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He opened his eyes, and did not awaken.
It wasn’t slumber, that had Castiel in its clutches, so this could not be described as waking.
Castiel was not housed in his vessel, and yet, he resembled it. A glamour, cast by the environment itself, rendered him humanoid in appearance only. He flexed his hulking many-eyed form, unrestrained by human flesh, and wondered at the way it translated into this hologrammatic projection-self as a strained spread of fingers, a clench of curled phalanges into palm-pressing fist.
This invention, flat mimesis of a man long dead, for the use of an angel currently dead, baffled him. It neither succeeded in incorporating his form into a body, nor even attempted it. Why costume him thusly? For whose benefit was his angelic body so shrouded? Or could this be burial custom, unremarked upon and unwritten of for the lack of witnesses, that angels and demons alike be limned in the likeness of the body they last inhabited for the duration of their captive eternities?
He cast his gaze around himself, beyond himself, unfurling his awareness as far as he was able in every atramentous direction. And there was nothing. He could not say how far the nothing extended, because distance could not be measured. He could not say how long he spent searching, because time could not be counted.
The longer he sat there, be it seconds or years, the more he convinced himself that his original assessment was false. There was not nothing. There was a distinct and insidious lack of nothing. This place was many things – bottomless, aphotic, silent. But it was not empty. The only nothing in this place was an illusion, a self, a Nothing.
The Empty. He spun the wheels of himself derisively, translating to a snide curl of his vessel-projection’s lip. It was a metonymic lie of cosmic proportions. This being, ubiquitous with its body, or its house, perhaps – Castiel, like every other being ever to exist, could not begin to parse the relationship between the entity and the realm – was anything but empty. And Castiel, stalwart dismisser of expectations, refused to remain here any longer.
Now that he was conscious again, in the most literal sense, mutilatingly aware again, Castiel would not be content to continue his abject prostrations on the floor of this tomb.
More simply, now that Castiel was conscious, he could not be content.
He stood, or, his vessel stood, at the murky signal of his true form’s jointed unfolding. He moved forward in space, but the only indication that he’d done anything at all was the familiar sensation of his own momentum rippling through him, his wavelengths expanding and contracting, like the muscles in a human’s legs that work to carry the body. It was most similar to wading through water, a slight resistance on all sides, licking at the edges of him, tasting his movement and deciding whether to allow it.
As he pushed through the sable mire, the repetitive and seemingly futile motion caused his mind to drift. Even after – however long it had been, that he’d been in this place, the first place his mind went when left to its own devices was Dean.
A rational, pragmatic part of him hoped that he’d been away for centuries. Millenia. Long enough that Dean was no longer a going concern. That he’d managed to figure out the present emergency and move past it, had eventually secured a normal life for himself, had died old and happy and surrounded by family. It was a chaste wish, that Dean had moved through the world and through it, without him. If Castiel never made it out of here, he wanted to believe that Dean had done this in his own absence. And, selfishly, if Castiel escaped this state of not-being, he would not have to contend with his own yearning, because the point would be moot. More importantly, Dean would not have to contend with these yearnings either, because he would not exist in a generative capacity anymore.
There was another part of Castiel, however, that wished – fervently, desperately – that he’d only been away for days. Months, at most. That he would burst through the boundary of this literal obscurity, the abstrusion of every universe’s edge, would puncture the navel of time through sheer force of will, and be greeted on the other side by Dean’s hope-spangled eyes, hands already reaching to caress him back to life, real life.
He imagined it, as he pressed onward, no way to know if he was even moving in a straight line, no way to mark his progress, his presence leaving no trace in its wake. In this place, it was Castiel who was the smudge, the blot of light against the perfect black, the stain of color marring the monochrome abyss.
He imagined it, mind composing poems longhand in the ether, softly-spoken heartsick desires, fleeting and miniscule and precious. The things he missed about Dean, he missed with his whole self, his whole body, his angelic form and the phantom limb of his vessel. The things he missed were unconventional, by human standards.
He missed the sphincteric dance of his pupils’ dilation, and the wet click of his eyelids shuttering as he blinked.
He missed the elegant tensity of his elbow as he bore something heavy in one hand, laden asymmetrically, exertion setting his shoulders on edge, trembling and twitching under his shirt.
He missed the change in his heartbeat, the slight elevation, that was spurred by Castiel’s very proximity.
He missed the constant unconscious pulse of longing that Dean sent out into the universe, always towards Castiel. Even at his most angry, his most isolated, his soul sought him out, sang wordlessly for his ears alone.
He missed the sandpaper rasp of Dean’s hands on the steering wheel of the Impala, the occasional percussive outburst to telegraph his mood without saying a single word. Letting the improvised rhythm of his warm palms against the wheel do his talking instead.
Castiel could have spent eternity ruminating on the things he missed most about Dean, but he’d never see him again, never even have a chance to see him again, if he didn’t figure out how to leave this place.
He called out, hailing indistinctly in every direction, in every language at once. In short, he called out loudly – something like ‘hello’.
Nothing responded.
Which is not to say that there was no response.
Rather, Nothing responded. He felt its awareness of him sharpen down to a fine point, like a million eyes opening at once, staring daggers.
Not knowing what else to do, since the Nothing didn’t do anything besides regard him, he continued moving. After an indeterminate amount of time, once his patience had worn thin again, he spoke once more.
“I know you’re there. I can feel you.”
“Hello.” A voice came from behind him – disorienting, because up until now, nothing had existed besides Castiel himself to orient him in the first place. He turned to face the entity, and was surprised to find that it, too, wore the face of his vessel. Though, if he could be so bold, it did not wear James Novak well.
“Who are you?”
The entity smiled, only with its mouth, and Castiel wondered if it has ever seen a smile in real life, if it knows that other parts of the face move in conjunction with the lips. That to adjust the mouth alone is uncanny, grim. He decided it would be imprudent to mention it now.
+++
Castiel opens his eyes, awake at last.
Sunlight cups his cheeks, wind plays havoc in his hair, and he smiles at the sky, marveling at the way it extends up, blue and brilliant and real.