Love Bruises

Castiel, like all lucky children, is born attached to another imperfect soul. His father, Charles, first realizes this near Castiel’s sixth birthday, when he wakes up with a searing pain in his left leg and no discernible reason for why that would be. Later that afternoon, when a large bruise forms just above his shin, he knows somewhere out there lays a kid with a broken leg and a deep connection with his youngest son.

Over the years, as Castiel grows, his brothers relentlessly tease him about not only his bruises, but the obviously clumsy nerd to which he is tied. Not a month goes by without a fresh purple bruise blooming somewhere on Castiel’s body. He decides his soulmate must be the clumsiest fellow on the planet or, at the least, the most reckless.

One day, when Castiel is twelve and walking home from school, a crippling feeling washes over him. He feels as though he’s done an awful thing and the pressure of that guilt is attempting to crush him to dust. Of course for Castiel, a fairly good kid, there’s no reason this feeling should cloak him. It last for just a few minutes, but it leaves him breathless and panting and on the edge of his very first panic attack.

In the years that follow, Castiel’s anxiety (and consequent bouts of depression) gets incredibly worse and miraculously better at random intervals. Some days he can’t make it out of bed and other days he forces himself to school on tired, trembling legs. When he finally leaves for college, he does so with hopes of finally leaving these issues behind.