omg stop asking stoppppp (nobody asked)
ahahahahahaha corny af sorry
being an angel is a strange thing. he’d never given it much thought- having had no other experience but the slow, ever-waking passing of the days, he let millennia wash over him for most of his existence. few memories stood out sharply- behind them a slight itch, as if he was forgetting something important, that he usually tried to ignore. since that morning he’d gone to hell, the itch had felt, well, more urgent to say the least. it was almost as if something was shoving him forward, try as he might to keep his feet planted firmly in his vessel. it had been a challenging few months.
in all his many years as a steward and soldier of the earth, he’d never before held a soul in his hand. he’d seen them before of course, in transport, in heavens holdings, but he never dreamed that one would feel so… it was hard to describe. castiel could stand with each limb across dimensions, he’d felt the pulse of a young star, solar winds exciting every particle of his being. he’d watched empires rise and fall, and the movement of more souls than he could count, carried by reapers and demons alike. he thought maybe there was a reason angels weren’t allowed to bring the souls to heaven themselves.
holding dean winchester in the palm of his right hand seemed to ignite something within him. a human soul is different from grace, made up of something difficult to qualify with words. grace feels like raw atomic energy, like electrical pulses funneled through a concrete and unchanging design. it’s structure is definable, even though it differs between angels. when it is extinguished, it cannot be carried by a reaper- it simply fizzles out, and joins the hum of particles and waves carrying themselves to the outer reaches of the universe. it might be rebuilt or restructured, but it cannot flow freely on it’s own, it must follow the laws of the nature of angelic being. at least this was castiel’s understanding.
human souls feel like grasping onto a flame. it curls around you, it breathes and responds like something wild and singularly its own. humans rarely differ much from each other biologically, but the variation in their souls, touched and changed by every feeling they endure, is distinctive. their ability to love, and change, and change others- it’s unique, to put it simply. angels were given the charge of watching over the experiment that is humanity, with objectivity of utmost importance. castiel could feel his slipping.
he was wandering close to blasphemy- one morning he found himself considering how lucifer could possibly have done what he did. how could he have touched a human soul and not be swayed? how could he have held a soul- felt it’s warmth, how simultaneously delicate and powerful it is, and not have seen why his father wanted to protect it? he tried to see through the archangel’s eyes for a moment, but all he could envision was the striking color of dean winchester’s soul. it had a wavelength of about 564 nanometers, and through the eyes of jimmy novak it would appear as a soft green. it was immensely distracting during the short journey between hell and pontiac, illinois, and he was glad he could not actually see it while inhabiting a vessel. small miracles.
instead he was distracted by the man’s sharp, scrutinizing gaze, framed by light lashes and furrowed brows. upon meeting him on the physical plane, castiel hardly felt the knife pierce through three layers of fabric and three more layers of skin. he was instead searching for meaning, and understanding, in the eyes of the man he had wrenched from hell only a week before. his eyes reflected a similar wavelength, and castiel pondered causality for a moment before his attention was pulled elsewhere.