Two Weeks in Europe ✓

15

TW: abuse, suicidal thoughts

As his mother grew more and more sick throughout the years and Luc grew more and more demanding, Cas began to feel suffocated. He was breathing, but not really. His mind, his heart - they were gasping for air. It was as though he was trapped in a box, or pulled by a current under dark blue waves. When he talked to Luc, he dug his nails into his skin to keep from screaming. When he talked to Lilyanne, he pressed his lips shut to keep from crying. Anywhere but here, he was always thinking, unless he was with Jamie. Even on days when smiling was harder than moving mountains, Jamie made him laugh. Jamie always knew when he was hurting, and Jamie always knew how to fix it. It was like he had some magical spell that healed Cas's wounds, just for a little while. Cas would've killed for the power to do that to himself. In the end, he realized that he wasn't going to ever get it. In the end, he realized that he had to rely on Jamie. And he was, oddly enough, okay with that.

"You look sad," Jamie said, tilting his head as he gazed at Cas one night.

Cas fiddled with his shirt as he sat in Jamie's window seat, glancing out at the starry sky. "I'm not sad."

"Yes you are," Jamie said. There was a beat of silence. "You don't have to tell me," Jamie said quietly. "But I wish you would."

"I can't," Cas whispered, his voice cracking around the words. "I can't."

"Why not?" Jamie asked him, and Cas finally looked at Jamie again.

It's like my tongue is tied. The words won't come. I can't breathe. Please help me. "I just can't," Cas said shortly. A flicker of pity darted through Jamie's expression and Cas looked away again. He didn't want to be pitied. He didn't want to be "broken." But how was he supposed to hold himself together? Life wasn't kind to him in the way it was kind to others. He was not lucky. Jamie was his one good thing, and Cas was never going to let him go. But he did, in the end.

There were so many nights that he stood at his open window at least 20 feet above the ground waiting for some kind of sign. I don't want to be alive. And then Jamie would smile or Jamie would text and Cas was sucked back into reality. I have to stay alive. It wouldn't do to abandon the people who took care of him, it wouldn't do to abandon Jamie. Anything to keep from hurting Jamie.

It was as though life had decided that Luc's angry words and angrier fists were not enough punishment for whatever ill deed Cas had committed in his last life. He also had to have an ever-present, always-annoying, bitchy, nagging voice in his head that incessantly told him that the world was better off without him, and vice versa. He wasn't sure whether he believed the former or the latter more.

Cas didn't like to use specific labels. He figured that you loved whoever you happened to fall for, and your mental state of mind was either "good" or "bad." Cas's mental state of mind happened to reside in the "bad" category. Perhaps it was that his family life had finally caught up to him, or perhaps he was just sad. Life has a peculiar way of making you feel alone even while surrounded by people.

There were days when Cas rose from his bed after a sleepless night for the simple purpose of convincing Jamie that he was fine. Maybe he was also trying to convince himself. And it worked, for a while, but then things fell apart worse than they ever had before. Lilyanne had been in the hospital for nearly two months. Luc was getting more and more anxious by the hour. Cas could almost feel the fear and fury radiating off of his father in waves. He watched the man with wary eyes, skirting around him as quietly as possible. If he wasn't seen, he wouldn't be hurt. The bruises from two weeks ago had just barely healed. Cas did not want more.

Cas took a deep breath as he stepped into the kitchen cautiously. His father was sitting there, head in his hands. Cas watched as a tear dripped down Luc's brown cheek. He almost pitied the man. Almost. "Father," Cas said in a steady voice that certainly did not match the hatred and nervousness roiling in his gut.