Please Don't Hunt Me Down, Brother (Sabriel/Destiel)

Chapter 1: Welcome to the Shurley Home for the Unfortunately Orphaned.

-- Castiel --
Then, 15th February 1987

Meet Castiel Shurley.

His real name's Castiel Novak. But his new name- or not so new name, having had it for more than ten years- is Castiel Shurley.

The Novaks are all dead. His father, Jimmy, a pious, caring, hard-working man. His mother Amelia, a loving woman who made many mistakes, but tried her hardest to make it up to her children. And his little sister, Claire, with pale blonde hair and an attitude so feisty, you'd never believe it had belonged to a two-year old girl.

Claire had been only two years old when her and both her parents were brutally murdered. Slaughtered. Dragged screaming from their children's clutches, Jimmy and Amelia fought their hardest, but the monsters who took them were too strong- they were overwhelmed, and their blood was drained from them, every last drop. Tiny Claire bawled and yelled and wouldn't stop making a godawful racket that would have surely woken the neighbours- who didn't even live in terraced housing- so the monsters took her down too, to shut her up.

Castiel had heard the bumps of bodies and screeches of furniture from his parents' room, and heard gruff voices calling to each other that did obviously not belong to his parents. He'd wanted so badly, more than anything, to run to them, to save them, to make the bad people go away. But his instincts told him to run- in the opposite direction. While the attackers seemed mostly occupied with subduing Castiel's parents, the child dashed to the nursery where his sister should have been sleeping. She was sleeping-but she was in a deep sleep. One that, once he took one look inside her cot, he knew she would never wake up from.

There was so much blood. Castiel didn't know such a small child- a toddler- could have so much blood in her.

Castiel was only four years old.

Now, 15th February 2003

It had been sixteen years. Sixteen years since Castiel's family had been killed. Back then, he hadn't know who- or what- had done it, and when the man and woman who saved him told him what had orphaned him, he hadn't believed it. Refused to believe it.

Vampires. Vampires had killed his family.

He was only four years old. He'd barely known what vampires even were. But what he did know was that they were not human. And previously he'd thought they were fictional. The man and woman who'd crashed through his front door, hot on the heels of these creatures, had told him they were real. That all the nightmarish monsters in legends and across many fantasy stories- are all real. And it was their job to hunt them.

The man, who introduced himself as Chuck, and the woman, his sister Amara, burst through the door to his parents' bedroom, only to find Castiel's parents dead, lying on their bed, hands intertwined, their necks and wrists mauled. Their bedroom window was smashed- the vampires had escaped, and they were nowhere in sight. Amara insisted on pursuing them, but Chuck refused, saying they'd got away- it would take a while longer to track them down again, and there was a newly orphaned child here in need of help. Castiel wouldn't speak as Chuck introduced them, and instead just stood gazing up at them in silence, tears streaming down his face. While Amara scouted around the street, looking for any signs of the vampires, and at the same time ensuring none of the neighbours had been hurt, Chuck gently removed little Claire's body from her cot, laying her in between her parents on the ruined bed. When Castiel saw the rest of his family together, side by side in death, he finally spoke,

"Who killed my family? I want to know who killed them."

Chuck turned to the young child, deep sympathy in his eyes. This was not a talk he wanted to give a frightened four-year-old orphan.