Chapter Seven: The Truth
Castiel was miserable. He hadn't been at school for a week, and the last time he had missed even a day of school was when he had gotten the flu in the seventh grade. He only stayed home because Gabriel had made him. But now, he sought comfort in his blankets, to no avail. He only ever ventured out when he got so hungry or thirsty it hurt and he was forced to move from his cocoon of fleece and cotton.
On Saturday, Castiel was getting groggy with sleep. It was broad daylight outside, but he constantly slept during the day because he was up all night. He was just about to slip into a fatigue induced sleep when he heard his phone go off for the first time all week. In a dreary daze, he snaked his hand out of the covers and grabbed it.
1 New Message: Sam Winchester.
Castiel tossed the phone onto the ground, and readjusted his position, melting into sleep not long after.
Everything was dark, and cold. Extremely cold. Castiel shivered as he wrapped his arms around himself. His comforting, familiar coat was gone, and he felt bare without it. His teeth clacked together, and he tried desperately to silence them. He felt like making noise was a very, very bad idea.
A loud noise made Castiel jump, and he bolted into the darkness. Hands outstretched he found a wall, and clung to it. It was moist and damp, like a cave. Castiel felt the mud come off on his fingers as he backed himself against it. He heard the noise again, a deep, animalistic rumbling. More shivers shook him, but not any caused by cold.
His breath was heavy and ragged, and he placed a muddy hand over his mouth to try and silence it. The taste of the mud was disgusting, filling his mouth with a dirty, earthy taste as he pressed his fingers against his lips.
The sound was there again, this time accompanied by the steps of something heavy. Another ragged breath escaped Castiel's lips, and he felt his eyes go wide in fear, searching out the darkness for whatever was pursuing him.
The footsteps and growling was now joined by low, heavy breaths, and sniffing. Castiel tried to silently smear mud over himself, hoping the earthy stench would mask his own. But, as he dragged his hand against the wall, a rock was knocked loose and toppled the the ground. Castiel's insides tightened as the terrifying noises stopped.
In an instant, Castiel's breath was knocked from him, and he felt a terrible pain dig into his arm. He cried out, and he felt fur and leathery skin press into him as the creature pinned him to the wall. A paw-like structure tipped with lethal claws tore into Castiel's skin again, and he howled. It pressed down with astounding force, and Castiel heard and felt his bones snap in two. The pain was unreal, he felt like collapsing to the ground in a puddle, but the creature held him there.
Hot breath was in his ear, and the animal's growling was extremely loud. It panted, and the rumble in its throat began to change. Slowly, it transformed into a laugh, a terribly familiar laugh. The monster's laughing rung out through the cave and Castiel felt tears streaming down his face from the unbelievable pain in his arm.
"Little freak." The monster whispered, and suddenly the pressure was gone. Castiel fell to the ground, and grabbed onto his broken arm, yelping as he twisted it painfully. He laid on the ground and cried for a long time, wishing someone would come find.
"Help me!" He called out into the darkness, but his voice just echoed across the walls.
Hours seemed to pass as Castiel lay on the muddy ground, and he was numb from the cold and the pain. Something tried to reach his ears, but it had trouble fighting through the pounding inside his head. Castiel was aware there was a noise, and he was convinced the monster was going to return.
The noise fought harder and harder, and Castiel was slowly able to make it out.
"Cas...Cas...Cassie...God dammit Castiel!"
Castiel jolted awake in a blind panic. The sheets and blankets were wrapped around them, and he fought manically for a moment trying to free himself. He came to his senses slowly, and his breathing was heavy pants. Sweat soaked his lower back.
"What the hell, Cassie?" Gabriel stood in the doorway, holding a plate with a sandwich on it in his hand. Castiel slowly untangled himself completely and sat on the edge of his bed. His breathing had finally returned to normal, and he looked up at Gabriel with weary eyes.
"Eat." Gabriel shoved the sandwich and Castiel's face, but he didn't take it. Gabriel rolled his eyes.
"You will eat this sandwich if I have to force feed it to you."
Castiel took the sandwich and slowly started to eat it to placate his brother. Gabriel stood silently until Castiel had finished the whole thing. Gabriel took the plate back and set it down on a desk.
"You're going back to school, Cassie."
Castiel felt every inch of his body bristle in protest.
"No." He replied gruffly.
"Look, you don't get a choice, little bro. I don't know what happened, but you're not gonna sit around and rot. Besides, that Sam kid's been calling looking for you."
Castiel looked up, a surprising vehemence in his eyes. "That doesn't matter to me."
Gabriel quirked an eyebrow. "What happened with you two?"
Castiel remained silent.
"Whatever. You're still going in on Monday." Gabriel left the room, and as soon as he shut the door, Castiel buried himself under the blankets again.
Monday rolled around, and Gabriel was in Castiel's room bright and early to drag him out of bed. Castiel protested, but after Gabriel had removed every sheet from his bed, Castiel got up, if only because the shower was warm. Gabriel stood watch as Castiel gathered his clothing and a towel for a shower, and leaned outside the bathroom door while Castiel went in.
Gabriel heard the water splash on, and rapped on the door with a few knuckles.
"Don't think about staying in there too long. I made sure to use all the hot water anyway."
Castiel got in the shower and felt the coldness hit him with a shock. He rushed to shampoo his hair, cursing Gabriel every second of it. He escaped the shower quickly, some soap still left over in his hair, but gained no relief from the airy bathroom. Clutching his towel around him, Castiel tried to soak up as much of the water off his skin as possible. When he thought he was dry as he was going to get, he put on his clothes quickly, glad to have warm fabric over most of his body. Castiel brushed his teeth and towel-dried his hair, and then exited the bathroom, to find Gabriel standing there, holding Cas's backpack.
"Let's go, kiddo."
Castiel begrudgingly grabbed his backpack, as well as his coat from off the coat rack, and put both on. He followed Gabriel out into the snow, and got in the car, remaining stone silent the entire time.
As they drove down the road to school, Gabriel looked over to Cas.
"Be pissed all you want kid, but I'm helping you."
"I do not think you realize the meaning of the word help." Castiel replied bitterly.
"I don't think you realize you need help." Gabriel gave his brother a serious look, but Castiel just looked away.
They pulled up the the school, and Gabriel stuck close to Cas until they were inside. He watched his little brother go off to his bench, and finally let himself relax. Siblings were such a pain sometimes.
Castiel sat on the bench as usual, and watched the snowflakes, as usual, but he didn't really care. He didn't care that even though on a crystalline level, each snowflake was different. They all looked the damn same to him.
Suddenly, something was blocking his view of the snowflakes he didn't give a damn about. Castiel looked up, and emotions swelled up with him in a multitude.
"Sam. What are you doing here and why do you look so angry?" Castiel thought that Sam really had no right to be angry.
"Well, maybe if you had answered my phone calls or texts, I wouldn't be so pissed." Sam said exasperatedly. "Cas, I thought something bad had happened, like Lucifer bad."
Castiel felt his own anger slide away and confusion take its place. "Why does it matter to you?" He inquired.
Sam threw his hands up in the air. "That is what I've been trying to tell you all week. Look, I told Dean what happened when I went over to your house. I had tried the other day, but he wouldn't listen. He gets like that when he's pissed. But anyway, he gets it now. He's fine with us hanging out." Sam smiled hopefully at Castiel.
Castiel felt a weight drop off his shoulders, and a hot warmth rush from his stomach to his extremities. Everything was okay. He had his friends back. He had his family back.
Castiel stood abruptly and grasped Sam in a tight hug.
"I am incredibly relieved, Sam."
Sam laughed as he returned the hug. "Yeah, me too, Cas. Me too."
School passed quickly for Castiel that day, but he felt like each second was a breath of fresh air, not the monotonous drag it had been the last week. He felt himself laugh and smile, and Castiel just felt good.
Castiel and Sam walked out to the cars again together, and they were nearly at the Impala when Sam spotted Dean leaning against the hood.
"Huh, that's unusual. Dean's never at the car this early. He must want to talk to you." Sam told Cas.
Castiel shrugged, but he hoped it was true. He wanted to let Dean know he wasn't mad, that he had understood, and he was just glad to be back in his life again. Everything was okay in Castiel's life again.
That is, until someone grabbed the back of Sam's backpack, nearly pulling him to the ground.
Castiel watched in slow motion as Lucifer pushed Sam onto the ground, grinning devilishly.
"Still a little freak, I see?" Lucifer kicked at Sam, who was trying to get back up. "Come on, bitch. Get back up!" Lucifer laughed as Sam rose and he pushed him back down again, the smaller boy hitting the gravel with a thud.
No, no no! Castiel thought, this can't be happening! Everything had just fallen back into place. Why was it falling apart again?
Castiel watched, frozen in horror, willing it all to stop.
"Hey, assbutt!" Castiel felt like he was going to vomit. Did that really just come out of his mouth? Did he really just call his older brother an assbutt?
Lucifer swiveled slowly, laughing incredulously. "Excuse me?"
There was that vomit feeling again.
Lucifer was just about to punch Cas into next year, when suddenly a fist collided with Lucifer's face.
"Fuck off, dick." Dean's gruff voice reached Castiel's ears, and it was the best thing he'd ever heard.
Lucifer turned back to Dean, rubbing his jaw. He launched his fist at Dean, who turned, but not quite fast enough. Lucifer clipped him on the shoulder, and Dean stumbled a little. Lucifer started laughing again, but was sorely interrupted when Dean collided into him with the force of a pickup truck.
The two older boys wrestled in the pavement, fighting and throwing punches everywhere. Dean managed to scramble on top of Lucifer, and straddled him as he threw several punches at Lucifer's face. Lucifer flipped Dean onto his back, and returned his own flurry of punches. Dean caught Lucifer's fist, and twisted his arm behind his back, while Lucifer started kicking out towards any body part of Dean's he could reach.
A crowd had started to gather, and Castiel and Sam stood stunned on the inside of the forming circle. Camera phones popped out everywhere, trying to document the two boys fighting. Eventually, a burly teacher broke through the ranks, followed by another slightly smaller, but equally threatening, one. They each grabbed a boy, and tore them apart, and started yelling at them to knock it out.
Lucifer shook off his teacher and stormed off to his car, while Dean stood in place as the crowd and his teacher disappeared. Sam and Castiel stood stunned, now accompanied by an equally confused Gabriel.
Dean, breathing heavily, walked up to Cas. "Hey, look man, I owe you an apology. I didn't know."
Castiel reached out and hugged Dean. "You owe me no apology, Dean Winchester."
Dean winced as the small boy hugged several bruises. "Great, hey, Cas? Could you let go?"
Castiel dropped his arms. "I am sorry. I forgot that you were injured."
Dean laughed. "It's okay. I should probably get home to take care of these. See you around, Cas."
Castiel got into his car as the Winchester's got into theirs, positively beaming.
"Some friends you've got there, Cassie." Gabriel mused as they drove down the street.
"They are the best friends I could ever ask for, Gabriel." Castiel felt a sting behind his eyes, but this time it was different. It was not the painful sting of sorrow, grief, or loss. It was a pleasant reminder that there were good things in this world, and amongst all of Castiel's bad things, he had happened upon a very large pocket of good things.
