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Blind

WOW IM ACTUALLY UPDATING!! SOMEONE MARK THIS DOWN IN THE HISTORY BOOKS!!!

A/N: This is a follow up from a flashback that Castiel had in chapter 5 - Firelight. I'm just letting you know that since that chapter didn't get much attention and you might have missed it. (Also I have no idea who's reading this because no one has commented? Like is anyone there at all?) lmao

Castiel POV

Cas felt the fear drop into the bottom of his stomach, like a cold, metal bar. His heart rate quickened, and without really thinking about it, his bags slipped from his hands and he broke into a run.
His family, his mother! He feared the worst. Castiel ran faster.
As he neared his house, the flashing police lights burned into the back of his eyes. And he almost felt blind with anxiety, blind with the worry of what could have happened. He watched his feet skid to a stop in front of the police tape, he watched an officer come rushing towards him as he attempted to get underneath it.
"This is a crime scene sir," he said gruffly, putting a hand on Castiel's chest.
"This is my house!!" Castiel heard himself say, his voice sounded so far away, so detached. "What happened, where's my mother - where -" The words dropped out of his throat when he saw two men carrying a stretcher down his front steps. It had a black body bag on top of it.
Please please please, anyone else but my mom, anyone else but my sister, oh god my brothers. Anyone else, please please.
"Where's my mom!?" He screamed, and tried to force his way past the cop. The man was too strong.
"Where's my family??" Castiel's frantic shouts ripped through his mouth.
"Sir, this is an ongoing investigation you can't -"
"Cassy??" Suddenly called another voice, just as scared as Castiel's own. He whirled around to see his sister, she was behind the police tape, her hands were bloody, her eyes were a worn shade of red, she looked chillingly like a dead woman.
"AMELIA!" He yelled back, half with relief and half with terror at her appearance.
She rushed to him. Made to embrace him. The cop held her back,
"You have to be processed first,"
"You fucking asshole, let me hug my fucking brother before I fucking process you." She talked tough, but her words were hollow with grief.
The policeman let her pass, and she hugged Castiel with all the force she could muster.
"I'm so sorry baby," she said, as she broke into tears. "I'm so sorry that I couldn't..." She paused.
"Amelia what the fuck is happening," Castiel replied, crying now too.
"It's mom," was all she could say.
Castiel felt the world spin on its axis, he felt like someone poured a bucket of ice water down his back.
"Mom - what?"
Amelia suppressed a kind of desperate wail before she managed to choke out a response. Every nerve in Castiel's body was on the edge.
"Mom's - " Amelia started crying so hard that she couldn't hold herself up, she fell to the ground and held Castiel to her. She whispered thickly and pointed to the body-bag.
"Mom's the one over there."

Castiel scarcely remembered what happened after that, everything passed in kind of a numb blur. Nothing seemed real, and it was like it hadn't even happened at first, he didn't feel anything. Castiel saw images flashing by, he saw the police station, the investigators, he heard his sister talking and he was with her when she had delivered the news. Their mom had been beaten and killed by her abusive ex-boyfriend. Amelia was the only one home, she saw everything.

It was like Castiel had gone blind. The day and the night didn't separate anymore, days melted into weeks and weeks into months; he had nothing to distinguish one from the other. It was a formless blur, it lasted an eternity and it lasted seconds. Nothing was real.
It wasn't real when his brothers and sisters got split up and placed into foster care.
It wasn't real when he started drinking.
It wasn't real when he got jostled around from house to house, feeling invisible, unwanted, forgotten.
It wasn't real when he turned eighteen.
It wasn't real when he first joined the army.
It wasn't real when he got posted for active duty.
And it very nearly wasn't real when he found himself a doctor, saving lives in a desert.

It wasn't real for a long long time.

But somehow, eventually it was.

And it would be okay, even if it wasn't.

Castiel snapped awake in a cold sweat, the ceiling was far too close to his face, the walls were closing in and he couldn't breathe. What had he DONE?? Dean was a bad idea, in fact, the worst one he'd ever had. The army, this job, it was the best thing that had ever happened to him and now he was going to ruin it? What the fuck was he thinking? Castiel ran his fingers frantically through is hair again and again, in a desperate attempt to quiet his nerves. Anxiety was crawling over his skin like a sickness, Cas could feel his throat closing up and the back of his legs tingling. A panic attack was coming, he hadn't had one of those for years.
"Fuck," Castiel whispered fearfully to himself in the dark. Everything was screaming, he needed to get out. Get out! Get out! He felt sick, he was itchy all over. Before he realized what he was doing, Castiel had climbed out of his bunk and was outside again.
He breathed the night air into his lungs, thirstily. Wide open space, he wasn't trapped, he was alright, a canopy of stars was lain out before him. Everything was ok, everything was... Dean.
With a single thought - Castiel was panicking again. He knew he had to end it, he had to end it and save himself. This job made him okay, this job was his salvation. Castiel saved lives every day, he saved lives because he couldn't save his mother's, he saved lives because he could scarcely save his own.

The night was cool, as usual. There was no wind, and the sandy-gravel crunched under Cas's military boots. His mind was whirling. He liked Dean, he liked him A LOT, maybe even more than he'd like to admit. He didn't want to let Dean go, but his job kept him right, without it, he was nothing. The way he felt wasn't worth his career, being a doctor was the only thing he had to account for his train-wreck of a life. If someone had seen him and Dean tonight... It would have been all over. Castiel could have gotten a dishonourable discharge... His work wouldn't be there to keep him focused anymore and his old habits might return. No it wasn't worth it, without his tasks, Castiel was a broken man.

But he couldn't help feeling that Dean was all the pieces that he was missing, that Dean was the glue that could put them back together.

a/n: wow you waited all this time for a shitty shitty chapter (maybe you should just delete this story)