First he was fuming. How could Dean say something like that? How could he lie right to his face? Samandriel was dead. He was dead. Castiel covered his face. Oh, God... His entire body was jumping with nerves. Anxiety pumped through his veins like poison ivy, making him itch for motion. An image of Samandriel's mangled body burned like a brand on his eyelids. There was a killer on the loose. Then he was getting to his feet. He couldn't stay here and listen to any more lies. He needed air. He needed to get away from everyone and everything. Stalking out, he passed the truck angrily. Then he realized Dean would follow him; then he was running.
Castiel ran so quickly that the entire town flashed by, like a blur; its lights flickered and the crumbling sidewalks rapped beneath his shoes. The worn buildings watched with quiet worry as he sprinted across the dark street and swung around a thick oak tree, sliding down into the short ravine. His shoes sank into soft mud but he was moving still. He climbed the other side and stepped onto the soccer field of the high school, taking long strides to cross it. The fresh air shocked his mind, but did not clear it. He was still blind with the need to bolt. Pushing through the frigid night he crossed the entire field and picked a logical direction to sanctuary. He stepped into the woods behind the field, continuing onwards. He knew this way. He'd known it his whole life – this was his town, his school, his forest. It closed around him like welcoming arms.
One of his hands jerked at his side and a stray branch sliced it open. Hissing, Castiel looked down at the blood creeping from the wound and spilling over his fingers. What else was Dean lying about? His life? His brother? He fumbled and wrapped his blue tie tightly around the cut so that the cheap blue was tainted with a raging and red stain spreading over its coarse material. With a flare to his nostrils and anger in his eyes, he kept gliding through the trees. Maybe he was lying about other things. Maybe he wasn't. Cas didn't understand yet, and he was too angry to want to understand.
Using the rest of the tie as a lasso, he hooked a sapling and stepped over a short drop in the ground with a trickling stream at the bottom. Branches and twigs bent back from Castiel as he pressed along the narrow footpath through the thick foliage. He shoved aside leaves and bushes and ducked under fallen logs until he reached the base of a large grassy hill on the other side. He lifted his eyes. A church sat perched at the top. The road leading to it was long and winding, and could not be easily found in the dark.
He stumbled upon it and climbed the steep rise to the building. It had two parts; half was a towering church with spires and fine new stained glass windows, where the worship and private prayer was held. It had many polished and sterile rooms rarely used except neatly and with religious intent. The other half was a portion for youth – a gym, a soccer field out back, and two lounge areas connected by a small but well organized library. Castiel went around back. There was a playground there, empty, but comfortable, full of tire shreds instead of gravel or sand as the blanket along the ground. Castiel hopped the short fences of the playground and worked his way to the back of the building. There, he pulled open a door always left open precisely for times just like this.
Everything inside was deathly silent. In churches, things always were. They were holy places. Castiel fumbled for the light switch and flicked it on. It flooded the long, narrow room with light. This common area had a door to the smaller, more private common area, and was covered in thickly cushioned couches and chairs. A large flat screen bolted to the wall on the opposite side of the room was where all of the couches were pointed. A pool table sat unused in the back and there were signs of life all around. Jackets left behind, half-finished Cokes. A tube of lipstick was pushed between the couch and the carpet.
This was where the youth group still gathered. A strong, healthy father of two ran it, with a few other parents who loved their teenagers. They had basketball and soccer matches against each other. They played trust games and babysat and did charity work. It was really a lovely community of kids. As the teenagers grew older, and moved off to college, the ones left behind still at school invited more friends to join until their family was back to full size again.
Castiel himself had come on the distinction to a couple friends for four months or so, when he was a freshman in high school. He'd even gone to a Methodist teen camp with them. But he never felt like he truly belonged anywhere – and being gay ruled out being comfortable in any religious facility - but he had never been struck dead when entering a place of God and he took that as a personal green light to be himself from the man upstairs.
He was never sure what drew him back here. It may have been the isolation. Religion was so personal, so individual; it was between you and God where you wanted to go, why you wanted to live the way you did. And if you felt he was content with your choices, you could indulge in things set about to remind you that He was always watching. That or the symbolism. This was where he had always felt the most accepted – even if he still didn't belong, they had been so kind to him, and given him such good memories, with a family who had genuinely loved him. Even if he left them behind. And here, he felt God's protection would not help nor hinder him, and that's what he craved right now. Neutral ground to think.
Now, he shut the door behind him and went to his favorite couch. It was walled in by all the others, like it always was, so you had to climb over the other ones to sit on it. And even then there was no space for your legs. He threw his vest across a chair and stepped over the other ones and collapsed into the old, huge, soft material of the couch. It settled him deep in its comforting bosom and both let out a sigh. He pushed his face into it and let his anger peter out into hurt and fear.
What, or who, had killed Samandriel? And why? He was an innocent kid. He'd never hurt anyone, or done a cross thing, or even smoked a cigarette in his life. Even Cas had let Martius convince him into smoking once. It only lasted a week; Matrius's athletic coach had chewed him out and made them both quit, but Sam… all he ever did was smile, and offer his help when it wasn't needed, and pester Castiel until he was blue in the face. He never did anything wrong. Being annoying and overly obsessive wasn't a crime, and it shouldn't be. He was just a kid. Had been just a kid.
The emptiness of the room comforted him. It smelled like smiles and laughter and prayer. Castiel shut his eyes and let it drink him in. He let it fill his head and take the impression of his body and folded his arms to protect his head while he lay belly-down on his favorite couch. He just wanted to lie here in lonely peace until his wallowing let him break free of this sudden lethargy. He wanted to be away from the prying eyes of society and just be the helpless, jaded, pathetic human being he was, in the presence of God alone. He didn't hear the approaching footsteps.
"Cassy," came a voice, but Castiel was too bogged down by near-unconsciousness to be startled into moving. Instead he tensed up, frozen in shock. The figure hovering over him reached down and brushed his hair behind his ear, cupping the side of his face that wasn't pressed against the couch. Its tone licked his ear with an eerie familiarity. "You're bleeding," it whispered.