The first emotion Castiel ever felt was loneliness
It gnawed at him, tore into his conscience. It was his fault he was alone. So he had to suffer the consequences. Right? He had done bad things.
But he was alone, so alone, in this white space. There wasn't so much as a monster to keep him company.
But loneliness was a strange thing, and when Castiel first felt it, he curled in on himself, reliving the conversations they had.
"Don't ever change, okay?" He had changed. So much. And now he was alone. So he sat, curled up, consumed in it.
The second emotion Castiel ever felt was confusion.
Castiel was lost. So very, very lost. He didn't know where he was. Why was he here instead of Purgatory? Why was he not in the Pit with Michael? He deserved it, God knows he deserved it. If he was even there.
Castiel was beginning to doubt it.
Why wasn't he...anywhere?
When he looked around, all he saw was white, a dazzling, bright, pure shade that reminded Castiel of what he used to be.
How had he fallen so far?
Confusion, in a diluted form, was not unfamiliar to him. But this was just a resounding
'why?' repeating in his head. He found himself screaming the blank, uncaring sky.
The third emotion Castiel ever felt was loathing.
He had betrayed everyone he had ever loved, who had ever cared for him. They had thought of him as family, and he had let them down. He used them, left them helpless and broken.
At least it killed him, ripped out his Grace, sent him here after he was taken over. He had to pay for his wrongs in this white, empty, endless space.
It was his fault Samuel had to bear through the wall in his mind. It broke because he didn't get him out of harm's way fast enough.
It was his fault Dean was heartbroken and wrecked, distrusting to a fault now. They had a more profound bond than the others, and Castiel had broken that bond.
When the first wave of self-loathing hit Castiel, it was not only the first time he ever felt such hatred, but it was also the first time he cried.
The fourth emotion Castiel ever felt was tiredness.
This was an odd emotion, surely, as he had never slept, and would never need to. But tiredness was a welcome rush of relief.
Now he didn't have to worry about Dean or Sam.
Or his brothers.
Or anything.
It was like a drug, a sleeper agent to him, and he relinquished himself to the numbness.
The emotions he was learning, the feelings that crashed onto him suddenly, collected in his mind...and sometimes it was just too much to handle. Castiel felt like he would break.
The weariness in his mind was not a physical sleepiness, there to taunt him, but a mental fuzziness. It soothed him, and in the back of his mind he knew he didn't deserve it. But it was there all the same, lulling him into a sort of stupor.
Castiel liked tiredness. It let him rest his mind, and let him stop thinking about those he had left alone to die.
The fifth emotion Castiel felt was sorrow.
It ripped his heart to shreds.
He had failed. He had failed them. He let out a strangled cry, an animalistic, primal screech of pain. The first time Castiel had betrayed them, Dean had let him back.
The second time Castiel had betrayed them, Dean led him back.
Now he was making up for his wrongs the third time around. At least this was the last time he would hurt them. His body, his vessel, was slowly wasting away. Jimmy's body, his soul crushed down so that Castiel could fit... that was his fault too.
He looked around at the stark white that surrounded him, engulfed him. He wanted to shake it off. He didn't deserve it. It was too pure, an innocent shade. Castiel scratched at the air around him. The purity of it reminded him of Dean, how hard he tried, how pure he was, how he couldn't see it...
He screamed, and it reminded him of Gabriel's last breaths trying to save him.
He cried silently, and it reminded him of how Sam had cried after Gabriel's death.
Castiel did not like sorrow. It reminded him of the past.
The sixth emotion Castiel felt was emptiness.
It was a welcome relief, like tiredness. Castiel's heart felt still for the first time in ages, unlike the rapid pounding he was now used to.
Not like the aches that made him cry out, to claw at his hair.
Not like the terror that ripped through his chest and made it hard to breathe.
Not like the pressure he had felt on his lungs, freezing him from the inside out.
No, this was good. This was different. This was just...empty. There was no emotion. He reveled in the nothingness, the stillness, the numbness of it all He felt like the blank white space around him.
Cold.
Empty.
Nothing.
This was how he used to feel before he Fell, before he had met Dean.
This felt safe.
The seventh emotion Castiel felt was anger.
How could Sam ask so much of him? Why hadn't Gabriel shown him the right way to go? How did Dean not see...?
He had tried, so hard to do well, to show them how much they meant to him. He just wanted to do the right thing.
In his homeland, he had started a civil war with Raphael to help Dean and Sam. He had killed countless comrades to save them.
And they took him for granted, calling him to them every time they needed something. Draining his energy. Killing him slowly from the inside- making him Fall. Forcing him to fall in so many ways.
And for what?
Nothing! Nothing at all.
When Castiel felt anger, he overflowed with it, and knew how his brother could Fall so far.
Because that's what he did.
Castiel's eighth emotion was regret.
He had done the wrong thing. He had done so many things... But he regretted it all, every time he went behind their backs. Every time he had left them. He wanted to just rewind time, to never meet Dean or Sam.
Then he would never be able to hurt them.
Gabriel could've brought Dean back, pieced him together again.
Samandriel could've saved Sam.
Uriel could've done better than he had.
Balthazar could've solved the problems.
Michael could've dealt with it better.
But they had chosen Castiel.
Castiel clawed at his eyes, willing them to stop leaking liquid pain. He wanted to stop the rampant feeling tearing through his core.
"Too much heart was always Castiel's problem."
Castiel's ninth emotion was helplessness.
It crashed over him like an ocean, sending all sanity thought out the window. He crumpled into a ball, shaking.
He had lost his grace.
He was nothing.
He was powerless.
He was trapped.
He couldn't save himself.
He couldn't save Sam or Gabriel or Dean.
He was lost. Stuck. Worthless. He had given everything up, and got everything taken from him as payment.
And he deserved every last second of his pain.
Castiel's tenth emotion was hope.
He clung to it like a naive child, taking the optimism and storing it away for a bad day. Hopefulness led into happiness, and Castiel wondered if he would meet his friends again someday.
If maybe he could be okay someday.
He knew they would be trying to get him back, and they would. They could do anything.
They would get him out.
He smiled a real smile for the first time. Maybe when he was done here, he would get to see them and tell them everything, holding back no secrets, letting everything go. For now , though, he was here. But it was okay. They were safe, and that meant that everything was going to be okay.
They would go to heaven, he knew it in the bottom of his heart.
Castiel's eleventh emotion was despair.
It sent him plummeting downwards from his hopeful high, making him crash down to reality. He had saved them, yes, but after betraying them, they would want to leave him dead.
He hurt them.
Left them.
Broke them.
And he knew they wanted him dead.
Castiel wanted it, too.
His regret mixed with the debilitating despair, and he named it disappointment. With a tongue like a brick, he spoke the words that had been lying like a brick on his throat since the beginning.
"Dean...I'm sorry." They were his first real words in his white cell.
Castiel's twelfth emotion was melancholy.
It had occurred after a hopeful spell, and it was after it that Castiel realized he didn't like hope.
It gave him something to fall from.
Hopelessness in any form was better, as it reminded him of reality.
His body was wasting away, and he would die soon.
He would never get to see Dean or Sam again.
So he sat, trembling, repeating, over and over,
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry...", meaning every word he meant, saying it with such a passion that tears rolled down his face from just the whispered words bouncing back at him, because he knew that no one would hear his apologies.
Castiel's thirteenth emotion was hurt.
Shouldn't they have found him?
Where was he?
Was he dead?
He didn't know.
His voice was rough from screaming and silence, broken from emotion.
"Save me, please. Please. Find me..." he whimpered, reaching out. For what, he had no idea. He didn't like this feeling at all, this wrenching emotion that left him sobbing.
"Please...!"
He wanted this emotion to go away.
Castiel's fourteenth emotion was joy.
If he imagined hard enough, he could see them.
He could see Dean.
Even as his body wasted away, Castiel used up all his strength, every scrap of energy he could conjure up, to picture him in his head. Castiel imagined all the conversations they could have had.
In every one, Dean forgave him when he apologized.
Understood him when he cried.
In every one, Dean took him home.
Eventually he'd blink back to real life, and discover his body beginning to rot away.
But he didn't care.
Dean forgave him.
Castiel's fifteenth emotion was terror.
It struck him suddenly, causing his sick heart to run wild in his chest.
He looked around, manic, tiring quickly, the fear keeping him on the edge of insanity.
He ran, trying to find an exit.
He didn't want to die.
He had so much left to do!
He couldn't die yet!
He had to get out.
He stumbled many times, and eventually he could not get up again.
"This...Can't be...the end...! Why?!" he whispered, looking down at his thin, gray hands with fear.
"No...!"
Castiel's sixteenth emotion was depression.
He was wasting away-rotting away- and he couldn't stop it.
Why bother?
He was worthless.
No one would have wanted him back anyways, even if he hadn't betrayed them so horribly.
He embraced the cold feeling, welcomed it back like an old friend, because after all, it was better than hope.
He didn't want to move, even if he could.
He just wanted to be done with it all.
The emotions and time were breaking him, blanketing him with pain. His body couldn't hold up much longer. His heartbeat was shallow, and growing more so each passing second.
He lay, wanting to see Dean one last time.
Castiel's seventeenth emotion was love.
He knew he was dying.
It was obvious.
Castiel could no longer feel his arms or legs, which was probably a good thing.
His eyesight was growing blurry.
He didn't have long.
Castiel guessed he had about an ten minutes left, at an improbable maximum. In reality, he had only a few fleeting seconds.
He knew this.
He wanted to share his final secret.
"Dean," his voice cracked, and all of his emotions exploded in his dying moments. "Dean." It was like he was whispering his words in Dean's ear.
"Dean, I want to...I need...to tell you..."
His heart stopped before he could say "I love you.'