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As an angel, I've spent the entirety of my time on earth talking to people's souls, rather than their faces. I don't focus on the skin stretched over the skulls, not even those of my closest friends; I'd rather watch the flicker of Dean's soul when he hunts or the steady pulse of Sam's when he reads. I've grown so used to watching souls that I can scarcely recognise faces, now that I no longer have my angelic luxury.
Even when I fell from heaven, my grace drained, practically human, I could still see a person's soul, because I was still, technically, an angel. But with my grace completely gone, ripped out, I am forced to watch the twitch of muscle over bone, and I am forced to remember how each face is different. I haven't seen Dean since I became human. I haven't even spoken to Sam. Who's to say that I will recognise them when I find them? I barely recognised Dean's voice on the phone.
I shouldn't have trusted Naomi. I shouldn't have trusted Metatron. And I wish I hadn't trusted April. She was so...sweet, and loving. She knew I ached for warmth and kindness, and she gave it to me in large doses. I was reeled in like a brain-dead fish on a line.
Pain.
"I only knew that I was the final ingredient."
Why am I telling April this? If I were still an angel I wouldn't have said a word.
"You?"
"My grace. That's why I'm human." Twist. Pain. "He took my grace for the spell."
Just let it end. Please. Father...Father, if you are there...
A knife to my throat. Thank you, Father. Thank you.
But, no...my brothers, my sisters...what will happen to them if I die?
"It may be unwise to kill me. If my grace were the key to empowering the spell, I may be the key to countering it."
Someone had better be grateful for this.
"Are you negotiating with me Castiel?"
The door smashes open. "Cas!"
Do I recognise that voice? It's familiar.
And suddenly, pain is back, and pain is coursing in a deadly line straight into my heart. The world is non-existent.
Will I go to heaven, if I'm human? I shouldn't, without a soul. Where can I go, then? Will I stay in this dark, numb plain? Which, now I consider it, is getting lighter. Maybe I'm stepping into the proverbial light.
I can feel pain, but it is receding fast. I can hear my name being said over and over again, by a voice that is becoming more familiar by the second. There is warmth. There are hands on my face. There is light in front of my eyelids. There is rope around my wrists.
I open my eyes.
There is a man, seemingly torn between helping people. The way he moves is so painfully familiar; a fluid, disjointed pattern which is impossibly graceful. The way he twists his head; I have seen it before, in a thousand different places at a thousand different times. A car. A shop. A bunker. A road. In Heaven, in Hell, in Purgatory. I've seen that same shoulder clasped in my grip as I dragged it from Perdition.
Without a doubt I know who this man in front of me is.
"Dean."
"Hey. Hey! Yeah." He seems...overjoyed. At least, I think. I'm still getting used to faces.
I hear a rustle, and turn to another man. I know who this must be. "And Sam."
"Cas. You're ok!" He sounds surprised. I can't blame him.
"Never do that again!" Dean says.
"Alright," I say.
And I realise...I don't need to see a soul to see beauty.