Note: This chapter is a little bit of a change from the regular format, as it is entirely devoted to telling the story of Cas's life so far in this universe, from his own perspective. Therefore it is mostly in 1st person narrative. This is a temporary change, and all will be back to normal by the next chapter, promise! :)

And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't

So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road

And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope

It's a shot in the dark aimed right at my throat

'Cause looking for heaven, found the devil in me

Shake It Out - Florence + The Machine

Chapter 11 - Castiel's Story

'From as far back as I can remember, my life and the lives of the people have been focused on one thing, and one thing only - God. My father ran - well, still runs - a medium sized fiercely evangelical church on the outskirts of Jamestown, North Dakota. My mother died when I was very young, but I have a very large family, made even bigger by the closeness of the church 'family' that my father has always insisted on.

I am the youngest of seven siblings - Raphael, Uriel, Zachariah, Inias, Gabriel, Balthazar and me. Raphael, Uriel and Zachariah are now figures of authority in the church, mostly responsible for organizing monetary matters and making sure that the family stays in a respected position in the community. I'm told that Jamestown College is almost entirely dependent on donations from religious organizations, and I'd bet my life that at least 80% of that comes directly from my brothers. Inias lives in Bismarck with his wife, running a state-wide evangelical TV channel. He also runs a christian camp for troubled children in the summer months, although I understand he's thinking of expanding that into a nationwide business, god help us. I haven't seen him in almost two years. Balthazar is closest to me in age and once in friendship, there's barely a year between us. He and I were responsible for spreading the word of God in youngsters our own age, a job we both hated with a passion. Unfortunately, he did have a natural talent for it, and was always most comfortable when he had an audience to talk to. We fell out when I decided - well, I'll get to that.

You'll notice I missed out Gabriel. Most people in my family tend to, if they can help it. He was charismatic, funny and, despite being entirely self-centered and narcissistic, he was always good to me. He used to be my father's golden boy - he ran the church Sunday School, produced the community pamphlets, basically acted as an approachable face for the entire operation. That is, until my father started to notice tiny things going wrong with his flock. Children from the Sunday school were writing essays on bible stories with twists in them, things that never graced the pages of any Sunday school book. The choir started constantly giggling behind the curtains during mass, and the collection plate seemed to always come back half full of candy wrappers and gum rather than heaped with it's usual money. Congregation numbers never went down, so nobody could directly point the finger at him, but my brothers grew suspicious of Gabe, and heaped blame on his back. They made up lies about him and made sure they reached my father's ears.

Then one morning I woke up and he was just gone. Disappeared in the night, which is no mean feat in a house as full and alert as ours was. My father dispatched Uriel and Micheal to find him and bring him back, and although they came extremely close to finding him several times, he always managed to avoid them. That was when my father decided to publicly disown him - he organised a special service and spent an entire hour and a half telling the congregation how his own son was the devil incarnate and should be reported to the police on sight for a hundred made up offences - all because he'd had the courage to escape. I saw him for who he really was that day - a mean, obsessive, sad man who, should I allow it, would happily control every aspect of my life down to the last detail until the day I died.

Well it's been nearly four years now since Gabe left, and I managed to start contacting him around a year after he left. Never very much or for very long, but it was enough to build my confidence. He wrote to me with tales of the huge cities and tiny rural towns he traveled through, and I took college classes in secret during my home school lessons. I managed to convince my father than I wanted to become a religious studies lecturer in order to take some teacher training classes at the local community college, and even then I was driven there and back by one of my brothers. Balthazar and I were under constant supervision from the very moment that Gabriel left, and it was suffocating.

I decided about six months ago that I was leaving. I wrote to an old Aunt of mine who had always been slightly skeptical of the way my father chose to organize his family, and found out that she was planning on leaving her home in order to move in with her son in her old age. We made an arrangement, but she insisted on telling my father about it, sympathetic as she was. Of course he went ballistic at first - forbidding me from setting foot outside the house unless I wanted to end up the same way as Gabriel, but after a while - and honestly, I'm not sure how to this day - he seemed to come around to the idea. I told him that I would be staying in this town, small and far away from the evil and corruption of the big city, and teaching at a small religious school in the area. I think he saw me as a figure sort of like Inias, spreading the word of God away from home while still connected to it. I went along with it, encouraging his delusions. He is old now, and leaves most of the running of the church to my brothers, who thankfully, see me as more or less harmless.

Balthazar was the exception. About a month before I left I confessed my real feelings to him - I think he was on my side until I told him that I wasn't even sure if I believed in God anymore. That was where I lost him, and no matter how much I begged him to leave with me, he wouldn't listen. He agreed not to say anything to my brothers, but refused to have anything to do with me after that.

Nobody helped me pack, or came to see me off when I left. I filled up a car I'd scrimped and saved to buy with my things from the room I shared my entire life with Balthazar; they barely filled the trunk, I had to stop at a dozen stores on my way here just to have enough personal items to fill a tiny house. I taped my cellphone number to the fridge and drove out of town at dawn without so much as a goodbye from my family, and didn't answer a single one of their calls until the morning after the first night I spent at your house. Uriel wanted to know if I had started teaching yet - I can only hope that my answers were sufficient and enough to quell any suspicions they might have.

You know the rest, pretty much. I changed my phone number so they couldn't keep bothering me. They don't have Gloria's address, or anything other than knowing which town I'm in, which is frankly, a lot more than I wish they knew. Before I came here, 99% of all the people I'd spoken to in my life had either been family members, church members or people I was forced to try and recruit, who would more often than not laugh in my face before I even opened my mouth. I hated being on my own, but I hated my family more, so it was really a choice of which was the lesser evil overall. I didn't have my own bank account, had never slept in a room that I didn't have to share with at least one of my brothers - I never even owned a cellphone until the day I left home. We were taught from a young age to both detest money and love of material goods, whilst at the same time encouraging everybody in the flock to pour their wallets into the church fund every week. The hypocrisy burns at my head every time I think about it.

I know this place isn't New York or Chicago or LA, but it's what I needed right now. I'm not Gabriel, I couldn't survive on my own in a place like that in the state i'm in now. All I want to do is lead a quiet life where I can help people who need help, and maybe have some friends. I don't think it's a lot to ask.'

Cas lay on the grass, staring up at the dark sky, clear as glass above them. They lay side by side in perfect silence, listening to the rustle of the gentle breeze dusting over the top of the lake for some time, the impala protecting them from the wind's cold bite behind their heads. An odd collection of objects on a quiet country lakeside. Broken, bent out of shape, maybe not worth a second look for most people - but all carrying the visible signs of something that has had a lot of effort put into carefully putting it back together again.

What did you think of Cas's story? Thanks for reading!