The first time he woke up as Jimmy Novak, Castiel fainted.

The second time, he kept his eyes shut and felt sandpaper under his palms, heard a drum beating bass reverberate through the air, smelt the sharp stench of chemicals. He fainted again.

By the third time, he could tell the sandpaper was just the rough cotton hospital sheets and the bass drum was his heart, thrumming in his chest. The antiseptic smell still bit at his nose. The machine at his side beeped. A bird fluttered against the glass. People clattered by. And that light, such a HEAVY light, pushed insistently at his tender eyes, demanding to be acknowledged.
Castiel cracked open one lid. Then the other. Then he put his hands over his eyes and opened them completely.

By the sixth time Castiel woke up in Jimmy Novak's body, he barely noticed the colours.

By the twelfth, he could wake up and swing his legs out of bed without spending an hour marveling at the pattern of the ceiling tile, the texture of the blankets, and the push and pull of muscle under his skin as he moved. The first time he tried to walk, he swung his legs too far out from under his body and slipped on the slick tile. He hit his head on the bedrail.
That was the first time he cried. Rather embarrassing, really. An angel of the lord, crying on the hospital floor. What had he been thinking? He could barely control this vessel, let alone be useful. Castiel had pride and problems of his own. The Winchesters could solve their own damn issues.

On the thirteenth day, Castiel walked to the door.

The twenty seventh time that Cas woke up, he felt the linen scratch of motel sheets, smelled musk and bacon pancakes, felt the warm heat of a body pressed against his own, and felt that it was worth it.