with the tools he had on hand. It was probably at least partly magical.
“No, no, I can’t. We should research this before we try to remove it; I’m afraid trying to force it might hurt Cas.”
“What about the wrists?”
Sam looked them over. “Same thing,” he said regretfully.
Dean took off his jacket and wrapped it around Cas as best he could with the wings in the way.
“Alright, c’mon, Cas. Let’s get out of here.”
Cas lifted his chained hands to grip the jacket but dug in his heels, not wanting to go anywhere with them.
“Damn it, Cas, come on,” Dean growled, tugging Cas by the arm. “Sam, help me.”
Between the two of them, they managed to drag Cas from the cage and out of the room. He gasped and fought even harder when he laid eyes on the carnage in the main room of the basement, the floor still red with blood. Getting him up the stairs was especially difficult given the precariousness of dragging a man who was fighting back up a narrow flight of stairs, and Dean nearly lost his patience, but Sam talked them both through it without resorting to violence.
Dean tightened his grip on Cas and dragged him single-handedly out of Magnus’s estate to the Impala so Sam could carry the suitcases filled with artifacts.
Dean was both irritated and a little relieved to see that Crowley had ditched them and was not waiting by the car. He grit his teeth at the prospect of fighting Cas into the backseat, but surprisingly, Cas relaxed slightly at the sight of the car and stopped struggling.
“See? You know Baby,” Dean crooned to Cas comfortingly. “It’s just us, Cas, it’s me and Sam.”
Castiel stared at Dean, eyes still jumping back and forth from Dean’s eyes to his marked arm. He said nothing.
Dean opened the back door, and Cas got in willingly. He had to struggle, between his wings and the short slack of chain between his wrists, but Dean kept his hands off and let Cas do it himself, hoping that would frighten the angel less. Once Cas was safely inside, Dean shut the door for him, and he and Sam got into the front. Cas eventually laid down, Dean’s jacket tucked against his cheek, wings draped over his body, partially hiding him from view.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” Dean whispered desperately as he drove, maybe to Sam, maybe just to himself.
Sam’s heart ached for them both - for the broken angel in the back seat and for Dean, who loved him.
* * *
Castiel hung, arms stretched over his head, in his cage, helplessly. Magnus had looped the chain between Castiel’s wrists over one of the bars of the top of the cage, which stretched Castiel up high enough he had to stand on his toes.
“Tell me how this feels, Castiel,” Magnus said, drawing a sigil on Cas’s back with a paintbrush dipped in blood he’d drawn from one of his shapeshifters. “I’m terribly curious.”
Once he’d completed the sigil, Magnus spoke a few words of Old Chinese and then stepped back. The sigil glowed blue briefly, then burned itself into Cas’s flesh like a brand.
Castiel howled in pain.
“Ah, yes, I thought it might hurt. It might get worse,” Magnus said, watching Castiel in fascination.
Cas trembled, sweat running down his back, wracked with pain. His muscles tore, shifted, elongated, as his human vessel was ripped apart from the inside and restructured. Cas screamed again, straining against his chains, as bones broke and twisted. The air around him shimmered, then blackened, as his wings briefly materialized in a form Magnus could see.
“Beautiful,” he smiled.
The skin of Cas’s back stretched and eventually tore, two thick bones pushing free. Cords of tendon and muscle grew up around them as another set of bones grew in. Slowly, piece by piece, corporeal wings grew from Castiel’s vessel, frail and monstrous. Cas panted, exhausted from the pain.
“Not done just yet,” Magnus said, leaving the cage to get a needle and suture thread.
Feathers were already beginning to grow in, soft grey down feathers and the beginnings of outer feathers and flight feathers.
“Need these out of the way,” Magnus said, and grabbed a handful of feathers and ripped them out.
Castiel screamed and then sobbed, fighting vainly to escape. This was utterly beyond his experience; human hands were never meant to touch an angel’s wings. It was not merely pain, though the pain was horrific enough, it was a violation.
Once he’d cleared away enough of Castiel’s feathers, Magnus started sewing the suture thread into the terribly sensitive, exposed skin. Once he’d finished the crudely embroidered sigil, the air around that wing darkened for a moment, the larger, incorporeal version of that wing becoming more visible again. Then electricity sizzled and flashed in the air around it as it sank fully into the flesh. The wing flared out violently, slamming against the side of the cage before it could reach its full span. The other wing fluttered and spasmed in a weak, crippled attempt at acting in tandem.
“Let’s bring this one to life, too,” Magnus smiled, thrilled with his handiwork. He tore out handfuls of baby feathers, enjoying the sounds it wrenched out of the angel when he did so, and then sewed the sigil into the flesh of that wing as well.
Both wings rose and beat the air. They were still underdeveloped and mostly featherless, but their sheer size was impressive enough.
“They’ll grow in, with time,” Magnus assured Cas. He ran a hand along one of the wings, appreciative of his work, but Cas jerked it away with a pained sound.
“Hm, sensitive, huh?” Magnus said thoughtfully. “I’ll put that in the notes. Good to know.”
* * *
“I think he’s asleep,” Dean said, as he and Sam both looked into the backseat at Cas.
“Not a great sign,” Sam murmured.
“Yeah,” Dean agreed unhappily. “Hey, go put the bunker on lock-down. I don’t want Cas running off like this, but I don’t wanna lock him in a room, either.”
“Yeah, okay,” Sam nodded.
They both got out of the Impala and Dean opened the back door as Sam headed out of the garage into the main interior of the bunker.
“Hey, wake up,” Dean said gently. “C’mon, we’re here.”
Cas was still covered by his wings, so Dean carefully reached out a hand to give them a little rustle to wake Cas up. Dean had barely touched them when Cas shot up, looking absolutely terrified.
“Don’t touch me,” he said slowly, emphasizing each word.
It pulled at Dean’s heart, the way Cas continued to clutch his jacket, as much to cover himself as for comfort. Dean wished Cas could see that he himself was still Dean as much as his jacket and his car were still “Dean.”
“Sorry,” Dean mumbled. “Come on out of the car, we’re home. Let’s get you cleaned up and dressed, ok? And work on getting those restraints off.”
He held out a hand, offering to help Cas out of the car in case his shackled wrists and wings made it too difficult. But Cas managed to climb out on his own, even keeping himself partly covered with the jacket as he did so.
“There you go,” Dean murmured. “You remember where the showers are?”
“This… is the bunker,” Cas said slowly, looking around.
“Yeah, we’re in the bunker. You’re safe here.”
“Dean told me it wasn’t safe… he said I shouldn’t be here,” Cas said, looking at Dean suspiciously.
Dean sighed and looked away guiltily, mulling over how to respond. “Yeah…” he eventually said, “it’s okay now. I’m… I’m sorry, Cas. I’m really… really sorry. It’s safe now. I promise.”
“He said I was a danger,” Cas insisted. “He wouldn't want me here.”
“No, I do, Cas, I want you here. I always wanted you here." Dean rubbed his fingers across his brow, heart hurting. “It's safe now, Cas. You can stay now, I promise. I don’t care what happens, I won’t make you leave again, not for anything.”
Cas stared into Dean’s eyes a long moment. Dean hoped it meant he was getting through to him, even just a little. But, again, Cas’s eyes drifted to the Mark.
“What are you?” Cas asked, eyes narrowed, voice low.
“Cas, I’m me. I’m just Dean, I swear to you. I just… have this now.” Dean rolled up his sleeve, showing Cas the Mark. “I got it from Cain. He… gave it to me.”
Dean wasn’t sure what the look on Cas’s face meant. It looked like something between distrust, disgust, and pity.
“I don’t want any of this to be real,” Cas whispered brokenly, before turning and walking away, wings and Dean’s jacket both held tight against his body.