Castiel had always known that his life was set up as a bad one when he got old enough to truly understand that his parents had named him Castiel. Castiel Novak. Castiel freaking Novak. To make matters worse, his youngest brother's name was Gabriel. A normal name. And yet, four years earlier, they named him Castiel, and two years after they named him Castiel, they named his other younger brother Balthazar.

They both had issues with nicknames. Balthazar, Gabriel, and their mother called Castiel Cassie. Especially Balthazar, whom he was closest with and had always confided in. Sometimes Gabriel teased them for their names, but neither of them cared, especially when he was younger. As he got older, it was a bit more annoying, but neither of them got onto him for it. In school, a lot of people teased Balthazar especially, so Castiel would frequently get in trouble with their mother for getting in trouble by punching whoever was rude to him.

Gabriel never had trouble with teasing, as he was always the cool person at each school, especially when he went to school. Castiel and Balthazar were the ones who tried and studied as hard as they could. Gabriel's lack of effort in school often led their mother to have to get onto him, and it wasn't very pretty to see her explode on them, but it seemed that Gabriel never cared, and Castiel never knew why he was unaffected. He always flinched at the first word she said loudly.

Maybe it was because when she got really mad, she got physical with him.

He tried not to think about that, and succeeded the busier he was, and he was always busy. When she left them alone for weeks on end with little money, he had to find ways to provide for his little brothers and keep the shitty motel roofs over their heads. He was pretty good at poker so that was the way he usually got them money, but he also played pool and learned to pickpocket. Whenever he was caught, he would drop whatever he was trying to pickpocket, duck his head so they wouldn't see his face, and run as fast as he could back to their motel.

Balthazar sometimes asked if he could help Castiel, but he never let him. He mostly just didn't want Balthazar to have to deal with the shit he had to, taking care of both of them, but he also knew that if they both got caught with something serious and went to jail or something, Gabriel would be stuck alone with their mother for who knew how long, which maybe wasn't too bad. He'd be able to eat properly all the time, but Castiel was scared she'd drop the Oh my sweet baby Gabriel thing if she was around him all the time and would treat him more like she treated Castiel. And he'd be so close to the hunts she went on, closer than he'd ever been. Castiel knew he would probably be taught how to hunt one day anyway, but he wanted desperately to prolong the inevitable for as long as possible, no matter how much Gabriel asked to be taught. He knew how to fight and defend himself. That was all he needed until he was older.

Castiel told Balthazar about it when he was five, and their mother had been furious with him. Suddenly it was so important to her that her children, who she tossed around from one town to the next while she went off and tried to find the asshole that killed their dad, remained innocent. Well, Castiel couldn't keep it from Balthazar forever, and as much as he hated it, he decided that it was time to tell him when he was five. Castiel was only seven and he already felt more like a parent figure to him than their mother would ever be.

...

That was why he sat down Gabriel when he was six, hoping their mother wouldn't be as angry about it since he'd waited a year more than he had with Gabriel. Balthazar sat next to him, wanting to help. Castiel appreciated it. He was scared that their mother would be angry, and even though he was only eight, Balthazar was the perfect comforting presence.

"Okay, Gabriel," was how Castiel started, pausing after that, searching for the right words. "Okay," he said again, taking a little breath and then beginning. "You know when Dad died, it was because of the house burning, right?"

"Right," Gabriel said, frowning at Castiel. They didn't usually talk about their dad. Castiel had been only four when he died and had to herd two-year-old Balthazar and six-month-old Gabriel from the flames while their mother screamed at the ceiling, begging for him to be alive and nearly leaving them orphans. "Why?"

"Well, because it wasn't just fire," he said, swallowing. "It was a monster. We don't really know what monster, but that's what Mom does when she leaves: she goes and hunts monsters and looks for the one that killed Dad."

Gabriel frowned for a second, staring at them. Castiel could see Balthazar nodded in his peripheral vision. "She hunts… monsters," he repeated slowly. He looked up at Castiel and Balthazar. "Is she… is she like a superhero?"

Far from it, Castiel thought, but he just nodded, smiling halfheartedly. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, Mom's a superhero."

...

As they grew older, Gabriel began to see that their mother was not, in fact, a superhero, but rather an antihero, and sometimes a misguided hero. She didn't exactly match up to the role as villain, but sometimes she wasn't exactly that far behind. Sometimes she was really great, making it home in time for Christmas with a little tree and gifts for all of them and a gigantic meal and smiles and laughter and patting everyone on the head saying, "Merry Christmas!" and "I love you all!" but never once did she say, "Thank you, Castiel," or "I'm proud of you, Castiel." "You're so smart, Gabriel," she might say. Maybe, "You're getting so tall, Balthazar!"

Castiel was taller than Balthazar. He got better grades than Gabriel. He didn't understand what was wrong with him.

And that was what he thought and would always think: There was something actually wrong with him. He wasn't smart enough, he wasn't helpful enough, he wasn't good enough at taking care of them. He wasn't quick enough on the hunts their mother took him on. He was wrong, over and over and over again. He needed to fix himself but he couldn't. He was wrong and he was stupid and he was bad, and there was nothing he could do to fix it, and one night, when he came out of the bathroom with a dark bruise on his cheek after a screaming session with their mom, and he curled up on the motel bed that was his, crying and hating himself for it, and he told himself: "You deserve this, Castiel. You're broken."

But there was Balthazar, sitting on his bed when their mom left, patting his back and saying to him, "Cassie, you're the best big brother, okay? Please, please, Cassie, don't ever think differently."

He smiled up at him, for his sake, and nodded slightly. "Okay," he whispered. "Thank you, Balthy."

Balthazar smiled, and Castiel hated how much it was already starting to resemble his own small, defeated smile. He was only twelve years old. He didn't need to be dealing with the things Castiel was, because if Balthazar did, then soon so would Gabriel, and then they'd all be worn down, and it was Castiel's job to lift the weight of their pain by himself.

...

When Castiel was sixteen, he got his license. He didn't know why this excited him so much. He knew he wouldn't get his own car. But driving them across the country in the beautiful Impala their mother owned when she was too drunk to drive was the best thing ever. He hated smelling the alcohol on her breath as it wafted through the car, but being on the road, listening to old music that he didn't even really like because Gabriel insisted, it was great. Balthazar begged for him to turn on classical music, for both of them enjoyed that more than Led Zeppelin and AC/DC.

"There's this girl at the gas station near the last motel we stayed at," Gabriel was saying over the music, "and she totally—"

"Gabriel," their mother said, clutching her forehead. "I have a headache. Please don't talk."

"But the music is on. Shouldn't that be hurting your—"

"Gabriel."

"Sorry," he said quietly. Castiel saw him look down in the mirror and he looked back at him, meeting his eyes briefly and smiling.

Tell me and Balthy later, he mouthed to him.

Okay, he said, smiling slightly.

...

When Castiel was seventeen, he walked behind the high school where Gabriel waited for them after school. The junior high let out ten minutes before the high school, so Gabriel walked up there while Balthazar and Castiel were getting out. Instead of finding Gabriel slumped against the wall of the school like usual, Balthazar and Castiel found him with his body entwined in a girl's, their lips locked together as they made out sloppily. She was all but pressed up against the brick wall of the school.

"Shit, Gabriel!" Balthazar said, grinning slightly at their little brother. He and the girl jumped away from each other quickly, and the girl apologized, brushing past quickly and not looking back. She looked Balthazar's age. Gabriel was kissing a high school kid and he was only in eighth grade. It didn't bother Castiel. He had first made out with a girl when he was thirteen too.

"How long were you two going at it like that?" Castiel asked as they walked back to the motel they were staying at.

Gabriel flushed slightly and looked around. "You know, just since I got there… She was out back, so we… You know."

Castiel frowned over at him. He knew that his brother was lying but he was trying to decide if it was actually worth calling him out on it or not. After a second, he decided that it wasn't worth lecturing him over or anything, but he did want to know if Gabriel had snuck out of school or not.

"Gabe, you're not going to be in trouble if you skipped class," he told him. "I just don't want you to lie to me."

He hated that their mother instilled that whatever tiny thing they did wrong, they'd be punished severely for. It made them less honest, mostly to her, but sometimes Gabriel was caught in a lie to Castiel or Balthazar. He hated that Gabriel didn't even trust them and wished that he was as close to them as he and Balthazar were to each other.

"I skipped out the last three periods," he admitted, looking down at the ground, at his old sneakers as he walked. Gabriel was shorter than even Castiel had been four years ago, and four years ago Castiel had been kind of short. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Castiel said, shrugging and bumping into him. "I'm not mad."

"Don't tell Mom!" he begged. "Neither of you!"

"We won't," Balthazar spoke up, punching his arm lightly and smiling. "It's nothing, really. So, you made out behind the school? So, you skipped class? Please, you're going to have step up your game if you wanna be a real rebel."

"Balthazar, you're a dork," Gabriel said, smiling slightly and looking down at his shoes again.

...

A few weeks later, Castiel found himself pressed against someone in the alley behind the school. It was a new one again. Their mom had been looking for a nest of vampires for a couple days and they hadn't heard from her. Before she left, she had hit him again for letting Gabriel get away with skipping class to make out with the girl behind the school—she found out through some really invasive eavesdropping—and he was still so angry that he couldn't focus on schoolwork, so the first attractive face he saw, he went up to and started flirting to. It was a guy, which was new to Castiel but not exactly unwelcomed. In fact, as soon as he realized that the guy was ten times hotter than most girls in the school, he came to the conclusion that he wasn't totally straight. He had been questioning this for a while, but it became unofficially official as he tugged the guy to the alley. He wasn't really thinking of this much, though. There was a hot guy waiting to be kissed and questioning exactly which gender(s) he liked was at the bottom of his list of things to do.

"Castiel," the guy breathed, and Castiel kissed his neck, biting down slightly. Though he knew his name at the time, he would forget it by the time he moved onto the next school. As it was, his mind was a litany of Jackson Jackson Jackson is so hot Jackson's voice is so deep Jackson's lips are very soft Jackson Jackson.

So Castiel breathed back, "Jackson…" and it all went from there with their bodies pressed up against each other and their hands running down their backs and through their hair and their tongues in each other's mouths and it was all a mess because if they moved too far to the left the school cameras would catch them and they kept drifting to the right where the teachers could see if they looked out their classroom windows but they didn't care. Castiel was pulling the same act that Gabriel had that got him in trouble in the first place and he loved it. He also loved how soft the guy's lips were. Damn, he's a good kisser, was at the forefront of his mind when the litany of Jacksons faded briefly.

They went back into the school after a period's worth of kissing and breathing each other's names and sucking on each other's necks and collarbones.

He didn't tell his brothers.

...

When Castiel was eighteen, his mom was taking him on a hunt, looking for a run-of-the-mill ghost in a run-of-the-mill town for a hunt. Balthazar was watching Gabriel a couple towns back. Castiel had already graduated by then, so he didn't need to stay behind for school.

As much as he wanted to go to college, he knew it wasn't realistic, so he didn't press it any further than when his mother pointed out that he didn't even know what he'd go for and he was much better off just hunting. So he hunted with her. He trained to look for the monster that killed their dad. He learned to see her in a different light than he had when he was younger. He never idolized his mother, but he always believed that what she did, she did for a good cause, and that was the most important thing.

When he started hunting with her a month earlier, he didn't trust her as much as he did. He didn't believe that in the middle of the hunt she wouldn't start yelling at him for not being with Gabriel. But as time progressed, he started to notice a change in her behavior around him. She was very kind. She started opening up to him, talking to him about his father and about their life and about her choices after his death.

"I just have to protect you," she said as they leaned against the hood of the Impala. She was sipping a beer. "You, Gabriel, and Balthazar are all I've got and family is the most important thing in the world, Castiel." She looked over at him, her eyes oddly fierce—not in an angry way, but like she was desperate for him to understand what she had to say. "Repeat that, Castiel: 'Family is the most important thing in the world.'"

He stared at his mother for a moment, mouth hanging open slightly like he was about to speak but he didn't. She raised an eyebrow and he stuttered out, "Why?"

"Because, Cassie," she said, sighing. "You don't leave family. You don't ever leave your little brothers behind."

"I won't—I've never—"

"Castiel, you can't say you've never."

He couldn't.

"Mom," he started slowly, leaning down and getting a beer. He wasn't going to take one—not because he wasn't twenty-one but because he didn't like how often she drank them, and he didn't want to be like that—but he felt their feelings-spilling session called for some beer.

"No, just say it to me, Cassie," she begged him. "You don't leave family behind."

"You leave us behind all the time," he said quietly.

Her eyes got dark and stormy—the look that came right before she hit him. He flinched, but she hadn't hit him since he was seventeen. He remembered her telling him that he was an adult and that there would be no more of that. That was a punishment for a child. Yet she rarely hit Gabe, and a bit less rarely but still rarely did she hit Balthazar. He didn't question it though. She was doing it for good. That was all that mattered. She was not the best by any means, but she was a decent mother. She was doing it all for good reasons.

"Family is the most important thing," he said slowly. "You don't leave it behind."

"And you do what you have to for them," she added, but she didn't tell him to repeat it. "Look, Cassie, you're old enough that you need your own car. I've been thinking about this for a couple years but I decided to wait until you were old enough, and since you're almost nineteen, I think it's time I give you the Impala."

She bought a black truck the next day and drove to Virginia without telling any of them. When she got there, she called Castiel and told him to look after the boys for a while.

So much for you don't leave family.

...

"Cassie," Balthazar said one night when Castiel was nineteen. He had just gotten back from a hunt in Rhode Island—a particularly grisly pack of werewolves that were no fun to track down and less fun to kill. He had been gone a week. Both of his brothers were old enough to take care of themselves, but Castiel still stayed with them for weeks on end between hunts. Their mom went from state to state, calling frequently but visiting only sometimes.

Sometimes Castiel would thinking about the day they leaned on the hood of the car and he got the Impala and he was so happy and then she left.

She's doing it for the best. She's saving people, he told himself.

"Yes, Balthy?" he said, looking up from the book he was reading. It was kind of boring—some stupid love story thing—but it was cheap and he liked to read so he powered through for the sake of doing something while the boys did their homework.

"D'ya think I'm going to get into college?" he asked. His homework was sitting in his lap. Castiel had looked at it and it was some advanced shit that he'd never seen from school. Balthazar was so upsettingly smart. Castiel wasn't jealous—he was damn proud—but it was just crazy how he could pore through endless algebra or chemistry notes and never bat an eye, how he could go from school to school and consistently get As and Bs.

With Castiel basically being their mom's replacement, though, he decided to leave them at the same school since they were more than capable of providing for themselves at their age. Fraud wasn't out of the question, though usually they just tried to play poker or pool. Balthazar even had a job at a fast food place.

"Definitely," he said, frowning at him. "Why do you even have to ask?"

Balthazar sighed and ran a hand through his hair, as light as their mothers. He actually looked a lot like their mother: same blonde, wavy hair and blue eyes. It was more like her than either Gabriel or Castiel looked. Where Balthazar had light hair, Castiel's was very dark, but he did have very blue eyes, bluer than Balthazar's and his mother's. Gabriel's hair wasn't as dark as his or as light as Balthazar's, and he liked to wear it longer, at least below his ears. His eyes were brown, but also with gold flecks that Castiel had always noticed and wondered if he would grow out of, but he never did. It gave his eyes the look of sunlight tumbling through a glass of whiskey.

"I don't know," he said, sighing and looking back at his homework. "You didn't go."

Castiel shrugged slightly. "I'm different," he said. He stood up and went to Balthazar's side, sitting next to him. "Listen, you're literally the smartest person I know and don't even fight me on this because you are."

Balthazar looked up at him and rolled his eyes. "You're really smart."

"Balthazar," he said, nudging him with his shoulder. "I said don't fight me on it. Hang on; we'll get an outsider's opinion. Gabriel!"

"I'm taking a shit," Gabriel called from the bathroom. "Can this wait, like, five seconds?"

"No," Castiel said. "Who's the smartest person you've ever met?"

"Your dick," Gabriel called out to them and Castiel rolled his eyes. "Or Balthazar."

Now both of them rolled their eyes. "I don't even know what that's supposed to mean," Balthazar said.

"He doesn't even know, trust me," he said, smiling at his little brother. "So, believe me now?"

"Slightly more," he said, looking up at him. "Thanks, Cassie."

"No problem, Balthy."

...

Castiel was never really sure when things all turned to shit, but he was pretty sure it was when Gabriel dropped out of high school the next year. Balthazar was given a scholarship for Stanford University School of Medicine, which was great, beyond great, but he got in a huge fight with their mom—she was visiting when he found out—and he screamed and he rushed out and Castiel wasn't sure what to think. Their mom got in her truck and left, and he didn't hear from her again for a long, long time.

Gabriel started hunting with him. They traveled around in the Impala, and it was all great, having him to help, but Balthazar and their mother both didn't answer their calls. They were isolated from everything they'd ever known and it was hard, going out and fighting monsters when they didn't even know where their mom or brother really were and they didn't know how to contact them and they just—they didn't know. Castiel felt like such a failure he blamed himself. He told himself that there had to have been something that might've caused Balthazar to leave happily and they'd call all the time and talk to each other and he'd ask about hunting and Castiel would ask about school and Gabriel would ask about college parties.

There was nothing good in what he was doing, surely. He was doing something wrong, and his mind went back to a night a long time ago when his mother hit him. He whispered to himself, You deserve this, Castiel. You're broken. And that is what he thought again, driving down listening to a combination of Beethoven and AC/DC and Elvis and everything in between. He smiled and sang along with Gabriel, but when it hushed down, he stared out over the road.

You're wrong. You're bad.

You deserve this.

You are broken, and you will never be whole.

...

It wasn't for another couple of years before everything crashed down around him. He left Gabriel alone on a hunt because he wasn't feeling well and it was just a couple vampires. The rest of their nest had died years ago and they hadn't turned anyone yet but they were killing people. It would be easy to take them out, so he went out and did it alone. He drove back, listening to the rumble of the Impala's engine instead of music. When he got back to the motel, going in his and Gabriel's room, he found it empty. He frowned.

"Gabe?" he called, setting his stuff down and looking around when there was no answer. He pulled out his phone and called him, but the line was disconnected, which it hadn't been when he left a few hours ago. Panicking, Castiel called their mother, the only person he thought might have any information, but as always, she didn't answer.

"Fuck, Mom," he said into the voicemail, "Gabe's gone. I went to kill some vamps, and he wasn't feeling good so he stayed at the motel, and I come back and he's gone and his phone's disconnected—I can't find him—Mom—fuck!" He sat the phone down on the table, leaning against it as he tried to breathe again, which was becoming increasingly harder with each second because Gabriel was gone, his little brother—it was his job to protect Gabriel and he'd failed like he always did and he was feeling dizzy so he sat on the floor and breathed in and out until he was levelheaded again. He felt drained but he stood up and picked up his phone again. "Sorry. Just—give me a call. Please. I'm going to try calling Balthazar."

He hung up, staring at the phone. He wanted to throw it against the wall, but instead he just sat at the table, his head in his hands, hating himself because Gabriel was gone and maybe he'd come back and he'd feel embarrassed for overreacting but it didn't look like it.

He called Balthazar. He left voicemails. He texted. Nothing. Eventually he got a call back and he immediately answered.

"Balthazar! I haven't talked to you in forever!" he exclaimed.

"Um," said a decidedly female voice on the other end, "my name isn't Balthazar. Look, you've been calling me for two years and it's annoying and weird and I don't know who you are so can you please just stop? I'm sure a pretty nice guy and I'm sorry this Balthazar dude changed his number without telling you but this is my number now so just—" Castiel hung up.

He changed his number. He changed his number. He—changed—his—number. For the longest time they'd all been calling that number, hoping for Balthazar, but it was never him.

Part of him was angry because if the girl hadn't used the default voicemail then he wouldn't have thought it was Balthazar for so long. He needed something silly to be angry at so he wasn't consumed with this maddening ache, this voice in his head, this screaming cry of YOU RUIN EVERYTHING.

But though he was angry and upset and felt a little betrayed by Balthazar, the pain of him leaving coming up to him and rubbing him raw like it was all still fresh and he'd just left a month or so ago—despite this, there was something more pressing he needed to think about: Gabriel. And the only thing he thought to do was wait.

He waited throughout the rest of the day for Gabriel. The sun dipped in the sky outside the window and he sat at the table, reading though he could hardly focus. Eventually he pulled out his laptop and looked for any very recent things locally that could have to do with Gabriel's disappearance, but nothing came to him on the Internet. It was three in the morning when he decided he needed to sleep.

The next morning, when Gabriel still wasn't there, he knew he had to go. He packed up all of Gabe's stuff, which was beyond painful. Then he got his stuff too and brought it all out to the Impala, tossing it in the backseat and heading to California, listening to classical music the whole way there. He couldn't bear listening to Gabriel's favorite music, so he stuck to his and Balthazar's. That didn't help much more, but he couldn't listen to the deafening silence the whole way to Stanford.

...

He got there a few days later after much delay and many stops to eat and sleep. He could've gotten there quicker but he stalled a lot. He wasn't sure what he was going to do, how he was going to find Balthazar at Stanford, if he was even still there. But he held up hope that it would all pull together when he got there.

He arrived and asked around until a girl with blonde hair and a nice smile said, "Oh, he's in class. Who are you?"

"I'm his brother, Castiel Novak," he said quickly. "I really need to talk to him—Um, who are you?"

"I'm Jess," she said. "His girlfriend. I sort of live with him."

"Great," Castiel said. "Where do you guys live? Wherever it is, just take me there and I'll wait for him."

Jess frowned slightly. "I've got to get to class, but I guess I can let you in," she said.
"He should be coming home in twenty minutes, I think…"

"Great, yeah, whatever," he said. "Just take me there."

"Hey, how do I even know you're his actual brother?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "I've heard him talk about his family but I'm not just letting you in without proof."

"Fucking shit," he snapped, fumbling for his phone and scrolling through his pictures until he found one of Balthazar, Gabriel, and himself. "There. See? That's me. That's Balthazar there, and there's our little brother Gabriel. Please."

"Fine," she said, starting to lead him there. He followed her quickly. "What's so important anyway?"

"Gabe's missing," he said.

She frowned. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "Have you talked to the police?"

"Um, yeah, whatever," he said. "Please hurry." Castiel was annoyed with her for walking way too slow and stopping entirely when a bee almost landed on her. It wasn't actually so urgent that he got to Balthazar, he just… he didn't want to do this alone. He couldn't do this alone. And he wanted so badly to see him after all the time apart. He wanted to apologize for whatever he'd done. He wanted to know why Balthazar had left them.

Jess fumbled with her keys when they got to where she and Balthazar lived. They went into the house and she vaguely motioned around as she turned on the lights. "This is it," she said. She looked up at the clock. "Okay, I've got to go. See you, Castiel."

He nodded goodbye to her, though she was already practically sprinting out the door, shutting it behind her. Castiel looked around when she was gone, feeling like he was intruding. He sat down on their couch awkwardly and fiddled with the hem of his sleeve.

About five minutes later, Balthazar came into the apartment and nearly jumped out of his shoes when he saw Castiel. "Shit—Castiel! What the hell are you doing here?"

He stood up from the couch, not sure what to say. It felt like his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth and his lips were zipped shut. After a stressful moment, he got out, "Gabriel's gone."

Balthazar's anger and confusion dissipated to fear and worry. "What? How?"

"We were on a hunting trip. I hadn't been to the motel in a few hours and when I came back he was gone," he said, biting his lip slightly. "Balthazar, you fucking changed your number."

"That's not important right now, Castiel," he said, setting his stuff down and going across the living room to where it opened up into the kitchen. He started making what seemed to be tea. "Look, what do you want me to do about this? Go hunt with Mom."

"I haven't talked to her since you left," he said. "It's just been me and Gabe."

Balthazar sighed heavily and looked back at him. "I'm out of that life, Castiel. I'm in college now."

"I know, but I can't do this alone!" he said. "We have to find him. We can look for a trail from here and leave to look on Friday nights so you don't miss school. Please."

Balthazar didn't say anything. Castiel felt like he could stab him.

"It's our brother. He'd want you to look for him. He'd want you to help me, Balthazar," Castiel said quietly, almost pathetically desperate. "Saving people, hunting things. The family business."

Balthazar looked back at him, letting out a breath. "Have tea with me, Castiel. We'll talk about it."