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Castiel never had possessions, as an angel.
Oh, he had his angel blade, but that, in many ways, is as much a possession as, say, his foot. It’s a part of him. He uses it, but doesn’t own it: it simply is, a fraction of his being given form. He does enjoy his trench coat, but in many ways, he didn’t consider that his, either—not in the beginning, anyway. That was Jimmy’s, like the suit and tie.
The trench coat has become Castiel’s, now, and he likes it. He likes its weight, and its drape, the way he puts its layers over his suit jacket the way the Winchesters put their jackets on their flannels on their Henleys. It’s like them, but unlike them, because Castiel is not like them but he still belongs. He loved (loves) that Dean carried it in Baby’s trunk, even dirty and manhandled as it was—because it had value to Dean, even though, then, it had none to Castiel. Not yet.
Now that he is human, though—now that he is fallen—he has things of his own. He can have belongings—Castiel’s still not quite sure of the appeal of wearing different kinds of clothing every day, as it seems much more convenient to wear the same thing over and over, but Sam and Dean have assured him that variety is better. And a hoodie is very comfortable. Fastening up its zipper isn’t the same as buttoning up his trench coat: it’s tighter, and it tugs and rubs on his chest and his shoulders. It feels a little like a hug. He likes that.
It's an experience. He can have experiences.
Castiel can taste a waffle, not just its component parts. He can enjoy its crunch between his teeth before he gets to the puffy center of the bite. He can flick his tongue through one little square of it to gather the single drop of maple syrup he meticulously laid into the middle. (He cares not even remotely that Kevin declares that the way he eats is sort of ridiculous. When Kevin offers him an eyedropper for his maple syrup, Castiel pointedly takes it. Yes, Castiel is aware that he is being mocked, but the expression on Kevin’s face when Castiel starts laying a single perfect droplet of syrup down into the very center every square is worth it. Also, it is delicious.)
He can suck the remnants of melted butter off his fingertips, and appreciate that it does not taste the same sampled from there as it does on his food. Castiel does like butter! And maple syrup. But only in judicious amounts. And no one can seem to answer for him why maple syrup smells a little bad.
When he looks up, sighing deeply in pleasure over his breakfast, Dean’s eyes are hungry and wide across the table, sclera pale and gleaming around jade-green. The width of them shows off the tiny sparks of gold in his irises, the sweep of his eyelashes catching the light. Castiel licks his lips, curiously, and watches Dean’s eyes follow the curve of the motion before dashing away. It’s rather like watching tropical fish dart through and around coral.
Castiel casts a smug glance at Kevin. See, Dean doesn’t think Castiel’s eating habits are ridiculous.
(Also, that reminds him that he would like to have an aquarium someday.)
Of all the experiences Castiel finds most intriguing about humanity, though, he truly, honestly enjoys reading.
No. That’s not true. Or it’s partially true.
He does enjoy reading—the acquisition of knowledge is pleasurable of itself. He once spends three days reading greedily across an entire reference shelf in the library. He reads the volumes from right to left, Kevin from left to right. Sam grins at them both. Dean mutters something about nerd multiplication and continues to play something on his phone. But he’s also the one who leaves cups of coffee at their elbows.
(Kevin gives up first, and declares Castiel the winner. Castiel wasn’t aware that it was a contest, and somehow that makes it more satisfying.)
But the immersion into imagination is even better. It seems strange and counterintuitive that Castiel’s fingers are lifting and turning paper, his eyes are moving across words, but his mind is far afield in someone else’s tale. He can rub his finger across a page, and the smooth tracery of it turns into another world. He can close his eyes and see it, and knows that what he is seeing in his mind’s eye is his own, and no one else’s. Though then, of course, he has to open them again to greedily consume the rest.
This didn’t happen when he was an angel.
He wonders, vaguely, if this was why Metatron enjoyed the books he had hoarded away so much. If that was why he liked being the Scribe so much. He doesn’t think so, though. There was a certain gluttony to the way Metatron consumed stories. Castiel thinks it was, likely, because he was looking for the story that would break through the glass of angelic reserve: that could make Metatron feel, that could make him imagine.
Castiel doesn’t think he hates Metatron, though maybe he should. It is because of him that Castiel is powerless and Graceless. It’s why Castiel’s back aches, sometimes, especially when he hasn’t gotten enough sleep, and why he bleeds when he nicks his hand chopping carrots. But it is also why he can enjoy waffles, now. It’s why Dean puts his hands on Castiel’s shoulders to soothe out the knots gathered between his shoulder blades, and Castiel finds himself arching into it the way he’s never even arched into the pleasure of his own wings. It’s why Castiel finds his eyes stinging, sometimes, because the prose is so beautiful it tugs and yanks and twists.
(Castiel would still punch Metatron in the face, given the chance. But he’d thank him, first. He likes the contrast of that.)
Castiel, simply put, loves books. He enjoys the distinction between their covers and their pages; he likes the way some of them have a thinner paper that feels powdery, like onionskin. The older ones in the Men of Letters bunker have a thicker, more expensive material that almost seems woven, like fabric. The ink is crisp to his eyes. He knows that if he were still an angel, he would be able to see the bleed of the dark of it, the same way tattoos smear out at the edges with age. The paper on textbooks and encyclopedias is so smooth and so shiny, compared to the cheap coarseness of paperback novels.
He thinks he can almost see the stars sparkling in Sam’s hazel eyes when he says so.
“Right?” Sam says, excitedly. “Like, just… libraries have this smell.”
“That’s paper mold,” Dean scoffs, and shakes his head. He doesn’t look up over the edge of his laptop, where he’s tapping away with two fingers.
“It’s not,” Castiel answers, absently. “Rather, it is caused by wood pulp degradation over time, but it’s much more likely to be lignin rather than mold.”
Both Dean and Sam blink at him.
“It’s a hydrocarbon related to vanillin,” he answers, helpfully. “It has a variable molecular structure, and is very pretty. Each one is unique to the structure of the tree it comes from. Quite snowflake-like.”
Kevin looks up from his armchair, over the crunch of his knees to his chest, interested. “Is that angel knowledge?” he asks. “Angels see and taste things in… molecules, right?”
“Angels do,” Castiel answers, “but we don’t care very much what they’re called. Or, really, what they taste like. I learned about lignin in the L chapter of a reference book on organic compounds.”
Kevin makes a small chuffing noise like angels have disappointed him once again. Well, Castiel’s rather used to being that kind of a disappointment.
“What do you like to read?” Sam asks, and the question’s so overwhelming that Castiel’s momentarily struck dumb.
Finally, he says, thoughtfully, “Anything with a leather cover.” Then he adds, biting his lower lip, “Or maybe anything where I can crease down the corner to mark my page without someone getting angry at me?”
Sam seems to find that funny. Kevin rolls his eyes. Dean mutters something that Castiel doesn’t understand, and hunches further behind his laptop.
Sam presents him with an entire series of Stephanie Plum paperback murder mysteries, mined from a used bookshop for fifty cents each. Castiel finds them unrealistic, but they’re not meant to be: they’re hugely entertaining, and he devours them one by one and emerges a little dazed and dehydrated, like an evening spent hunched over a bowl of salt and vinegar chips. (It doesn’t miss Castiel’s attention that Sam immediately borrows them back.)
Kevin, with a look of only mild judgment, offers him a lovely metal bookmark. It has rainbows that seem to be just under its surface, and they flash in the light when he tilts it back and forth.
“Refraction,” Castiel says, pleased by the effect of it.
“Yep.” Kevin holds out a hand, his fingers folded into a fist, knuckles out. He doesn’t smile, but Castiel thinks that maybe he’s thinking about it. “Physics, for the win,” he says.
Castiel, carefully, fist bumps him. It feels like a truce.
Castiel still likes folding down the corners to mark his pages, sometimes, though. He likes flipping back pages and running his fingertips over the small folded scar of the dog-ear, remembering what he was doing, and why he stopped reading at that point. Sometimes he leaves them in, and opens it back to a beloved passage.
He's very upset after he reads Where the Red Fern Grows (from the Lebanon library, wrapped in protective plastic, and stamped with trails of ownership on the inside cover). He didn’t understand, before he started reading, why it was so battered and tearstained, the words occasionally smeared.
“Dude,” Dean complains, shifting back and forth on his heels uncomfortably as Castiel wipes the moisture from his face and tries not to get any of it on the book, “We have, like, y’know… screens now. You don’t have to read everything on dead tree.”
Castiel’s not sure what any of that has to do with anything. “I’m aware,” Cas answers, dryly, thumbing tears away from the corners of his eyes and shaking his head. “I’ve run across the website for Busty Asian Beauties on yours accidentally, though, and it was much too easy to get distracted. Also, reading on screens for too long gives me a headache, no matter how pleasurable the reading.”
It’s a statement of fact, all of it, so he doesn’t understand why that makes Dean flush so dramatically.
It’s a little over a month later when Dean pushes a package clumsily wrapped in brown paper across the table towards him. “Uh… here.” It’s sealed with excessive amounts of tape, and there’s a rough ribbon of twine curled around it. “I, um. It’s for you.”
Castiel looks up from All Creatures Great and Small. (He thinks he might like to be a vet, someday. But last week, at the farmers market, after a kind stall owner put a drop of honey on Castiel’s arm and several bees flocked around to sample it, Castiel thought he might like to be an apiarist.) “For me?” he asks. “Is this…”
“It’s a gift,” Dean offers, helpfully. He doesn’t sit down, though. “I mean… look, I know it’s probably not fun being all… y’know.” He gestures up and down.
Castiel frowns, feeling vaguely insulted. He looks down at the shadow of his belly button, underneath a thin t-shirt. “I… am I not… attractive?” he asks, a little sadly. It shouldn’t matter—of course it shouldn’t—but this is Castiel’s body, now. He’d like Dean to think he’s attractive. He certainly thinks Dean is.
Dean’s eyes go comically wide in a way that is very dissimilar from the way he looked at Castiel when Castiel was enjoying waffles. “That’s—what—no, that’s not what—uh—” Dean’s hand scrabbles at the edge of the table and he shoves the package closer. “That’s not what I’m saying, Cas, Jesus. I’m just… you know, no grace, no wings, that’s all.”
“Oh.”
“But damn, you’re good at research. Like, Bobby-level,” Dean rushes on, his fingers tapping long nervous arpeggios across the Vault’s wide center table. “Seriously, you saved mine and Sammy’s ass last week, with that stuff you dug up about the Akra—Aqua—the scorpion guys.”
“The Aqrabuamelu,” Castiel says, tentatively pleased at the acknowledgment. “Thank you. But you didn’t have to get me anything. I’m glad to help.” He gathers the package to him and starts pulling at the edge of the tape.
After a few minutes, Dean fidgets. “You’re supposed to tear the paper,” he offers, helpfully.
“What if I don’t want to?” Castiel asks, peeling up the edge of a long strip. Initially, the tape splits, and he frowns, tugging off the little asymmetric triangle. He hates it when that happens. But as Castiel continues to pick carefully at the edge, his ministrations nudge up the rest of the tape, and he grabs the triangular leftover gleefully. The rest of the strip starts coming free in one long, rewarding, rectangular pull. He grunts with satisfaction.
(These triumphs are so tiny, but Castiel thinks of them the way he used to think of molding clouds in his hands: one tiny, ephemeral detail at a time, even knowing that they would never last. They’re not supposed to.)
“Geez. You’re so weird,” Dean says, but Castiel looks up into a face quiet with what he thinks is fondness. Dean finally relaxes, leaning a hip against the table to watch Castiel pick apart the packaging. His full, lovely lips curve into a small smile. Castiel’s thought about how much he would like to trace Dean’s lips with a fingertip; they seem like they’d be so soft. “You like things slow, huh.”
Castiel thinks about that. “I’m very old, by human standards,” he muses, wrestling up a corner of the wrapping paper with a little hmph of satisfaction. “But I’m a very new human. There’s a lot of things to enjoy, and I’d like to take my time doing it. I like all the sensations. The smells, the tastes. The touches.”
“Like turning a page when you’re reading, rather than clicking something,” Dean notes. He nods to himself. “I guess… okay, I guess maybe I can understand that. No e-readers for you, huh?”
“Yes, exact…” The wrapper in Castiel’s hands blooms open as he wrestles open the last—really excessive, he’s sure of it now—piece of tape. “Oh.”
Inside is a book, though he thought it would be. But it’s not just a book. It smells old and rich and expensive, like leather and lignin, and its cover dimples just barely under Castiel’s fingers. The edges of each page are delicately edged in gold, thick and sharp enough to cut. A curve of amber-hued ribbon peeks out of the top, and each letter of The Hobbit: or There and Back Again, J.R.R. Tolkien, is lovingly stamped into the cover.
It's not new; there are little cracks in the corners, and some of the gold leaf on the edges has flaked. The binding has split. Someone has read it. It’s well-loved. It’s decadent.
Castiel whispers, his throat full. “For me?”
“Um. Yeah.” Dean shifts, and his jeans squeak on the varnish. He studies the rough lines of his knuckles like he’s done something of which he thinks he should be ashamed. “I, uh… there was a set of ‘em, at this… I mean… you like books so much. I figure, y’know. For special occasions,” he finally finishes. His fingers clench hard enough in his jeans that Castiel hears his nails scrape at the denim. “There’s five of ‘em, good start to a little collection that’s, y’know. Yours? And, um, I got some plywood, we could put together a bookshelf for your—”
Castiel pulls Dean down and kisses him. He can’t help himself. It’s that or cry, and he is fairly sure which would make Dean more uncomfortable.
Dean’s lips are softer than the worn leather, and far more plush. The warm, clever tip of his tongue against Castiel’s bottom lip is a revelation, like the chocolate chips in pancakes.
That night, Castiel sits on the Dean Cave’s battered sofa, the one that is now placed between the two recliners, and rests The Hobbit on his lap to read. Dean grunts, lifts the book off Castiel’s thighs like it offends him, and displaces it with his head.
Dean is very excellent at sprawling. Castiel hasn’t really learned the trick of that, yet.
Castiel laughs, but he rests his new treasure on the armrest, balancing it with a palm splayed across the pages. The position of it all is very awkward. But he can place his other hand on Dean’s hair, feel the weight of Dean’s cheek on his thigh as Dean turns sideways and puts on Dr. Sexy. He rubs Dean’s scalp, the brush of short hair like static up and down Castiel’s arm, and the duality of the pleasure of it all is nearly overwhelming.
Sam strides in, turns around without a syllable, and leaves.
They haven’t touched yet, intimately, but when Dean takes him to his bed not that long afterwards, Castiel thinks that he would like to. He’d like it very much. He thinks so? He’s read about it, rather extensively. His breath comes faster with nerves and anticipation and uncertainty.
But the first night, Dean just curls up next to him. Castiel lies stiff, trying to force his body to curve towards Dean in those sinuous shapes and lines he’s seen in pornography, but he can’t; he never thought they were all that graceful, and relaxing is easier said than done. He wants, but he’s not aroused. Being human is sometimes just so contradictory. And uncomfortable.
Dean’s cheek nestles against Castiel’s shoulder in a heavy, good weight. He smells amazing, a little smoky, a little sleepy. An arm sweeps over Castiel’s waist, and settles on his hipbone. If anything, Castiel tenses further.
But the exploring hand doesn’t travel any further. It rubs a rough, clumsy thumb, back and forth, over the shallow, bony rise of Castiel’s hipbone, through his sweatpants. “G’night,” Dean grunts, much to Castiel’s surprise. “Get some rest.”
Castiel didn’t know he’d like this, too. But he kisses Dean’s forehead and gently runs his hand down the surprisingly elegant line of Dean’s spine, over his thin, ragged t-shirt. His fingers curve into the angle of Dean’s shoulder blade, fitting them together. Dean sighs deeply enough that Castiel’s hand rises and falls.
“Is this… okay?” Castiel asks, and he doesn’t even know what he’s referring to. The sex? The lack thereof?
“S’awesome,” Dean mumbles, happily, and clings tighter.
Dean, Castiel realizes, abruptly, is cuddling him. Dean likes to cuddle. Did Castiel know that? He used to watch over Dean as he slept, but he didn’t think he ever enjoyed the experience.
But he does now. Sleeping with him is even better.
(Dean snores. It’s the sweetest little sound Castiel’s ever heard.)
When Dean builds Castiel his bookshelf, it’s to fit into a little nook in the corner of Dean’s bedroom. Castiel can’t remember the last time he even slept in his own. Kevin and Sam each give him a book to populate it—The Genius of Birds from Kevin, The Importance of Being Ernest from Sam. Charlie gives him a “graphic novel” from a TV series called “Firefly,” and makes him promise that he will watch it with her the next time she’s in the Bunker.
Dean gives him the Fellowship of the Ring, fragrant and used and leatherbound, and kisses Castiel until he’s breathless. Until his tongue is dry and tingling, until they’re horizontal and nude and moving together under the covers in a slow bump and slide. Dean is on top of him. Castiel can’t remember why he didn’t want this.
It’s terribly awkward. It’s so messy, Castiel’s precome smeared into the crease of Dean’s groin, his head reflexively jerking away into giggles when Dean attempts to stick his tongue in Castiel’s ear. He doesn’t know who is covered in whose sweat. Castiel is momentarily distracted from the slow inevitability of rising pleasure by the thump of a book from his nightstand hitting the floor from an outflung hand. (“Nope,” Dean says, when Castiel automatically cranes over to look at it, and does something with his hips that is so intensely pleasurable Castiel’s eyes cross.) The pillow has slid out from under Castiel’s head and mashed itself up towards the headboard, laying him flat on the mattress.
Dean laughs shakily, and his arms bracket Castiel’s shoulders. He’s heavy and solid and fleshy, and his cock is a brand alongside Castiel’s as they move and slip and slide. The bite mark Dean left on his shoulder aches.
It’s wonderful.
After, they clean up shyly, with bedside wipes. Dean shudders as Castiel lifts a pearl-tinged droplet to his lips for a sample, tasting it delicately off the tip of his finger. It’s not a pleasant flavor, musky and animal and a little bitter, but Castiel thinks he doesn’t mind it.
“Uh…” Dean mumbles. He has the waffles-with-syrup look on his face. Castiel’s gotten to really like that look.
“I’d like to taste that again,” Castiel tells him, seriously. “Another time. Perhaps from the source? I’ll have to do some research.”
“Oh my God,” Dean says, flopping onto his back on the bed with his eyes dazed, bewildered. Castiel’s not sure if it’s a curse or a prayer. But the shudder that ripples over Dean is something that looks like anticipation.
Castiel is too electrified to sleep, still shaky with delight, and he reaches over and fumbles the book back up from the floor, opening it. (And if he almost topples himself headfirst off the side of the bed because his limbs are feeling a little too languid for coordination, no one has to know.) Dean curls up on his side beside him, legs moving restlessly, limbs heavy.
“C’mon, Cas,” he complains, sleepily, toeing the cover sheet up and over his waist. “The book’s still gonna be there for you to read tomorrow.”
“Yes,” Castiel answers, pushing himself to sit up higher on the headboard. His toes burrow under the edge of the cover sheet. He nestles one foot sideways to tuck it under the warm solidity of Dean’s hip. “But my mindset while reading may not.”
He’s happy. He’s so happy.
Angels don’t get joy like this.
Dean grunts and shoves himself facedown onto the mattress. Castiel’s still not sure that seems comfortable, but it’s how Dean not infrequently starts the night. Slowly, his breathing evens out, eyelids sagging. He wriggles back onto his side, and one arm sprawls over Castiel’s lap. (Castiel likes how smooth Dean’s forearm is on his naked thighs.)
Castiel sets his fingertips in Dean’s hair, stroking, scratching absently, and reads from a ragged little paperback book about a little girl named Dorothy and a dog named Toto, witches under houses and yellow brick roads. Dean’s limbs are loose and heavy, but after a chapter, as Castiel goes to turn to the next fragile, yellow-edged page, Castiel realizes that Dean’s not snoring. Something’s wrong.
Castiel glances down, reaches out. But Dean’s face is serene as Castiel rubs the smooth, sex-mussed arc of his hairline, his lips a little parted. They’re Castiel’s to trace, now, those lips. He has done. It was just as pleasurable as he imagined. He presses his thumb to the full plush of the lower one, and watches Dean smile around it.
But when Castiel lifts his hand away to access the next chapter, Dean’s eyebrows bunch together. His lips purse, and part. He makes a small, nonverbal rumble in the silence of the bedroom that sounds like a thrum of protest vibrating against deep vocal cords.
The beauty of him smooths out again when Castiel lowers his hand again. His thumb brushes back and forth against Dean’s temple, where the first few sparks of grey are starting to show, like evening stars.
Oh.
Castiel looks down at the book in his hand, then at the human for whom he fell from grace. There is no way for him to hold a book and turn a page while still ruffling Dean’s hair.
Perhaps Castiel’s still falling. Perhaps it’ll hurt when he lands. Or perhaps someone will be there to catch him.
Dean doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t open his eyes. If anything, he lets out a clipped, disconsolate little snort, and hunches his chin deeper into his chest. It’s a desperately unattractive look, even on such a beautiful face.
Castiel loves to read books. They’re an experience of his mind and his touch and both hands. He loves the feel of them, the slightly musty, organic smell of them, the way the pages sometimes stick together and have to be ruffled apart with the tip of a wet finger. It’s a simple pleasure, but there’s nothing wrong with simplicity.
But the small, happy scrunch of Dean’s nose when Castiel sets his fingers, gently, back into Dean’s hair and runs a finger around the delicate swirl of his crown is answer enough.
Castiel does like books. He likes having belongings. He likes having things that are his.
But some experiences, Castiel thinks, are special.
“I’m going to purchase an e-reader,” he vows, to Dean’s sleeping face, folding the cover of the book closed and settling it back on the nightstand. “I promise.”
~fin~