floorboards creak... [ch: two]

Cas wakes up from a recurring dream, his father and mother are aging rapidly in front of his eyes and everyone in his commune is looking at him expectantly to take care of them. A wheelchair appears for his father, a ventilator for his mom, his siblings come into view. Balthazar is yelling at him, Anna is trying to pull him out of the front door, Uriel looks like he wants to jump out of the window just to get away from the chaos.

It’s madness. He wakes up in a cold sweat but he hears Uriel’s music playing from down the hall, now that he’s been able to hang out with other Black twentysomethings, his taste in music has greatly improved. Softly in the background is a song called “Heat of the Moment” by a duo that calls themselves Ear Drummers backwards, Rae Sremmurd. The lyrics have become a mantra for Cas and Uriel: "…In the heat of the moment, I know I can trust myself."

It’s a direct violation to everything his parents taught them both. Cas and all of siblings were adopted by cult leaders so none of them look alike but Anna, once she was able to study astrology the way she always wanted, stated that they worked well as siblings regardless of their adoptions because of how complementary their charts all were. Something about the trines, Cas never paid close attention.

Anna and Balthazar were probably currently smoking weed on the rooftop of their brownstone, hopefully not too close to Cas’ heated and insulated bee colony . He had gotten a colony last year as a birthday present from Gabriel before he left for Amsterdam. Unlike the five of them, Gabriel had no intention of claiming a makeshift chosen family out of his siblings. He was also the only one who was painfully heterosexual.

That was probably the biggest schism somehow between Gabriel and his siblings, he just…wouldn’t admit that sexuality was fluid. It was weird. Cas sighs and gets up to do his skincare routine, which given his level of depression is just splashing water on his face and getting back in bed until it was actually sunlight hours. New York around this time of year is cloudy but doesn’t feel so gloomy in the warmth of the brownstone.

It had belonged to Joshua, the first person to leave their cult. They had gotten word he had passed and left the brownstone to Castiel, so he and all his siblings planned their escape. Six years later, all of them were still here besides Gabe and Gadreel (who had changed his name to Tahmoh when he moved to Canada.)

Cas tries not to worry about how they’re doing but it’s hard. Cas was always a bit of a mother hen despite being the youngest sibling. He’s sure birth order specialists would be so confused by his family.

Uriel’s music shifts to some BANKS song. Cas ventures it’s probably “Gimme” from the opening. He sighs and decides to go for a walk. It’s January 2nd and he slept through the move in of their new downstairs neighbor, but he figures 4am isn’t the time to go say hello.

Cas’ mind wonders where Gabriel might be at this hour in London (or wherever he decided to spend New Year's drunk out of his mind.) He wonders if it’s appropriate to call and worry at him or if his therapist would consider that part of his “preoccupation” with keeping his siblings safe. She’s labeled it something to undo as he works through the bulk of his cult trauma but Cas feels like he worries a healthy amount. She evidently disagrees as most sessions are a tug of war of “Well, what about you, Cas?” and “Castiel, let’s refocus.”

Cas sighs as he hears the door click behind him and half jogs down the stairs, keys jingling in his hoodie all the way down to the landing.

As he opens the front door of the brownstone and makes his way down to the corner, he makes one more glance at Uriel’s window. It sounds like he’s playing yet another BANKS song. Cas often wonders how any of this helps Uriel program absurd amounts of software and websites better but he doesn’t ask. Of all his siblings, Uriel is best at evading closeness and an expert at asking Cas politely to mind his business. It’s always best to let Uriel simply elect to share.

Being an almost all-white cult probably didn’t help his conception of self; he had to be the toughest. And once they got out, all his siblings learned about racism and anti-blackness and realized, even though Uriel was free, it didn’t mean life was going to immediately get easier for him the way it might for them. He was the last among them to get hired somewhere and it only happened because he went back to the name the cult had chosen for him. The irony is that it was Uriel’s idea for them all to change their names in the first place. Now it seems for employment, he’s anchored to it.

Cas takes a deep breath and tries not to lament, he looks at who else’s window is lit in the brownstone. It appears his new downstairs neighbors may have one night owl among them. He’s unpacking boxes at 4am, maybe the nerves of the move have him up, Cas can only speculate. The man has a severe yet lonely disposition about him. And he, wait…looks familiar.

Cas looks down at his phone and checks his twitter DMs. Unanswered and maybe even unopened sits a message; the guy looks exactly like the man he had DM’d who had Kansas in his twitter bio. Did he fake his location like Cas faked his name? Cas’ message was innocuous enough, “good to know folks in middle america still care about the sanctity of education, ;). how are you today?” it read.

Maybe the rainbow in Cas’ pinned tweet put him off and the guy is homophobic, Cas didn’t want to assume either way and sure, maybe this a strange turn of events but not unwelcome. It might even be kismet, they could actually be friends. They were already neighbors. Cas didn’t even know what drew him to DM the guy, he seemed…kind…in his photos.

He decides not to risk another look in case the guy looked at a chance moment and recognized him, Cas didn’t wanna seem like a stalker and the lease was already signed so it was best to just leave the guy be. Cas uses an alias of "Tom Sully" online anyway, for cult protection, and a cartoon avatar that was clearly drawn from a real photo of him.

Anna had created the photo for him, her and Uriel decided it was the best way for them to be authentic online but escape the facial recognition software the cult still used to find defectors. Cas doesn’t handle the landlord stuff, he hates the idea to be honest, so he’d have to ask Gabe how long the guy was here for. Maybe, they could go for coffee when he moved out?

Cas accidentally bumps into a dramatic jogger who definitely saw him lost in thought (but decided to plow through him anyway) and he takes it as an opportunity to cross the street and head in the direction of Central Park. Maybe the wildlife is sleeping near those man-made lakes, maybe he’ll catch a sleeping swan or something. If he ends up taking a small nap near the gazebo benches, he might even be well rested enough to open the cat cafe early. Cas, like in many areas of his life now, can only hope.