Under the Gun: Chapter Two
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Title: Under the Gun
Author: girlgotagun
Pairing: Dean/Cas
Prompt: LINK
Chapter Two: Fairy Tales
AN: It seems worth mentioning that in this version of the story, Cas and Dean will not actually meet as soon. I mean, they’ll meet in the same point in the story as before, but there will be a few chapters before we get there, since we’re delving deeper into the background. Hopefully you guys will enjoy it all the same. :) Also, fun fact: I didn’t realize when I started this story that, because Cas is six years younger than Dean in this story, he would be sixteen at the time that the first installment of Dean’s history. So buckle up for some high school Cas!
. escape .
Castiel Novak paused on the front steps of the family estate, his stomach clenching at the thought of going in. He didn’t enjoy school-he was a small kid, the smallest boy in the sophomore class at his high school, and so he was an easy target for bullies. But the misery that the idea of going to school filled him with was nothing compared to the hollowed-out feeling that settled in his gut when he had to go home. It had always been hard there, his father’s tyrannic reign making life around the large house nearly unbearable, but it had become truly horrific in the last two years. Ever since that night…
He pushed the memory from his head and swallowed around the lump in his throat. He missed Anna. The sweet-tempered woman who had served as his nanny, filling in as a tenuous mother replacement for each of the Novak boys after their real mother had passed away, had stood here with him, patient as he refused to go in. There was a story that she told him as they stood there.
”There once was a house that sat near the sea. The wind whipped cold over the grounds and bit at the flowers that would barely bloom in the poisoned dirt. In the furthest room of the top floor there lived a little prince, imprisoned by a large and terrible monster. The little prince was sweet and kind, but he was very afraid of the monster, and he waited for someone to come and slay it, freeing him from his prison. But all who tried failed…”
Castiel couldn’t remember now how the story ended. He couldn’t even remember if it had a real ending, or if it was a happy one. He hadn’t understood the parallels as a child. He knew he was the prince in the story-or maybe it was each of the Novaks who had been under Anna’s care since she was only twenty-but that was all.
Anna had tried to free him. Anna had stood up to their father.
Anna lasted a year after that before she broke, and even her loyalty to Castiel and his brothers couldn’t keep her there. She quit; fled the house by the sea with the biting winds and the poisoned dirt.
Castiel was pretty sure by this point that the story had no end. He would be locked in his prison forever.
The monster was too strong, and too cunning.
The house was quiet when he finally got up the nerve to go inside, but instead of bringing him a sense of relief, it quickened his pulse. Yelling and anger was predictable. The quiet simmer was dangerous. He paused just outside of the doorway to his father’s office, listening for movement as he lingered out of sight. He could hear the sound of the man typing on his computer, then a pause as the sound of ice clinking around in a glass reached his ears. His eyes fell closed and his shoulders hunched. It was going to be one of those weekends.
He stepped back, circling around the entrance hall and slipping through the doorway of the sitting room, taking the long way through the kitchen to the back stairs to avoid passing by the office door. His footsteps were nearly silent on the stairs, years of attempts at moving quietly, going unnoticed assisting in the feat as he hurried up to the third floor.
He stepped out into the hallway and nearly slammed into his older brother, Luc. He had forgotten that the eldest Novak was going to be home from college for the weekend. His father always had a reason to drink; this weekend it was probably Luc.
“Hey, Cassie.” The young man gave him a lopsided grin. “Sneaking around again?”
“I don’t enjoy baiting our father.” Castiel’s tone made the unspoken unlike you clear.
Luc shrugged easily. “Can’t be afraid of him forever, little brother.”
“Can’t we?” Castiel didn’t understand his oldest brother’s lack of concern. After all they had been through, all they had seen, how could Luc act so unaffected? Michael, the second-oldest, made more sense-he may be their father’s pet, the most obedient and worshipping of the brothers, but at least it came from years of being beaten down until he was molded into what he was. It was understandable. Luc’s indifference was not.
“What more can he do to us? What can he take that he hasn’t taken yet?”
It was the question that haunted Castiel’s every waking thought, as well as most of his dreams.
. escape .
The shouting started at a little after eight that night, Luc and his father’s angry voices floating up through the floor. Judging by the direction, they had likely run into each other on the second-floor landing. Castiel tried not to listen; the exact words were indistinct. When he had been younger, he would get up and lock his door before hiding under his bed, curled in a ball as he prayed for someone to save him, like in Anna’s story.
His prayers were never answered. If there was a god, he had given up on the Novaks a long time ago.
Castiel didn’t pray anymore.
He didn’t lock his door anymore, either. When he was twelve, his father had taken off all of the doorknobs from his and his brother’s rooms and replaced them. The new ones weren’t the kind that were intended for interior doors. Instead of a button lock that could be disengaged with a paperclip, these had actual keys. They were mounted backwards, the keyhole on the inside of the room.
Castiel and his brothers had watched as their father handed the keys to one of his workers and told them to lock them in one of the safes at work. The worker had obeyed. From that day on, the brothers could be locked in their rooms, but they couldn’t lock anything out.
Sure enough, it was less than an hour later when Castiel heard the lock engage, his father’s heavy footsteps moving on to Raphael’s room next door.
Castiel looked up from his book, his gaze traveling out the window as Luc’s tail lights wound down the long driveway to the gates of the property.
He tried to remember the end of the story. In a house that sat close by the sea, where the biting winds blew and nipped at the flowers that wouldn’t bloom in the poisoned soil…
He couldn’t remember the end as Anna told it. Ultimately, though, it didn’t matter. Castiel knew the end. He had seen the end. It was only a matter of time.
. escape .
The image of Luc driving away stuck in Castiel’s mind all through the weekend. He wasn’t allowed to drive; none of the Novak brothers were, technically. Luc had ruined that for them. Because now Luc could drive away whenever he wanted. He could turn his back on the house by the sea, the poisoned dirt kicking up under his tires, and he could run away. Michael couldn’t drive. He was two years younger than Luc, three years older than Cas.
Or maybe Michael could drive. Maybe he had learned since he had gone to New York for college. Maybe it was his single act of rebellion against his father. But Castiel doubted it. Michael was too obedient for that. Besides, because Michael was well-behaved, he was allowed to use the car and driver more often. Because Michael wouldn’t lie about where he was going. Michael wouldn’t turn his back and drive away the way Luc did. Castiel thought that his father would probably let Michael learn to drive if he asked. But Michael wouldn’t ask. And Castiel supposed that was sort of the point of the thing.
Raphael and Castiel were the only two of the sons who lived at home. Michael and Luc were both in New York for most of the year, attending Cornell University in Ithaca. It was their father’s school, and the patriarch had a lot of eyes out there. That was the only reason he allowed his sons to stray to the opposite coast. Nothing got past him.
Next year, Raphael would be gone as well. It would be another year before Castiel got out, himself. He wasn’t looking forward to the long year spent alone. It made him feel a little guilty, but he was relieved when his father’s anger was turned against someone other than him.
It was probably a punishment for those feelings that He would be the only one for the anger to be directed at.
When Castiel was little, he had prayed for a sign that under everything, his father loved him. Because despite it all, Castiel did love his father. He would have ripped out his own heart to hear him say just once that he loved him, to receive just one kind look, a single soft word from the man.
That prayer went unanswered, too.
Michael said that their dad loved them; of course he did. “He’s just tough, is all. It’s to make us strong. The world is a bad place, and he wants us to be ready for it. He wants us to be able to handle it, and to be successful.” Michael had smiled when he said that, ruffling Castiel’s hair affectionately. “Hang in there, Cassie. You’ll see when you’re older.”
The older Castiel got, the more he doubted that. But sometimes he repeated it to himself, hoping it was true. It made it easier to withstand the harsh lashes of the belt, the sharp sting of the back of his father’s hand on his face, the broken sobs from his brothers that seeped through the walls and deep into his bones.
He desperately wanted Michael to be right.
He was terrified that Luc was.
He tried to remember the end of Anna’s story.
And in the farthest room of the top floor, there lived the littlest prince. He was imprisoned by a terrible monster, and he hoped that one day someone would rescue him from his prison. But the monster was large and terrible, and all who had tried had failed. Still the prince waited…
He couldn’t remember the end. But he had no hope that it was a happy one.
Continue to Chapter Three
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