Different

By: casamacutie

Thanks for choosing to read this! I hope you enjoy it! I put a lot of effort into it.

Chapter One: Sign of the Soul

"You were born sick, you fucker! What're you but just, just some piece of nothing?! You were born sick! No one cares about you, Castiel! No one cares that you're broken, you worthless piece of shit!" You're different! Different is bad, little fucker. Different is never good! I've seen you, looking at boys with eyes you should look at girls with! Looking at them! Like that! You can deny it all you want, you disgusting queer, but I see it! I see everything in you, boy!"

The power of a father's arm is the equivalent of a lightning strike. But the scar is worse. The scar haunts the dreams of the weak and the afraid. It pains those who are influenced too easily, those who know nothing but pain and abuse. It sparks a flame of anger, pain, and sadness. These emotions shine dully in their languid eyes, screaming to the world their problems, their cravings. A father's arms can rip at the soul of their children, and the blood that pours from within is the essence of the child itself. It can annihilate the very sense of self in a young boy, a boy who knows that different is bad, and a boy who knows that he was born with an incurable sickness. A sickness that makes people cringe, eyes gleaming in suspicion and hatred. Why? It is because in their eyes, different is unacceptable. Different is never a good quality. Different is a pathogen that must be avoided by any means possible.

Lying awake at night, Castiel heard his father's drunken words. He saw in his mind's eyes his father's eyes, eyes that were pierced with fierce anger and disgust. He saw a monster with the teeth of the wolf, the claws of the lion, and the words of the Devil. He saw the monster, the monster that reared above him and beat him. He knew the monster wasn't different, because the monster was never told that it was bad. The monster was never told that it was a little fucker. The monster was never told that it was a queer.

His words, echoing from deep in the past, cut every single one of Castiel's nights. Every one of his dreams was riddled with the curses and the threats. Every night, Castiel listened as he was told, over and over, that different was bad. He should fit in, like the rest of the boys. He should look at the girls the way he looked at boys. He should play football. He should go out at nights, find a girl, and spend the night with her. He shouldn't read books for fun. He shouldn't draw. He shouldn't sing. He shouldn't do anything even remotely different. He should wear a mask, his true self burning with shame beneath the thick plastic. Why?

Because different is disgusting.

Night, after night, after night. Different is bad. Different is never good. Different is despicable. Different is never alright. Every night, he listened and watched as his dreams withered and twisted into a demon with the face of a nightmare, and with laughter that sounded like the screams of dying children.

He heard those children screaming, through every night, through all of his haunted dreams.

Different is bad.

Queer is bad. Singing is bad. Writing down the strangled words of the pain that screamed in his eye's luminous light was bad. Having a girl for a best friend was bad. Drawing the images that appeared in his mind's blind eye was bad. Every little action he did was bad. Castiel's entire existence was bad. He was nothing in the eyes of the universe. He was just an annoying fucker, with sullen eyes that said it all.

Being himself was just about the most heinous crime that he could commit. He always had to be like someone else. He had to be like someone who fit the stereotypes that littered the world, someone who was the apple of the universe's eyes. Someone who was different in Castiel's eyes, eyes diseased with suffering. Eyes that were different. Eyes that were meant to look at girls, but wandered over to guys.

Castiel lay awake during the nights that screamed at him, and saw the black sky littered with the sparkling stars. As he gazed into the very soul of the night, he realized he was chained. He was shackled to a monster that lashed out at him, who roared over his bleeding frame. He was tethered to a household that crushed his dreams, that crushed his heart, that crushed his very soul. He was tied to the Devil. He was chained to his sickness; sickness that caused him to cry out into the night, into the face of the God he knew didn't exist.

"I was born sick! Oh please, God, just let me be the same. Let me be good. Let me be the son my father wants. I am filth in the eyes of my family. Polish me, so that I can shine, so that I can the same, so that I can be loved. Cure me so I can fit in! Cure me so I can live my life! Cure me so I can escape this wretched hell I call my life!" Castiel screamed silently into the stars, into the heavenly kingdom of his Father above.

But his Father above and below never seemed to listen.

Castiel asked for peace. Peace was too much to ask for, because he was different. Different never once got peace. Why?

Because different was bad, in every sense of the word.

"Well, Clarence, that's a nice cut you got there." Said Meg through her tongue, as she concentrated on scrubbing the wet rag deep into the gash along Castiel's jaw. God knows what kind of dirt and grime had gotten into it. She had seen Cas's house once before; it smelled of hatred, beer, and filth constantly. None of the inhabitants seemed to care for the rattrap hovel; none except for Castiel, who tried his hardest to keep his living quarters clean. Meg had been in the house once, and no longer possessed a desire to step foot in it ever again. Whatever Cas's father had used to inflict the cut probably had some kind of dirt able to cause infection in it. The thought of it made her feel sick to her stomach.

Cas wasn't talking. He wasn't looking at Meg, his head bowed as he stared at his hands. He just sat there in the pained silence that he always sat in when he had gotten into a fight with his father. Cas was by no means a fighter, and Meg knew it. He wasn't physically incapable of fighting; Quite the contrary. Cas never resorted to violence, and that left him vulnerable. He always staggered away from the battle ragged. It was always a one sided fight. His father raged, roaring with the voice of hell. Cas whimpered and took it all.

Cas felt a heaviness deep in his chest. His heart seemed to drag its feet as he recalled the night's events. He didn't want to think about it. But Cas had the brain of a worrier. The brain of a worrier is a great burden. Like a malicious demon, it always reminded Cas of his mistakes, his terrible experiences. As soon as he woke in the morning, his brain would come to life, chattering happily about all the embarrassing, aggravating, and sad times he had. Every night, Cas fell asleep to his brain jabbering nonstop. It always told Cas that he was disgusting, that he was different. He never had a peaceful moment. Keeping himself busy with school was the only way for him to quit thinking about all the terrible things that had happened, the only way for him to clap his hand over his mind's ever-talking mouth. If Cas didn't have school, he would go insane, trapped inside a mind that pounded him relentlessly.

Meg watched as Cas played with his fingers in his lap. Those fingers shook as they danced together, shaking with barely restrained misery and rage. Meg applauded the amount of self control Cas could exercise; this boy would never need an anger management class in his life. She watched his hunched shoulders, shoulders that seemed to gobble up his neck. She saw his defeated posture. She heard his ragged, yet quiet wheezing. She heard him trying to keep his pain under control. She knew this kid was tough, tougher than he appeared on the outside. She listened to his silence, and she heard the wails that would never be heard. She heard his fight with his father playing over and over again in his head like the proverbial broken record.

"So, what did he rag about tonight, huh?" Meg asked after a few more seconds of strangled silence, knowing she would get little to no response from Cas. His brain was working much too fast and too hard for him to speak. She recognized his thinking face. She knew Cas felt emotions more than any human being that she knew. She knew it would be awhile before he had pulled himself back together, before he sewed up the wounds and taped the holes. But always he pulled through, always he regained his footing.

"He saw me talking to a boy, and he thought that I was being queer." Cas responded in an incredibly calm and unshaking voice, still refusing to look at Meg. She could only see the top of his head, and the bridge of his nose. He wiped his nose on his arm, and sniffled almost inaudibly. He played with his fingers faster. He squeezed his arms and legs closer to his body, making himself smaller, as if to hide himself from and external entity who was snarling just inches from his face. Seeing her best friend in so much physical and emotional pain made Meg want to cry right alongside him, but she knew she had to keep herself together. For Cas.

"Look up, let me see the cut," Meg ordered shakily, pulling lightly on his bristly chin.

Reluctantly, Cas looked up. Meg always admired Cas's eyes. She had dull, boring brown eyes, in her opinion. Some people even said that they were black. They seemed to have no luster, no emotion. But Cas had eyes that looked like a piece of the summer sky was injected into them. They were wide, they always shone, and they were always carefully observing. They were shining especially now; Meg saw that tears were peering over his bottom eyelids and were threatening to fall over the edge. His eyelashes were damp from blinking back those salty tears. His eyes were bloodshot, and that somehow made his eyes bluer than all of the summer skies combined.

Cas's eye contact was brief; he then looked down again, swallowing hard. He was aware that Meg knew he was crying, but he didn't want to admit it. Boys don't cry, he reminded himself. How many times had he been told this? He had always been a lachrymose kid. His father always yelled at him whenever he cried, even when he had broken his arm when he was younger. Cas knew that Meg wouldn't reprimand him for crying, but he still didn't want to cry in front of her. He swallowed again, and tried to take deep, even breaths.

Meg went over to the sink nearby, throwing the limp, bloody rag into it. Fetching a new one, she drowned it in disinfectant that singed her nose. She padded back over to Cas, who sat huddled on the edge of the sofa, his white shirt scarred with drops of his own blood. His bare toes played with the fuzzy carpet. His battered sneakers lay on the ground nearby. His face was extremely pale, except the rims of his eyes and his nose, which were red. It was a stark contrast to his obsidian hair

Meg crouched down beside him once more "This is gonna sting, Castiel." She said, gently holding his chin. He flinched when he heard his actual name used. He knew Meg only called him Castiel when she worried about him or was trying to get his attention. He nodded, and said "I know." He blinked once, and didn't say anything else.

Meg felt Cas's jaw clench when the disinfectant brushed the gash on his face. He hissed through his clenched teeth. Cas didn't say a thing. He didn't move. He didn't make a sound. But his pain was as clear as the night sky outside. The silence in the room was damaging. The ticking of the clock was magnified tenfold. The silence was so loud, Meg wanted to cover her ears, and whimper in a corner.

"You know it's OK to cry, Cas?" Meg asked in a quiet voice, cleaning the last of the cut. She lowered the rag when Cas was still achingly silent. Quieter than a stalking cat, Cas drew his legs up to his chest, his chin slowly alighting onto his knees. He looked up at Meg, his tear flooded eyes still shining in the lamplight. The misery within them sent a message more powerful than a crowd of angry protesters. Those cerulean pools were the windows into Castiel's crippled soul, and when Meg peered in those windows, she didn't like what she saw.

"…My father always says that boys don't cry, that crying is a sign of weakness." He muttered finally, his voice on the brink of breaking. The more he thought about what he said, the more he trembled. His lips gave a few nearly invisible tremors, tremors more powerful than an earthquake. He blinked, and as he did so, the tears in his eyes lost their balance, and fell over his eyelids. He quickly wiped his face, sniffing again, and jerked his eyes away from Meg. He shuddered, as if he could hear his father castigating him.

Meg felt as though a scaly, clawed monster burst to violent life inside her chest. Ripping at her lungs and heart, it made boiling blood rush to her brain. A serpentine hiss escaped her mouth before she could contain herself. Her brow crinkled, and her round face was etched with ferocious fury. Clenching her fists and jaw alike, she glared at her fists, the cords in her hands knotted tightly. Cas looked up at her, eyeing her apprehensively. He shrank away slightly as he detected anger radiating from Meg in waves, He connection with Meg was so strong, he could feel what she was feeling, even if he wasn't looking at her.

Meg knew how poorly Cas's father treated him, and she disagreed with it wholeheartedly. The man was a beast, on or off the bottle; he harmed his gentle son with his strong, merciless fists, and his vicious words. The boy did nothing to deserve the abuse he was given regularly, nothing at all. And then the man left the boy to wallow in his own blood, sweat, and pleads. How many times had Cas staggered across town to Meg's house, bleeding and broken? Meg had lost count, but she knew that Castiel had the number seared into his brain.

"Yeah? Well fuck your father, Castiel! Look at what he's done to you! Listen to all those nasty things he's said to you! After all of that, you think that bastard deserves to be listened to?!" Meg snarled through her teeth, eyes flashing with brilliant flames of hatred.

Cas chose to remain silent.

Meg tossed the rag into the faraway sink with venom, where it landed with a squishy thud, and sat down beside Cas.

"He said crying is a sign of weakness? Crying isn't a sign of weakness Cas! Crying is a sign of the soul. Crying means that you are in touch with your heart, and that you realize what is being done to you is wrong. Having contact with your emotions is what keeps you alive; what are we but dried up husks of nothingness without them? Hell, your father has it all wrong! Not crying is a sign of weakness!" Meg hissed, her voice growing louder and angrier with each breath she took. The more she spoke, the more she shook with just barely contained hatred.

"Please don't yell, Meg." Cas sighed.

"I'm not yelling anymore than you're crying." Meg hissed.

"Yes, but all the same. You know I don't like conflict." Cas murmured, wiping at the blood on his shirt. He stared at his thumb as the blood oozed its way into the ridges of his fingerprint. He still resolutely refused to make eye contact with Meg.

Meg sighed in exasperation. "Listen, your father is a bastard. You know he is wrong about everything he says about you. You're not worthless, you're not stupid, you aren't sick, you aren't bad! He is wrong about everything Cas!" Meg said earnestly.

Not everything, Cas thought to himself.

"Castiel, are you hearing what I'm saying?" Meg pressed, squeezing his shoulder to jar him from his thoughts.

"Yes, Meg, I am."

"Good. Don't listen to him. Listen to me. Listen to me when I say this, because what I'm saying is 100 percent true. You are the smartest kid in class. You're the sweetest boy in the whole school. Just because you're a little different, it doesn't mean that you're diseased like you father likes to think. Being different is good! Imagine if we were all alike. How fucking annoying that would be, right?" Meg said, grinning. She dug her fingers harder into his bony shoulder. She felt how tense his muscles were.

The corner of Cas's mouth twitched a bit. His muscles relaxed slightly as Meg massaged them, in an attempt to make him feel better.

"And you aren't worthless, dummy. I need you, and you need to hang on so long as someone needs you, understand?" Meg said firmly, poking Cas's cheek playfully. Cas smiled a little bit, becoming less tense the more Meg spoke. He let his shoulders sag under her touch. He closed his eyes part way as she rubbed his weary shoulders. Sensing that Cas was enjoying the massage, Meg continued for a few moments longer, until Cas had closed his eyes completely.

Meg tugged on Cas's chin, so she could examine the cut that no longer bled. She smiled, and Cas couldn't help but smile as well. He could always leave it to Meg to make him feel better after a fight with his father. She reached up, and kissed his uninjured cheek. If Cas was a cat, he would've purred with content. All he could do was smile until dimples cut his cheeks.

"Love you, Cas." She said, tousling his raven black hair and standing up.

Cas flattened his hair, still smiling with warmth he always felt around Meg. "Love you too." He called quietly into the girl's wake. She was going back into the kitchen, her bare feet barely skimming the linoleum floor. Cas felt as warm as he did when he drank a steaming mug of coffee. Hugging his knees, Cas felt much better. Meg's words were much more convincing than his father's. Meg certainly knew how to maneuver her way around words, manipulating them for her use.

Meg's words whispered in Cas's head. Crying is a sign of the soul. Cas didn't believe that people had souls, but it was difficult to believe that whenever he was around Meg. She was one of the most soulful people he knew. She acted like a rough-and-tumble smartass most of the time, but there wasn't a person alive with a bigger heart than Meg.

Castiel's stream of happy thoughts was interrupted when Meg returned, a bandage box and a dry, fluffy rag in her hands. As Meg peeled open one of the bandages, the clock hanging above the fireplace rang out one o'clock Saturday morning. Meg's parents and sister were asleep, and chances were that Cas's family was also asleep or passed out from drinking. Cas knew Meg was tired, but he hadn't known he was almost on the verge of sleep. His eyes blinked deeply. As he listened to the continual ticks of the clock, he felt lethargic. His mouth split into a chasm, and he yawned a quiet yawn. Meg normally didn't put other people's feelings before her own, but Cas was the exception that proved the rule.

"Hey, don't fall asleep on me just yet." Meg murmured playfully, patting the cut on Cas's jaw dry. She patted it a little too hard, for a sharp stab of pain jarred Cas awake. He looked, and saw that Meg's eyes were also weighed down by sleep. She bit her lip in the way she always did whenever she was trying to hold back a yawn. He knew that she would make sure that he was taken care of before she even thought of going to bed.

"You're staying here, Clarence." Meg ordered, smoothing the bandage over Cas's jaw, and gave it one last pat, for good luck, she always said. He winced slightly.

"Gabriel will be worried." Cas said, standing. He felt very stiff, and his joints cracked as he moved.

"Well, where else would you be if you aren't home? He's not stupid; he'll know you're here."

"Thank you, Meg." Cas breathed, his chest warm and tingly. It was nice, having a best friend who would throw everything aside and come to his aid. It was great, knowing that there was someone out there would beat down anything that threatened to hurt him. Cas ached to return the thousands of favors Meg did for him, but the chance had never presented itself. He felt so unclean; he felt he was stealing from Meg whenever she took care of him like this. It felt wrong. Everything Cas did felt wrong.

"Shut up, and get some sleep." Meg said, tousling his hair again. She stood on her toes and nearly lifted Cas off his feet when she encased him in a rib-breaking hug. Cas, who wasn't very talented in the area of affection, patted her awkwardly on the back. Social contact terrified Cas, and Meg knew it. Still, Meg made an effort to show affection, much needed affection. Maybe Cas was afraid of affection because he rarely received it.

She broke away, and sauntered towards the wooden staircase. On the third step, she turned, and met Cas's eyes again. He was fiddling with the bandage, still fixed in the same spot. He smiled faintly, waving his long, spindly fingers. As Meg swayed on the third step, she saw just how delicate Castiel really was. Even though he was tall, and had a generous portion of muscle, he was still so fragile.

But he would be alright, just like he always was. Outward appearances could be deceiving.

"'Night, Clarence." She said, continuing up to the fourth, the fifth, and sixth steps. With each step she took, she felt more and more exhaustion.

"Goodnight, Meg." Cas responded quietly as Meg mounted the thirteenth step, and was gone from view. Cas listened, and he heard the faint sound of her door closing softly, almost as softly as the sigh he let out into the world.

Cas bent down, and picked up the bandage wrappers. With the faint smile still fluttering on his mouth, he cleaned up the mess Meg had left behind. Wrappers, rags, and disinfectants were returned to their various places in the kitchen Castiel knew as well as his own. As he put the medicinal things away, Castiel gazed out the window above the sink, transfixed. The stars reflected in his eyes that glimmered like sapphires.

Crying is a sign of the soul.

He shook his head, and stole over to the couch. Sinking into it, sleep hovered over him. Though he didn't see it, Cas knew it was there. It took the broken boy into its warm arms, and wailed into the night the sorrows the boy would never release. Like an angelic guardian, sleep sat vigil over him, protecting him from any harm the world could throw at him. As it watched, Castiel dreamed empty dreams.