Song Remains the Same

Chapter 118: It's a Bittersweet Symphony

"I get up and pace the room as if I can leave my guilt behind me. But it tracks me as I walk, an ugly shadow made by myself."
- Rosamund Lupton

*** CONTENT TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide ***

The hunter crept around the corner, weapon drawn.

All but noiseless, he slipped from shadow to shadow in the silent warehouse, looking for his attacker with harrowed eyes and a glinting handgun held ready. But he was no match for an angel, of course, and his stealth would not hide him.

The second Dean Winchester felt the presence of another entity on the back of his neck and turned fast to try and defend himself, Castiel struck his friend as he was trained to do, sending the gun flying with a shove before backhanding Dean brutally across the face.

Disable the target.

Falling backwards with a grunt and down onto the floor from the force of the hit, Dean gaped up at his attacker in what looked like shock, betrayal, and fear. He raised a hand defensively as the angel towered over him. "No, Cas, no!" he protested, seeing the resignation of violence there in Cas's eyes.

Ignore pleas for mercy. Disable the target.

Castiel grabbed the hand that was reaching out to him and he viciously twisted it back, breaking the bone with a loud crunch.

Don ' t think about who he is. Do what we ' ve told you or you know what will happen to her.

With that being the thought that drove everything he did, the angel barely even heard or registered Dean's sharp cry of pain.

Disable the target. Kill Dean Winchester.

Castiel raised his angel blade high with a face blank as paper, and all his thoughts punched through him like a massacre of bullets, compelling him forward like an unstoppable machine. His orders screamed louder and louder, and his own thoughts weren't audible at all.

Disable the target! Kill Dean Winchester!

"No, Cas, don't, please!" Dean begged, but it was in vain.

The plea fell on deaf ears. Castiel knew what would happen if he continued to resist these drills. And with his only thought being save her, Cas plunged the blade directly into the hunter's heart with no outward remorse or emotion whatsoever. Dean screamed and gasped, choking and dying as Cas watched with barely any reaction at all. It seemed so very realistic but he couldn't summon a response anymore, not after doing this for what seemed an eternity now. He had killed Dean a thousand times but it almost felt like he was killing Naomi at this point—these Dean clones were her invention, after all, and he hated them because they were so close to the real thing. When Dean was dead yet again, Castiel pulled the blade out of the hunter's chest then straightened up and stared hollowly down at that body on the floor. So strange how he felt so little because of the inhibitor Naomi had put into his skull behind his right-hand eye. He was under her thumb in every way. And yet glimmers of his true self would filter through without warning, always catching him by surprise. Briefly, as he gazed down at the Dean-shaped body, he felt a lurch of self-horror. And then he reminded himself of the facts. That isn't really Dean. And quickly on the coattail of that thought came another. But someday it might be. Do I really have to choose between sister and brother? Will I be able...?

"Hey!" came an impassioned cry from just behind him. Castiel knew this part of the song and dance too and without any energy or life to what he did, he turned and met Sam Winchester's surprise-attack straight on blankly, stabbing him in the chest and not looking into the long-haired boy's eyes as he did so. That hazel gaze looked too much like hers.