Castiel was a contradiction. He'd always been a little too human, and a little too angel. Sometimes he wasn't human enough, and sometimes not angelic enough. He supposed that no one else cared about any of this except him. No one looked at Castiel and wondered if he was an angel or not, but Castiel often looked at himself and wondered which he really was. To Castiel, his hands were the source of this contradiction, the things that reminded him that he didn't have a place, didn't have a title.
Castiel's hands had done great things, they had touched the foreheads of hundreds, his grace stitching them back together. Sometimes he healed the same person more than once, sometimes enough times to memorize the patch of skin where his fingers would rest.
Those same two fingers had rested on his enemies foreheads, too. During those moments Castiel had let his angel side loose, and he had killed. He had used the beautiful side of him to accomplish terrible things. Except sometimes Castiel wondered if his human side was better, but he knew he shouldn't think things like that. So he didn't.
Castiel's hands had also done unbelievably human things, too. He remembered when his grace had been stolen, and he had felt overcome with a sense of fullness, an unusual purity. Of course, Castiel never mentioned that to anybody. During that time his hands had done such mundane things. They had gripped the steering wheel of his car, the leather rough, and covered in so much emotion that Castiel hadn't understood. They had handed people money and restocked shelves when he worked at a convenience store, something so simple that Castiel couldn't even begin to understand it now.
His hands hadn't always had a choice in what they did, sometimes they would rest in chains. Castiel had hung from the ceiling in shackles, his hands damaged and pulsing against the metal. He would always get scars from moments like that, but his grace would heal them until no one could ever tell they were there, no one could ever know how human he could be.
Castiel had used his hands for careful things, for the soft caress of a cheek, the kind stoke down a side. The cradling of a head as things happened way too fast, but too slow at the same time. They had run down a body, and back up again. They had held someone else's hot skin under the sheets in the late hours of the night. All of this, Castiel felt, was supposed to be pure, but it never was, not to him.
He had wrapped his arms around such few people, hugged so little, stroked his hands through one or two people's hair, but still, Castiel reminded himself of those moments. When his hands were poised to kill, his grace rippling through the air, he would think of the soft moments where all he felt was love, and he would tell himself that he was a good person. A good angel. A good whatever he was.
Castiel had held the whole world in his hands, once, he knew that. He also knew that once he had held his entire world, too. He had gripped a vial, filled with everything that made him an angel. Everything that made him able to help. Part of Castiel had been reluctant, part of him had wanted to let it slip through his hands and shatter on the floor. Of course he hadn't let that happen, he had gripped it tight with his hands, gripped it with everything he had, and he had took it back. Castiel had became himself again.
All of this, everything that he had ever done with those hands, seemed to leave him in a rush. They were driving, along a slow open road going to nowhere, but somewhere at the same time. Castiel was sitting in the passenger seat, hands in his lap, listening to whatever Dean had put on the radio. It was then, in the middle of ACDC, that Dean had reached over and gripped Castiel's hand, gripped all those memories, gripped Castiel and pulled him to safety. He was grateful, so grateful that someone else knew, that someone understand. Castiel didn't know what to say, so he didn't speak.
He squeezed Dean's hand.