Journal of Bobby Singer
November 12, 1871
The Milton family plantation house used to stand proudly on the thick copse of willow trees down in the valley. Mist used to rise up from Lake Ophleonas and surround Churchstand like a ghostly white shawl, making it look like a specter out of a frightening tale. Legend holds firm that the house itself was haunted, but I can't help but feel it was the other way around.
At least, so it was for the poor Miltons.
Now, I don't have any sympathy for the parents. Chuck and Becky kept those kids on far too tight a leash. That house was their cage. And when you hold someone so young as they once were in a cage for so long, they're bound to break the walls of that cage and hit the ground running. And when you hit the ground running in a place as frightening as the real world, well, you don't stand much of a chance. You were bound to fall on your ass. And if you were unlucky enough to be a Milton kid, they didn't help you back to your feet and forget about it.
They turned their back on you and left you to wallow on the cold ground in your sin.
Eventually, all seven of the Milton younguns broke bad. Michael, the eldest, who raised the other six almost singlehandedly, for God's sake, ran off at twenty-seven after his twin (whose name was actually Lucifer, if you'd believe it) was disowned for trying to manipulate the old man for his cotton business. If you don't acknowledge the irony in that, then what the hell is irony? I sure don't know.
Anna, the next in age, a beautiful fiery wisp of a thing, was banished after she eloped to Canada with a slave boy. She never did come back, and for all I know she might not even be alive. Uriel, the man's name was. Good lad, I thought, and that Anna girl sure loved him, but what's the opinion of a crazy old coot such as myself worth in this crazy mixed-up world?
Gabriel went off with a group of his buddies (he always was a popular kid) to California to seek their fortunes. Went for the gold strike, they did. Gained a pretty penny, so I heard, and the parents were happy as meadowlarks. Lost it all gambling, and his parents sang quite a different tune. He came crying back to them, and they locked the door on him. He sat there on the porch for three days before he left and got a job at Robbison's, that candy shop he always used to haunt back when he had all the money in the world. He didn't have no other place to go, so I let him stay with me and Karen.
Rachel dreamed of making something of herself. She didn't believe in slavery and she didn't want to get married to someone who inevitably did. She dreamed of moving to the north and becoming a doctor. Instead, she disguised herself as a man and fought alongside the Unionists. She was killed in action. The Miltons didn't claim her body and she was buried in an anonymous soldier's cemetery. To my knowledge, no one ever visited her grave. Honestly, they probably never found her even if they tried. I looked myself, didn't like thinking about the concept that a poor brave girl like her would rot in a hole, unwanted, unloved, for the rest of eternity, even if her soul was worlds away. But I never did find her grave, and Michael or Gabe or Cas probably never did either, even if they did look.
Balthazar was a drunk. Lord knows his family had problems, and the poor boy turned to the bottle. I don't even blame him. He had no other place to go, though. He once told me he was waiting for the old man to die so he'd get his share of the inheritance money. With it, he planned on going to Europe and taking Cas with him.
Castiel was Chuck and Becky's pet. He was polite, quiet, serious. He always had this solemn look on his face, like he was contemplating the world's problems every hour of the day. Eventually, he was the only kid left living at home. At seventeen, he didn't have much of a choice.
And then the war came.
Gabe and Balthazar joined right away. Now, Chuck Milton despised the war effort. He believed in slavery, but he was too a coward himself to fight, and so he claimed killing others was against his religion. To back up his story, he wouldn't allow his children to join the army. Since Gabe was already officially out of the family, he went with no qualms, and I went with him. I didn't believe in owning other human beings, still don't, never will, but the South is my home, what's left of it now. The South is part of who I am. Of course I would fight for her side, as did Gabe, who was disgusted by the mere idea of slavery.
Balthazar, however, caused a veritable riot.
His friends, friends of my own as well, down at Harvelle's Roadhouse had his back, hid him behind the bar when Mr. Milton and his followers, attracted to a strong voice of power like a bear to a honeycomb, went mobbing through the streets of Dustin, searching for the lad to publicly humiliate him. Naturally, they wouldn't dare soil their spotless boots and reputations by setting a single holy foot through Ellen and Jo's house of sin and foul drink, even if they were probably at least suspicious the target would be there. The boy was, after all, helplessly lost in the bottle.
Anyway, he came to my house that night, distraught and drunker than Old Man LeThropp at the Christmas festival the year I was still a boy and didn't yet know what the term "streaker" referred to.
"Cas," he slurred. "Stuh in 'ah goh'am 'ouse wid 'ose buggers, 'ose fil'hy, na'hy buggers . . ." He sobbed, leaning his red, tear-soaked face into my doorframe. "I can' ee'en do any'ing abou' ih!"
"He's gonna be fine, boy," I told him, even though I had doubts myself. "Now come on in here outta that cold, you'll catch your death."
And so the two brothers came to stay with me and my wife until we left for war. I assured them everything would be fine in the end, and after we came home, Castiel would have already come of age to make his own decision as to where he would live. He seemed a strong enough creature, and so he would probably have gotten himself a job. If he chose to stay with his family, well, that was his bed, he could lie in it, but Karen and I would readily welcome him with open arms if he had nowhere else to turn.
None of us figured that the boy would be banished himself, and for loving a man.
Now, Dean Winchester was one of the finest, most honest citizens I've ever had the pleasure of calling a good friend. And I love Gabe and Balthazar, and by now I consider them my un biological children, but Dean was actually my godson. He came from a fine line of hard workers who didn't have much money but thrived on their love for life and one another. Perhaps that sounds awfully cheesy; in fact, it does. But I say it because it's God's honest truth, and I do my best to speak the truth when given the opportunity.
John Winchester was my best friend growing up. His wife, Mary, was Karen's best friend. They grew up next door to each other. After Mary died from birthing Sam, their second, Karen just shut herself up in our room, wouldn't come out for two days. John tried killing himself and fortunately failed. Karen and I helped him raise Dean and Sam right, like we would have raised our own if my sweet Karen had been capable of childbirth.
I'm sure whoever's reading this has figured for themselves by now that Castiel fell for Dean Winchester. And you're right. He really, really did. We all did. And I know Dean, and I know that he loved Castiel too.
A shame, the whole damn thing. A damn shame.
