I Promise | A Destiel High School & College AU

CHAPTER 1 - Castiel James Novak

"I am tired of getting up every time I fall and trying to fight the fight I will never be able to win."
~Nichole Parisian

It wasn't fair for schools to force students to write and draw about their families.

That may seem strange, but every time those assignments were given, it only made Castiel want to cry. Every other child would gleam as he decided what color to make his mother's shirt and laugh when he realized he'd made his father too tall. Castiel, though, always portrayed feelings of anger, grief, sadness.

He'd lost his parents and his two brothers, Gabriel and Michael, when he was six. They were beaten, tied up, and left inside a burning house. The killer, or killers, were never found.

The only reason Castiel survived was because he was spending the night at a friend's house. And he's hated himself every day for not being able to have left this wretched world with his family that he missed so dearly.

His uncle, Metatron, took him in. He's been living with him ever since. If, by living, you mean sleeping in the run-down apartment that his uncle can barely afford. Castiel does not, nor will he ever, consider it home.

Can you imagine a place where you feel so alone, so unwanted, that the ghosts of your past are the only constants in your life? A place without happiness, without light, and without love.

A place to sleep is not all he gets there, though. The twisted mind of the uncle who blamed Castiel for so much, including the deaths of his sister and nephews, often took his anger out on him. It wasn't uncommon for Castiel to go to sleep each night with a newly-formed and aching bruise. The last thing Castiel had the energy for were the questions and interrogations that reaching out for help would bring. Just a few more months and he would be able to leave this God-awful place.

Castiel doesn't blame his uncle. Truly, he is an evil man, but the way Castiel figures - some people are so miserable and so unwilling to seek a better life that they drag everyone else down with them.

Castiel doesn't own much: a few sets of clothes and books and the occasional photo of his family.

He carries around a camera with him everywhere. It's one of those old-style Polaroid cameras where the flash pops up and the pictures print instantly. It was the last thing his mother gave to him before she died.

The night of the incident, before Castiel left to go to his friend's house, his mother called him into the kitchen and sat him down.

"This is yours now, Castiel," she said, handing him the camera. "You can take pictures of your friends and keep them in a scrapbook or hang them on a wall, whatever you want. It's a precious thing, to capture someone's happiness. I know you'll be good at it." She smiled and winked at him and he smiled back.

Those words were just that to a six-year-old: words. He brought the camera with him that night. But the fire swallowed everything else.

A silver locket with angel wings on it that had belonged to his father was spared, and it used to hold a picture of Castiel and Gabe in it. But now it held a picture of Castiel's mother and father. He hasn't taken it off once since the fire department found it in the wreckage.

That's all he has of his old life. He wears the locket and takes the camera with him everywhere. He takes pictures of people he's never met. He'll go unnoticed, but still manage to capture a photo of someone while they're showcasing a genuine laugh or smile.

He doesn't keep any of the photos. He just likes to capture the happiness of people in an unhappy world.

~

Every day before the sun sets in the evening, Castiel will put his camera, his sketch pad and pencils, and his journal into his backpack and venture outside.

He goes to a tree in the back of the park near his uncle's apartment.

He found it when he was little, and it's nearly entirely out of sight from the actual park. A small rock sits at the base of the tree, pointed towards an open grove. Multitudes of flowers erupt from the ground and surround a small pond fixed with a two-and-a-half foot high waterfall. Castiel goes here everyday, out of sight from the real world and draws, reads, writes, thinks.

He feels safe here, and even though no one is ever around he can talk out loud and doesn't have to wait for the next angry voice to tell him how useless he is and how little he matters in the world. Despite the unfair hand Castiel has been dealt, under his tree he can at least pretend he's slinging Aces.

Once Castiel has released all the thoughts he's held in throughout the day, he goes to a small diner down the road from the park.

Everyday, he goes in and sits in the same spot, four seats away from the wall on the left side, and orders a black coffee with sugar.

"Hi, Meg," he'll say to the girl behind the counter, the same girl there every day. And she will greet him with a smile and prepare his usual.

But one day, a sunny Thursday in April, everything changed. As Castiel was walking down the hill towards the diner after leaving the park, he noticed Meg's car was gone. In place of it was an old beater, black and shiny with an engraving that read 'Impala'. Castiel furrowed his eyebrows and tilted his head to the side, but continued walking.

When he walked in, he sat in his usual spot and waited. A few moments later, a man who couldn't have been much older than Castiel emerged from the back of the diner holding a notepad and pen.

His name tag read Dean and he had the most beautiful shade of green eyes that Castiel had ever seen.

"What can I get for you?" he said.