Chapter Text
Castiel is in nothing, is nothing, is surrounded by nothing, and then suddenly he is in front of a building. He looks around, his eyes adjusting to the light.
The street is nondescript. It could be any street in any city. The shadow of the sun tells him that it’s just after lunchtime. There are men carrying briefcases and women wearing sensible pumps and pantsuits, hurrying past him to their respective offices.
Castiel realizes that he, too, is carrying a briefcase. For lack of anything else to do, he goes into the building in front of him.
“You must be Mr. Adler’s one o’clock,” the receptionist says brightly.
“No,” Castiel tells her. “I’m not supposed to be here. I was—”
“Okay, fifth floor,” she says as if he hadn’t said anything. She hands him a sticker that reads ‘visitor’ and points to the elevator.
Castiel doubts that Mr. Adler on the fifth floor or anyone on any floor will have any answers as to how he had been transported from the infinite void of the Empty to an unremarkable office building, but he follows the receptionist’s directions and takes the elevator up.
It dings at the fifth floor and Castiel steps out, and in front of him is an office with frosted glass windows, a heavy wooden door, and an engraved brass plate that reads ‘Z. Adler, COO’.
Castiel raises a hand to knock, but the door swings open slowly before he can touch his fist to it. And when he sees who is sitting behind the imposing mahogany desk in the office, a flicker of recognition immediately jolts through him. It’s been over a decade since he had seen this vessel, but it’s not one he’d forget.
Suddenly it makes sense. The Empty forces you to live and relive your biggest regrets. Castiel regrets obeying orders without question, particularly Zachariah’s orders. Although it still doesn’t explain the office setting.
Strangely, though, Zachariah doesn’t seem to recognize Castiel for who he is. “Ah, he says, beckoning him in with one hand and using the other to end a call on his headset. “You’re the new temp?”
“I—” Castiel begins. What is he supposed to do here? Fight him? Let the scene play out? He decides to go along with it, for now. “Yes.”
“Excellent, excellent!” Zachariah says, and Castiel fights the urge to cringe at the smarmy smugness of his tone. “Head up to Smith on level 14 and he’ll put you to work.”
Is this a test? Cas wonders. Should he disobey Zachariah, as he regrets not doing sooner before? Will the Empty even allow it? It wouldn’t be an eternal regret if he could fix it. He’s not sure, and he wants more information about this strange situation he finds himself in, so in this instance, he decides to listen, and he returns to the elevator and presses the button for the 14th floor.
Unlike on the fifth floor, when Castiel arrives on 14 the correct office isn’t directly in front of him. He has to ask a man working in a cubicle where to find it. He wonders if this man is an angel or demon that the Empty has repurposed into the world it had set up in its plan to torment Castiel, or a facsimile that the Shadow has created wholecloth to set the scene.
The door to Smith’s office is ajar, and Cas’s heart leaps into his throat when he sees who is sitting behind the desk. “Dean,” he says, voice barely more than a whisper. But straight away, he can tell that this Dean isn’t his Dean. Of course it isn’t, he thinks; this world is just an illusion in an eternal void. And even if it were real, Dean Winchester would never be wearing a pinstripe shirt and suspenders, with his hair gelled carefully flat. He would never be filling out reports behind the desk at a mid-size construction company.
Dean Smith must sense Castiel at the door, because he looks up and waves him in. For a second, there’s a flicker in his expression that Castiel thinks might be recognition, but it disappears as quickly as it had appeared.
“You must be—” Dean looks quickly down at a paper on his desk, “Castiel Novak? Castiel, interesting name.” Even though this Dean is both not his Dean and not real, Castiel can’t help the rush of love he feels at this Dean saying his name, when he thought he’d never get to hear it again. But he only nods, and Dean quickly launches into what sounds like a scripted and memorized monologue about the company and onboarding. Castiel mostly tunes it out, focusing more on the timber of Dean’s voice — higher and softer than he’s used to, the rough edges smoothed out or perhaps never there to begin with — than the words.
Dean Smith sets him up in an empty cubicle with a list of tasks relating to his apparent job as temporary content manager for Sandover Bridge & Iron, Inc.’s sales and marketing department.
Castiel has a hunch that the Empty does not actually care whether he performs any of the work assigned to him. This hunch is verified when Dean comes over to check on him a while later, looks over his shoulder at a blank laptop screen, cursor blinking on an empty document, and praises his work with a hearty pat on the back.
On Friday Dean stops Cas as he drops off a sheaf of papers to Dean’s desk (they’re blank, it doesn’t seem to matter). “Hey,” Dean says, “The department usually goes for a few beers after work at the end of the week. Just wanted to let you know in case no one’s extended the invitation yet.”
No one has, but Castiel doesn’t talk to anyone in the office except for Dean, so that comes as no surprise. “Are you going?” he asks.
“Well, I usually don't,” Dean says. “I’m generally working late, and anyway, beer is hell on the diet.” He grimaces, and then shrugs. “But I thought I might make an appearance this week. Team morale, you know. And being a team player always looks good to the big man up top.”
“God?” Castiel asks, and Dean chuckles.
“Adler,” Dean clarifies. Castiel almost laughs, thinking about how much the Zachariah he had known would’ve liked that. “Anyway,” Dean says, “Just wanted to tell you.” He thumbs briefly through the stack of blank pages that Cas had brought in. “Great work on these,” he says, “You’re a real asset to the team.”
“Thank you,” Cas says unhappily. At the end of the workday, he follows the rest of the department out of the Sandover building and two streets over to a bar called The Vanguard. It’s the kind of bar that Dean Winchester would hate — everyone inside is wearing suits and there’s a mile-long list of expensive cocktails but only two beers on draught.
Dean Smith doesn’t look like he’s any more in his element here, however, than Dean Winchester would have. At the table where he’s seated, the conversation goes on around him while he fiddles with the straw of his drink, which looks to be nothing more than club soda and a wedge of lime.
There’s an empty spot next to him, so Castiel takes it, and he tries to remain unaffected by the way that Dean visibly brightens when Castiel slides into the booth beside him.
“Castiel,” Dean says, “you made it.”
“Of course,” Castiel says. Then he takes a chance and says, “You can call me Cas.”
“Cas,” Dean Smith says. His brow furrows for a moment and then smoothes again. “Sure.” Then the man on Dean’s other side asks him a question about quarterly profits and Dean is distracted, so Castiel stands back up and goes over to the bar to get a beer.
The bar is crowded with business people from Sandover and elsewhere, celebrating the end of another working week, and it takes enough time for Castiel to get the bartender’s attention that by the time he turns around with a bottle of beer in his hand, his seat has been taken. Dean still appears deep in conversation with the other coworker, talking shop no doubt, and Castiel decides to get some fresh air.
The street bustles with activity, sound and light spilling out of the numerous bars on the block. Castiel stands quietly, half in shadow, watching people step out of various doorways to smoke cigarettes and answer cell phones. He can’t understand what purpose the Empty hopes to achieve by creating this mundane, fictional universe, unless it is simply to cause frustration. If that’s the case, Castiel thinks, it’s working.
“There you are,” Dean says, coming up beside him.
“Oh,” Castiel says, “Hello, Dean.”
Dean pulls a small plastic cylinder out of the pocket of his suit jacket and puts it to his lips, then catches Cas’s confused glance at it and grins sheepishly. “I know,” he says, “Bad habit. I’ve quit at least six times but…” he shrugs. “So, you’re not much of a people person, huh?”
“I suppose not,” Castiel agrees.
“I know it’s hard being the new guy as well,” Dean says. “I didn’t start that long ago myself, took some getting used to. Adler has high expectations.” He takes another inhale from the vape and tucks it back into his pocket. Then he swallows hard and says, “Castiel, uh, Cas, can I ask you something weird?” Castiel nods, so Dean continues.
“You ever meet that guy Wesson, down in I.T.? Tall, buff dude, overly long hair?”
Despite spending an afternoon earlier that week canvassing every floor of the Sandover building looking for other familiar faces, Cas hasn’t met him, although he thinks he can guess who Dean might be talking about. He shakes his head.
“Alright, well,” Dean says, sounding slightly embarrassed. “This Wesson guy, I run into him in the elevator the other week and he tells me I look really familiar. And then he asks me if I believe in ghosts and then he tells me he’s been having some—” here he punctuates his words with finger quotes— “‘weird dreams’ lately… I mean, that’s weird, right?”
It’s actually one of the less-weird things that Cas has had to consider lately, but he senses that Dean wants him to agree, so he nods.
“Right,” Dean says, then, “Uh, can we take a walk?” He glances nervously toward the door of the bar, as if he’s expecting someone else from Sandover to come out and overhear them, so Castiel nods and they head off down the street and away from the noise and lights of the bar.
There’s a small park a few blocks away, and Dean leads Cas into it before he says anything more. “Here’s the thing,” he says, looking nervous again, “When Sam— Wesson, when he— I thought he just, well…” he looks down at his feet and rubs a hand over the nape of his neck. “But then, this week, I started having weird dreams, too.”
“Dreams about Sam?” Cas asks.
“Yeah,” Dean says. “We were—” he coughs out a laugh, “hunting ghosts. And demons. Demons! Crazy right?” he chuckles again, and then continues, “But the thing is, it wasn’t just me and Wesson. You were— you were there, too.”
Cas stops walking suddenly and turns to look at Dean, meeting his gaze. “I was there?” he asks. “Hunting ghosts?”
“I know it sounds crazy,” Dean says again. “But yeah. And you know, in the dreams, Sam and I were friends. More than friends. Wait.” He backs up, as if realizing how that sounds. “Not like that. Just… close. Like we’d known each other a long time. Almost like we were childhood friends. Or brothers. But you— you…” He breaks eye contact and looks away.
“What is it?” Cas asks. His mouth feels dry. He puts a hand on Dean’s shoulder and coaxes him back into facing him. “Dean?”
Dean Smith looks stricken. “You were dying,” he whispers. “Something was— it was coming through the wall, and it was taking you, and I couldn’t—”
Cas squeezes Dean’s shoulder, wanting to reassure him, but he doesn’t know what he can say to this Dean, who doesn’t have the same weight of their shared history building a foundation on which they can stand together.
“Cas,” Dean says, and then his hand is on Castiel’s cheek, fingertips sliding around the back of his neck, and he’s pulling him into a kiss. As their mouths meet, Castiel finally understands that this is why the Empty put him here. He pulls back, although he can’t bring himself to move far enough to dislodge Dean’s hand on his face. He’s not that strong.
“Cas,” Dean says again. There are tears in his eyes now, glinting as they reflect the light from the streetlamp at the edge of the park.
Castiel could give in. He could take Dean Smith in his arms and run his fingers through his soft, immaculately styled hair and press his lips to the corner of his mouth. Surely there is something more of Dean Winchester in Dean Smith than just his physical appearance and his half-remembered dreams.
He can’t imagine that the Empty would allow him this for long, but maybe it might let him have it for a little while.
Even as Castiel considers the thought, he knows it won’t work. He rebuilt Dean Winchester’s body from atoms. He knows Dean Winchester down to his soul. He would never be able to accept the illusion as real. He’s sure that the Empty knows this.
Cas covers Dean’s hand on his with his own, and then he curls his fingers around it and removes it gently from his cheek, although he doesn’t let go.
“I’m sorry,” Castiel says, “I’m sorry, Dean. But it was just a bad dream.” He watches as Dean Smith processes the words as a rejection, the hurt crossing his face, and the way he rapidly tamps it down. Dean opens his mouth to speak, but only works his jaw for a moment before he can get the words out.
“You’re right,” he says finally. “All good, And sorry. I shouldn’t have overstepped. I—” a tear slips down his cheek and he brushes it away impatiently with his palm. He shakes his head and laughs sheepishly. “Hey, you won’t say anything to the guys at work about this? Or Adler?”
“I’ll be discreet,” Cas promises.
Dean nods. Castiel notices that his fingers are anxiously playing with one of the buttons on his jacket, a nervous tic that he shares with Dean Winchester. Castiel feels a pang of longing, and he resists the urge to reach out for Dean Smith again.
“I’d better go,” Dean tells him. “Eight a.m. spin class.” Before Castiel can reply Dean has already brushed past him, his shoulder bumping softly against Castiel’s as he goes back in the direction of the bar and the underground parking garage where Castiel knows Dean Smith parks his Prius every morning.
Castiel suddenly realizes that he’s still holding the bottle of beer he had purchased at the bar. He sets it down on the ground, and then he walks over to a park bench on the side of the path and sits.
At the edge of the park, the nearest street lamp flickers and then goes out. One by one, all of the other lights around extinguish themselves as well. Then the stars. Then the moon. He is left in darkness so complete that Castiel cannot see his hand when he raises it to his face. He can no longer feel the park bench, or the ground where his feet rest.
Castiel is in nothing, is nothing, is surrounded by nothing again. He thinks, That’s more like it.