Author's Note:
For arguments sake, Castiel's appearance is five in human years here, and Balthazar's is eight in human years. It makes it easier to imagine them then :)
Please don't forget to review! It lets me know what you think and how maybe I can improve and things :)
Sunlight casts a bright light across Wayward House, glinting from the windows which are dappled with the thick frost of winter.
Wayward House is specifically designed to reflect humanity and Earth, by which it has a cycle of the Earth's seasons, but the cycle is within the Heavenly year, not the Earthly year. Time is slower in Heaven. Much slower than on Earth. Many, many years can pass on Earth in one Heavenly year.
A layer of shimmering snow carpets the ground, melting the area into a beautiful wonderland which never fails to excite Wayward House's residents; particularly when they wake up that morning and press their noses against the cold windows, letting out harmonious squeals of joy.
Each angel grabs their winter coat, along with their scarves, gloves and hats, and in a mass of cheering and glee, they pour from the front doors of Wayward House, and tumble into the snow.
In Wayward House, from the beginning, when it was erected, it contained all manners of future human technology. From clothing to kitchen appliances - God wants their childhoods to be as normal as possible for them. Normal by human standards. He feels felt that the human way of nurturing and growing is the most beautiful in all His creation.
There is one face missing in the blur that is the children, and when Gabriel notices this, he climbs the stairs to the dormitories and knocks of one of the doors. Silence.
Opening the door, Gabriel sighs at the sight that greets his eyes. On the bed at the far end of the room, a small figure sits, gazing out of the huge window.
"Why don't you go out and play, Castiel?" Gabriel asks, and his sudden voice breaks the quiet, making the boy jump. His black wings splay in shock, but he hurriedly tucks them away again. It is no news that Castiel is ashamed of his wings. They are very small, even for his size. And Castiel knows it.
"Gabriel," the boy acknowledges aloud calmly, before facing the window once more. He doesn't avert his eyes when Gabriel sits beside him.
"It looks like fun out there, you know," he states, nodding his head towards the group of children climbing the snow-covered tree outside.
"I'm quite alright, thank you," comes the plain reply. The finality in his tone makes Gabriel bite his lip. God instructed that though he must guide the angel children and watch over them, he must let them be children. Children have problems like this. But even humans deal with bullying.
"Do you want me to have a word with the others?"
"NO!" Castiel is on his feet, little fists clenched, and nostrils flaring. "You'll just make it worse!" The boy glares for a while longer, before realising how disrespectful he had been to the archangel, and his eyes widen. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"
Gabriel chuckles, and lifts Castiel onto his lap. "It's okay, Castiel." Castiel lets out a noticeable sigh of relief. "Now. I think there's a patch of snow with your name on it out in the yard. And it's begging to be made into a snowman." Gradually, a smile tugs at Castiel's mouth. Gabriel digs out his jacket, and wraps Castiel up in his scarf and hat. His mittens are the last to go on. The snug angel waddles about, flapping his arms like wings at his sides and giggling.
"Look! I'm a penguin!"
Laughing, Gabriel takes hold of a small, mittened hand, and together they walk out of the House. The light from the sun reflecting on the snow and ice is blinding at first, and they both shield their eyes, but with a slight push to his back, Castiel toddles off to an emptier area of the yard. The moment he begins to roll snow into a ball, Gabriel's smile widens.
Patting down the snow, Castiel decides he is done and takes a step back to admire his work. The snowman grins with his mouth lined with stones. Castiel grins back.
"Hey look!" comes a voice from nearby. Shyly, Castiel peers around his snowman and sees a group of children not very far away, lying on the snow and waving their arms, legs and wings, and then standing to reveal a beautiful imprint of themselves indented in the ground. Castiel cocks his head to one side, intrigued. After watching them for a while longer, he wants to do one for himself. Settling back against the snow, he copies what he had witnessed, and stretches his wings out as far as they will go. Eager to see the result, he scrambles up. It looks wonderful! He's extremely proud of it.
"You call that a snow angel?" comes a snide remark from his left. The group he had been watching has gathered by his snowman.
"That looks more like a snow human. Where are the wings?"
"It's pretty pathetic."
Castiel gulps back the lump forming in his throat, but cannot stop the haze of tears forming in his eyes. His fists ball up at his sides.
"I bet he'll never even be able to fly."
That does it. Salty tears begin to stream down his rosy, chapped cheeks. Suddenly, Zazriel - who had made the last comment - flies forwards, and lands head first in the snow. They all snap their heads around to see Balthazar with his hands out, his face dark and angry.
"Leave Castiel alone. None of you are any better than he is. I'm sick and tired of you all treating our brother like he's trash. Get lost. You are disgraceful to what the name "angel" stands for."
Zazriel picks himself up and brushes off the snow. He goes to shove Balthazar back but the others restrain him. They glare as they leave, but they leave nonetheless. Castiel still stands alone, trembling, his gleaming eyes watching Balthazar suspiciously.
"Why would you stand up for me?" His voice is accusing, which makes Balthazar start. Why is he still being so cautious? Hadn't Balthazar just saved him from being bullied again?
"I couldn't just watch them make you hate yourself anymore," Balthazar explains. "There's nothing to hate about you, Castiel. And you need to understand that before they make sure that's what you think of yourself forever."
Castiel's eyes turn cold and even more defensive. Without a word, or a thank you, Castiel turns on his heel and dashes to the front door.
"Wait!" he calls out, but as he attempts to run after him, his foot gets caught up in a tree root which has been hidden by the snow. He tumbles face first to the ground, and splutters the snow from his nose and mouth when he eventually pulls himself to his feet. Castiel is nowhere to be seen, and Balthazar's face is red raw with cold. He yanks his scarf over his cheeks and mouth, and sighs. It seems that even Castiel neglects wanting to be friendly with him. Is he truly that repulsive? Glumness washes through him and the joyous scene of his siblings playing in the snow suddenly dulls, greying like it was the fun he was seeing in it that had been giving it its colour.
In the hallways of Wayward House, there are beautiful ornaments on pedestals lining the walls, and intricate paintings hanging in grand golden frames, depicting scenes that could be dated back to the very beginning of the universe. The top floor hallway of the House looks just like any other, yet it houses a secret which only one is in knowing of. At the end of the hallway there is a bookcase, with swirling designs carved into its wood work. Upon its shelves are volumes of texts, and battered children's stories which were supposedly written by the Lord himself. The bookcase's appearance is not extraordinary in the slightest.
Last autumn, before the lights were turned down for the children to go to bed, the children had been playing a huge game of tag around the House. A few had been chosen to be the taggers, and every time someone was caught, they became a tagger too.
Castiel had found himself being ganged up on by half a dozen angels, and had managed to somehow slip out of their grasp and dive onto the top floor hallway in a tumult of black wings and flailing limbs. It was only a matter of time before they caught up. He wasn't very fast. He picked himself up and hurtled down the hall, only to come short when he realised he was trapped in front of the book case, the only other doors nearby either locked or just trapping him more if he were to go in them. He edged back to the wall beside the book case and realised that there was a gap behind it. Breathing a sigh of relief, he slotted himself in the space and leant back against the panelled wall.
Which moved.
The lower panel wobbled against his back and he gasped because he thought someone was somehow behind him, but noticing it was just the wall, he pressed back against it harder. It moved again. He grasped his hands against the surface and pushed up, wondering what would happen, and squeaked when the panel gave way and lifted easily in his small hands. Awkwardly – since the space he was in was so confined – he managed to pull it forwards and slide it to the side. Kicking his leg back, he realised there was a space there. An excited babble of voices and the thunder of feet made him not care about how small the space could be, and, hunching over, he threw himself backwards and landed on his bottom with a soft thump. He scrambled to his knees and dragged the panel back into place, finding nooks in the back of it which made it easy for him to slot it back onto the wall from his side. The moment his fingers were free, he collapsed back on his bottom again, and breathed heavily. That had been…scary. He had thought he was going to be caught. Then he really took in his surroundings. He was sitting in the wall partition between the outside wall and the inside wall. It was very narrow, though he presumed that if Gabriel wanted he could squeeze inside. But Gabriel never would, because no one else but Castiel would know about this place. He was going to be sure of that.
Climbing to his feet, Castiel gazed left, and then right. It was very dark either way. But he wasn't going back out there. Not with them all searching for him. Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward carefully, into the blackness. He placed one foot in front of the other, his hands feeling around in the air before him. When his knees bumped into something solid, he yelped accidentally. The sound ricocheted off of the walls and he clapped a hand over his mouth. Someone on the other side of the wall had probably heard that. Worriedly, he felt what it was he collided with and discovered it was some sort of concrete step, or slab. Then he felt up high and it was the same up there too. There was a gap between the barrier big enough for him to crawl through. Curious, Castiel dipped low and inched inside. Still on top of the step, he continued crawling until there was no longer concrete over his head. He looked up. A stream of white, soft light was coming from above him. If he stood, he could easily reach out and…
The panel moved. The light got brighter as he pushed as hard as he could against the panel. Eventually it gave way, but he didn't anticipate it cracking from the force he was exerting on it. Well…now that's broken. If someone found out, he'd be in big trouble for that.
That's if someone found out. Castiel had never even heard of there being another floor above the top one. He pulled himself up and through the hole, not able to take in whatever room it was he was climbing into since his eyes were scrunched so tightly together in his effort to hoist himself. Finally, he was inside, and opened his eyes.
The light he had seen was moonlight, shining bright through a skylight overhead on the ceiling. The space around him was empty. It could hardly be called a room, since it was so small. But it was enough. It was silent and peaceful. He had found a sanctuary in the House. An escape from the bullies. He could already picture a little stack of his favourite books by the far wall. Maybe a few blankets from the cupboard all spread out on the floor. An oil lamp or two in the corner. A pillow perhaps? Castiel smiled.
It was small, neglected, unnoticed and quiet.
Just like him.
And he liked that. He liked that a lot.
It is in this very place that Castiel sits, just over a year later, huddled in a thick navy blanket with an oil lamp flickering beside him, enveloping the room in warm glow. He is leant against the wall, staring up through the skylight at the steadily falling snow beyond the glass, and letting thoughts wander across his mind.
He shouldn't have run away from Balthazar today. He should have said thank you.
But before, whenever anyone has been kind to him, it's always false niceties – either to get something that they want, or just to spite him in the end. Troubled, his lower lip pouts and he pulls the blanket closer to his body, clutching his teddy bear to his chest underneath it. Is he ever going to be able to have a friend? Someone other than his teddy bear, who silently listens to his thoughts and woes, but never actually speaks. But he just finds it so difficult to trust others, when everyone's is so mean.
Sometimes…and he never says it aloud because he wouldn't ever want to face the consequences…but sometimes…he just wants to escape.
Escape the bullies. Escape this House. Escape Heaven.
He just wants to tuck himself away somewhere that no one will find him. Where he can live in peace, away from the taunts and the insults. Where he could hide his wings away, make them invisible, and not have anyone mock him. Where he could be free.
He feels his eyelids drooping. The book he has been holding against his knees falls off and hits the floor, its yellowing pages splaying open. He shuts the book and tucks it onto the pile of others, and folds his blanket neatly. Placing it in the corner, he hooks his teddy under his arm and blows out the flame in the oil lamp. He needs to get back into bed before he falls asleep in here. He comes here most nights. It may not be much to anyone else – no one else knows it even exists. But to Castiel, it is the place he feels he can truly call his home. It's the most special thing he has.
It's a tiny fragment of the escape he's always dreamed of.
