Some nights, he dreams.
He dreams of a man with amazing green eyes, a smattering of freckles, and a gun in his hands. He dreams of a large black car, old but still running and still called a home.
There's another man, but he doesn't dream of him. Not nearly as often, anyways.
The man with the freckles has been to Hell, and Heaven, and both times, he knew exactly where he was and how he got there. He remembers wrapping a hand around his bicep and clutching his skin.
No, he doesn't remember. He dreamed it.
This is the real world.
There are no Winchesters. There are no Angels, or Demons, there's just the same old boring desk job that he's been stuck in for a couple of years now.
He's not an Angel of the Lord, he's just Castiel Edward Potestas. He works for a small company, filling out paperwork and trying to follow the rules. He's been there for nearly five years now. He's only thirty, but he feels ancient because he has let his posture go where there is no one to witness it.
When there's a birthday in the office, for a woman named Martha Hendricks, he gets a paper plate with a sliver of cake on it, and a plastic fork shoved in the top, nearly bigger than the morsel of sugar and cheap flour.
He goes to talk to Dean, gets as far as turning towards him to ask him how much he hates this, before he realizes that the man is just a figment of his dreams.
After that, he throws the plate away, cake still perfectly intact and fork shoved through the flimsy paper.
He returns to his desk, restraining himself from sobbing at the thought of even more data entry and paperwork. Never ending paperwork and faceless bosses who have been going on firing sprees lately and he could get the axe anyday now and somehow he just doesn't give a shit.
He'd give anything to be travelling with Dean Winchester, the man in his head who he may have just completely fallen in love with.
He'd rather be crazy and lost than stuck in his tiny half-cubicle anymore.
He rubs at his forehead, trying to rub away a headache that's still forming despite his best efforts. He'd rather just be at home, unemployed and trying to find proof of a world beyond the normal, of any possibility that Dean might actually exist.
He doesn't feel like he owns himself anymore, doesn't feel like there's anything left of himself that is his.
It all feels like it belongs to a man he's never met and will never meet.
For a moment, he looks at his desk, then across the aisle to his coworker, Zach. Technically, the man is his superior, but he doesn't act like it. Always insisting that Castiel call him a friend, insisting that if Castiel needs someone to call when he needs help, it be him.
He hasn't really ever taken the man up on his offer.
But now, he stands, jolting his chair back a few feet with the backs of his knees. He knows it'll probably bruise, but he doesn't care.
He strides over to Zach's desk, leaning over the edge, the stupid red tie that they make him wear as work clothes dangling precariously close to the older mans coffee.
"I quit."
The words are out of his mouth before he can think them over, but the moment they're said, he knows that it was the right thing to say.
Zach looks startled, mouth gaping. Then it closes, the man shrugs, and nods. "I was wondering when you would." he gave a terse smile "You've had the look about you for months now."
Castiel wants to ask what look, but he stays silent and nods.
An hour later, Zach has the proper paperwork for him. Hopefully, it's the last of the paperwork that he'll ever need to fill out for this company.
He's allowed to go home early, his stuff in a neat little box in his arms, his trenchcoat, a gift from his brother for Christmas two years ago, around his shoulders.
It flaps almost like wings in the strong breeze running through the city, and he stops for a moment, heedless of the people passing him by as he adjusts it, tries not to lose it.
He feels someone smack into his shoulder, and he nearly falls, but he can't fall because there's an hand around his left upper arm and the man the hand is attached to is someone he recognizes.
They've never met, but he knows instantly who that man is.
Vivid green eyes widen as they take his face in, and then a smile is forming and he's dragged into a standing position.
"Your name's Castiel, right?"
He can't breathe, his chest is too tight, and it's all he can do to not sigh happily. "You're Dean."
"Winchester."
"Potestas."
Dean's nose wrinkles, a chuckle slipping out from between the beautifully formed lips. "It sounds so friggen' weird for you to have a last name."
Castiel laughs with him, and suddenly everything inside him feels whole, the lonely empty spaces filled in.