Hope lost in darkness.

Pilot

People who have never been abused often wonder why a person wouldn't just leave. They don't understand that breaking up can be more complicated than it seems.

Ÿ Fear: Your friend may be afraid of what will happen if they decide to leave the relationship. If your friend has been threatened by their partner, family or friends, they may not feel safe leaving.

Ÿ Believing Abuse is Normal: If your friend doesn't know what a healthy relationship looks like, perhaps from growing up in an environment where abuse was common, they may not recognize that their relationship is unhealthy.

Ÿ Low Self-esteem: If your friend's partner constantly puts them down and blames them for the abuse, it can be easy for your friend to believe those statements and think that the abuse is their fault.

Ÿ Love: Your friend may stay in an abusive relationship hoping that their abuser will change. Think about it -- if a person you love tells you they'll change, you want to believe them. Your friend may only want the violence to stop, not for the relationship to end entirely.

***

The laptop screen falls dim, adding to the darkened room around him. He's spent too long staring at the blurring words across his screen. Even as the information sits, he can't bring himself to exit the page. Almost hoping for all the answers he's been looking for too appear in front of him. Like this will make everything better again. It wont, he knows it wont, it's a silly thought to even think that it would have made everything better. Nothing comes that easy. To think that he could have won this war in the first place was practically delusional. To think that they would have had a happy ending is even more crazy.

...
*4 months earlier*

Castiel pulls his car around back of the two story brown brick building, located in the "Bad part" of town, or better known as downtown. At least that's what Castiel refers to it as. A large blue neon sign adorns the front of the sad looking building. Large bulky letters, that glow black in the afternoon light, reading Crossroads BAR in cursive over the top of the dark blue. Letters flicker in and out from age, slightly buzzing as they do so. He sighs as he glances up at the familiar sign, the poor building so old that it's close to collapsing. Even though the place rakes in enough money to fix these things, the owner, Crowley has different ideas as of where he is going to spend it. Crowley is a cruel man, with dark eyes and dark hair, to match his personality he guesses. He's not around his business much, seeming as he has other places to check up on. The man owns close to twenty other business in this town alone. Castiel doesn't know what they are, or where but he's heard enough horror stories about it, that he keeps his mouth shut. The man is snarky, even blunt and rude sometimes. He may be shorter than Castiel, but that doesn't mean he isn't more terrifying. Having been in prison for sometime before disappearing completely. Until one day his name was popping up everywhere. He doesn't know much, but he does know that his boss is dangerous. You heard right, Castiel's boss. Ever since last year he believes. Castiel moved here a little over a year ago, with his brother. And as time went on, he decided Two months after moving that he needed something to fill some of his free time. That's when he saw the makeshift sign taped out front claiming they needed help. He didn't know the first thing about bartending, but that's just another reason he wanted the job. He didn't want just some regular boring job. He wanted something that would be different, totally unlike him. At least something to put some excitement into his life. And from what he's heard the place was pretty crazy sometimes. So he took it. And has been working there ever since.

He pulls into the little space behind the building, claimed as his, and throws his car into park. Taking his seat belt off, and grabbing his things from the passenger seat, he removes the keys from ignition, and pockets them. Then finally steps out of his silver Mercedes.