[FIC] Have We Lost Ourselves (Team Castiel/Crowley)

[caramelkaren]

Summary: Castiel is an abolitionist, one who was raised in the South as a child. He moved to the North in the years before the outbreak of war, and when he eventually fights for the Union army, facing the Confederacy is infinitely harder for him knowing he has to fight against the people he loves.
Word Count: 2,464 according to Microsoft Word
Characters: Castiel, Balthazar, Crowley, Michael
Pairings: unrequited (?) Castiel/Crowley
Tags: minor character death, slight violence, mentions of amputations if that makes you squeamish, Civil War AU

“Castiel Novak’s an abolitionist!” It was a sentence widely heard around in the Pennsylvania town Castiel lived in. Despite what Southern states like his home state of Virginia thought, the North wasn’t all full of abolitionists. Most people believed that getting rid of slavery all together held terrible consequences and that people like Castiel were radicals. It also didn’t help that the majority of abolitionists tended to live in Boston. That made one in Pennsylvania quite rare, and as a result, Castiel was quite the talk of the town.

All this attention being focused on him wasn’t Castiel’s favorite thing, but he figured it was a small price to pay for sticking up to his beliefs. He came from one of those rebellious states that believed they were their own separate country for some damned reason. He had seen the horrors of slavery first hand. No human being should be treated that way. Sure their darker skin was off putting, but they were still human first and foremost. Hence why he joined up with his cousin Balthazar.

Castiel wasn’t sure where he was going flee once he was able to buy his own land. All he knew was that he was making a trek to the North, to the free states. He knew there was no convincing slave owners that this practice was wrong. Flee or die at the hands of angry Southerners, those seemed to be his only options. Then Balthazar had wrote to him one day, informing him that he was always welcome to join the good fight up in Pennsylvania.

Eventually though civil war broke out. The tensions between the North and the South became too great and battles began to pop up all over. Normally Castiel would have jumped at the chance to fight in this war. War coverage when he was a kid from far off places like Mexico made it sound so glorious and exciting. But then he realized where most of the fighting was taking place: Virginia.

Castiel wasn’t so sure he could handle that. What if there was a battle in his hometown? What if he had to destroy where he grew up? It would take much convincing for him to be willing to do such a thing. Balthazar though, someone who had always lived in Pennsylvania except for the occasions when he would come down and visit Castiel’s part of the family, was eager enough to find himself signing up to be part of the Union army. This left Castiel all alone as war waged on.

Eventually Balthazar came back from the war, but it wasn’t pretty. He had an arm amputated after a Confederate soldier managed to shoot him there. “It was the only ‘cure’ they had,” Balthazar told Castiel. “They don’t have any other way to fix gun wounds. They can only cut off the body part. Of course if you’re shot somewhere like your chest, you’re basically screwed. Dead as can be. Can’t help you there.”

For a normal man in the Union, hearing tales like this began to off put them from signing up. War weariness was starting to sink in. For Castiel though, to see what Southerners did to his cousin, it made him want to grab his gun and get this war over with, a war that completely damaged Balthazar. Family went above and beyond anything else. That was a lesson a few friends over the years had taught him.

So in the spring of 1963, in the weeks leading up to Castiel’s departure for the army, the talk of the town was that the local abolitionist was finally putting his money where his mouth was. He was finally going out and fighting this war that was started over that slavery he was so abhorrently against.

When Castiel eventually made it to battle, fate made sure that he had to be stationed with a troop in charge of the seize on Richmond. The never ending quest. It was a goal since this war first broke out two years ago, and the Union still hadn’t managed to conquer it. Castiel couldn’t help but think that terribly sloppy planning and strategizing had to be the culprit behind why. No, he wasn’t a complete military expert, but it was just a hunch that he had. How else could you possibly describe why a city about 100 miles from the Union capital wasn’t seized yet?

Now Castiel’s hometown in Virginia was farther south, but it didn’t mean that attacking his old state didn’t make him feel guilty sometimes. Wasn’t this why the Confederate General Lee had chosen to wage war against the North instead of sticking with the United States army? Because he would have to fight against his Virginia home? Of course Castiel knew he had to be on the Union side. Abolishing slavery was far too important to him. Even if the goal of the war was supposedly to just reunite the country, Castiel couldn’t let it be just about that.

Sometimes while there were no battles going on, no other obligations that needed taken care of, Castiel would let his mind drift off and think about what things used to be like here in Virginia as a child. He would remember visiting his father’s slaves and trying to put some sort of cheer in their day by talking to them. He recalled going into town and his mother buying him sweets, prefaced with a warning of “Don’t tell your father.” But the memories that were the most vivid were the ones of him sneaking out to play with the neighbor’s son.

Castiel never understood as a child why his parents didn’t want him to interact with them. They had a boy that was his age, it was like magnetism to be drawn to someone who would have the same interests as him for once. None of his older brothers ever wanted to have some fun with him. It was disheartening. He needed a friend outside of school, but his parents forbid him from it being the neighbor boy. Of course once he got older he understood that it was a rivalry, the two plantation masters that were their fathers were always competing against each other. But as a child, it made absolutely no sense. He just wanted to be able to play with Crowley.

Crowley was Castiel’s best friend. They’d always sneak away to their hiding place and play their little games every day that they could. They devised a secret way of communicating to each other so they would always know exactly what was going on that day. “Sorry, can’t play. Family is coming to visit.” “I got a new book, want me to bring it to you to read?” Important things like that. After all, what was the point in having a playmate if you weren’t able to plan it all out beforehand?

As Castiel got older though, he found it harder and harder to want to be friends with Crowley. It wasn’t that he no longer enjoyed the other boy’s company. It was that he was enjoying it far too much.

Castiel began to fall for Crowley.

It was a scary feeling. Men weren’t supposed to develop romantic feelings towards other men. It was a man and a woman, that’s what his upbringing had dictated. You were supposed to find a woman who would be willing to love you and bear your children and take care of the house while you were off working. Not only was a man unable to produce children, but it just wasn’t right for one to take on the womanly duties of a wife. Castiel knew that these feelings he had towards Crowley could never be fully realized. He couldn’t ever be with him. Maybe he should have listened to his parents as a child, never associated with the neighbor boy. Maybe then he wouldn’t start daydreaming about kissing the man he grew up to become.

Crowley had so many qualities that made it hard not to fall for him. He was hilarious (and often rudely so), ambitious, didn’t take crap from anyone, quite devious yet was oddly loyal and had much integrity...It wasn’t an easy feat to be able to tempt Castiel into sin, but Crowley had somehow done it.

As much as Castiel didn’t want to be around him, it turned out to be a near impossible feat. Crowley was like a magnet, pulling him in every time. Even though they didn’t play the games they did as kids, they still met up in secret. Sometimes Castiel couldn’t help but wonder if this was strange for two young adults to be doing, having a rendezvous in clandestine locations, but if it was none of them ever said anything about it.

It wasn’t until Castiel began to develop his abolitionist stance that he had a way to break off from Crowley’s company.

“You think what?”

“I firmly believe that slavery is wrong and that this practice needs to end as soon as possible.”

“You’re ridiculous, Castiel, you know that?”

“I knew that’s what most people would think.”

“Abolishing slavery, now that is just the worst idea I could ever think of. Do you know what would happen if we just let all the slaves free? For starters, they’d probably revolt. Be hell bent on revenge for how they were treated over the years.”

“So you agree with me that the slaves are put through horrific conditions?”

“I know what we do to them isn’t exactly humane, but it’s the tried and true way. It’s how we’re able to even make a living. Besides, it isn’t like we’re in the Lower South with big giant plantations. We only own a handful between the two of our fathers. But they’re still necessary. Think of those big plantations. Think of how much cotton, the major crop that sustains our entire economy down here, those slaves create for us. Without them to plant and harvest it, we’ll collapse down here and those Yanks will have to bail us out.”

“I can’t believe that we all believe that farming is supposed to be honest work when so many people can’t even do the work themselves and must torture other human beings to do it.”

Their conflicting viewpoints ensured that they’d always be at odds from here on out. It was hard for them to even just interact as friends anymore. Eventually conversation would steer towards the slavery issue, and they’d be verbally dueling again. Castiel just stopped talking to Crowley after a while.

Word inevitably spread through town that the youngest Novak thought slavery was wrong, and soon Castiel was ostracized by the people he’d known his entire life. Hence the decision to move to the North.

Castiel honestly couldn’t believe that the issue of slavery was so powerful that it didn’t just destroy friendships anymore, it destroyed homes and families now too. It was going too far.

Castiel had been fighting in the war for about three months when he encountered his oldest brother Michael on the battlefield. Michael was on the front row for the Confederacy, and here was his traitor brother on the other side. Castiel was sure that he was going to die at the hands of his family, and if not that he was going to make Michael face the same fate, and he wasn’t prepared for this. He went into this battle scared and hopeless. It was all over.

And then within the first few minutes of battle, one of his fellow soldiers shot down Michael instead. Castiel had to keep himself composed throughout the rest of the fighting, but all he wanted to do was break down. It was going too far. It was going too far…He just had to keep in mind that it wasn’t him that shot his brother. He didn’t even see who it was that put the bullet right though Michael’s chest. It just wasn’t him. Castiel had not murdered family.

Though now he wasn’t so sure if fighting for the Union was the best option. Family went above and beyond anything else. Though at this point, it was far too late for that, wasn’t it? He’d already abandoned his family long ago.

It was now five months since Castiel joined the army. It was an absolute miracle that he was still alive, that he hadn’t been shot yet. He wanted to believe that God was looking over him, but he couldn’t entirely bring himself to. How could God protect him so diligently but not save the lives of people that were far more important than he was? Why would God let Castiel be the only one who went unpunished?

Then one day it all became clear. Because his executioner hadn’t arrived to the scene yet. There was only one person that God would choose to end his life, and that person was Crowley.

The fear he felt when he saw Michael was nothing compared to the absolute terror that was struck in him when he saw Crowley on the other side. This time there wasn’t any wondering of whether or not Castiel would kill or be killed. He knew he would die unless someone else shot Crowley down first. Because Castiel could never, ever kill the man he’d fallen in love with. Even now, even after the falling out they’d experienced, he still loved Crowley. He was going to die…

Castiel wasn’t able to make out the facial expressions of his childhood friend from where he was at, but if he could, he’d see the absolute devastation that Crowley’s eyes revealed. He’d see just how much he was protesting having to do this. But Castiel saw none of that. He just saw a gun kick back from being shot and a bullet coming his way.

Castiel braced himself for death, but it didn’t come. No, he was instead faced with the same fate as Balthazar, a shot in the arm. Amputation would surely occur if he didn’t die from bleeding out first. But he hadn’t been killed. His gut instinct was wrong.

There was only one thing that meant: Crowley still remembered what they used to have. He remembered their friendship. Even if the romantic feelings Castiel had were unrequited, Crowley still cared for him. So instead of killing him, he just injured him. After all, Crowley probably couldn’t just avoid Castiel the entire battle. In fact, maybe someone else would have killed him instead, and Crowley was just trying to get him out of the fight as soon as possible.

He could be wrong. Crowley could just have had a lousy shot in that moment, but Castiel wanted to believe that this blasted war hadn’t destroyed everything for him. He wanted to believe.

Title taken from the lyrics of Meant To Live by Switchfoot because I am unoriginal at naming things