A/N: I had a few ideas after "Goodbye, Stranger" and they just snowballed! Filling in some scenes here and there. Many more chapters coming!
This is the way it ends for Castiel.
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
A small, keening cry escapes the lips of the 50th Dean he has been forced to kill and it all but bowls him over.
Naomi emerges from the shadows as he gently takes this fake Dean (this…this mockery) in his arms and lowers them both to the warehouse floor. The tiles are cold and unforgiving under his thin slacks that have somehow escaped being stained by the never-ending blood and bile.
He should be wading in gore by now.
She cleans him up every time.
"Castiel, that was excellent. Almost no hesitation, yet-"
He waits for it. The thing he did wrong. The mistake he must amend. Her voice is a tinny grating in his mind and all he wants to do is bow his head and hold the man he loves and pretend he cannot feel.
Angels make wonderful psychiatrists. They know just how precisely to break each other down. She hovers and sighs deeply, compelling him to meet her eyes.
"I don't. I, I…." I can't remember how he smells, Castiel thinks. I am forgetting him piece by piece.
Each killing is a small crucifixion of his soul. Every step they take down this road breaks off a jagged part of his heart that he swallows.
What is he now? Bitter tears….a hollow vessel.
Without Dean, what is there to fill him up?
"Castiel!" This time, it is more than annoyance in her tone. She has almost lost patience.
He conjures the right word to say, "Again."
"Yes, my dear. Once more." Naomi is a blue dot in his hazy vision. "As many times as necessary."
He stands. He does not risk a glance at the Dean (no, the thing. Remember this, Cas.).
Silver blade retrieved and ready. He will do this and more. However many it takes, he will pay his penance to the very centime. Although, he does not think he shall ever be forgiven.
Not fully.
Dean would understand.