Fluff and slight porn I really shouldn't have written but wouldn't leave me alone until I did.

Five habits Castiel picked up that Dean really wishes he hadn't, and one he doesn't mind so much.

1

Somewhere along the line Castiel developed expensive tastes. Dean still isn't sure where they came from, it's not like he's been spoiled in his first few months as a human. Dean himself is less into luxuries than 'good enough' or 'not bad' he likes his burgers, sleeping in a bed rather than the car, a good beer and some not-terrible porn. That's his life right there. Sam's pretty much the same, except he doesn't go in for the artery clogging grease fests and won't admit to the porn either.

Castiel on the other hand, well, he likes expensive sheets.

He worked that out when the guy complained that every motel had the same scratchy ones which irritated his skin. Dean bought him a pack of the most hideously expensive white, bazillion thread count Transylvanian silk mix sheets and Castiel stopped complaining, snuggling up happily every night and looking like a bush baby fighting to subdue a large and unruly cloud.

Castiel also wrinkles his nose at regular American black filter coffee, and after a little trial and error (plus two spit takes and an argument) it's discovered that he likes ten dollar iced coffees with cream, hazelnut syrup and a kind of Canadian maple syrup liquor, that Dean has to restock them with once a month.

Whilst the ex-angel will eat the same things both he and Sam order, Dean doesn't see Cas's honest to God, this-food-is-an-orgasm-for-my-mouth face until his fifth month as a human. Castiel catches a scent of something while they're looking for a place to eat and follows it like Lassie to a French restaurant. Turns out the scent was coming from its open door, and Castiel asks the confused waiter to bring him whatever it is that he can smell (Dean makes a mental note to tip the guy a bundle for dealing with Cas – looking like some kind of strung out stoner in search of cilantro).

Castiel is presented with a takeout pot of some thick soup, oyster and lemon with cream and dill, as proclaimed by the wide eyed server. Dean hands over about three times as much money as he can afford just to keep the peace. Castiel doesn't even make it to the car, stopping on a bench to open the pot, inhale deeply and tip half of it directly down his throat in one sinuous movement. He groans like someone's just wrapped their mouth around his dick, and wipes a hand across his mouth, smearing cream sauce across the back of it.

"Feeling better now?" he hazards, eyeing the blissed out ex-angel warily.

"Mmmmhhmmm." Castiel downs the rest of the container with a happy moan, running his finger around the inside and licking it clean.

Dean really doesn't know where to look.

"You want me to leave you two alone?"

Castiel frowns. "Why would I want that?" He licks the inside of the container lid, tongue flattening into the grooves in the plastic, eyes half closed as he concentrates on the flavour.

Dean sighs and drops onto the bench next to him.

"This is going to cost me, isn't it?" Though it is kind of worth it to see Castiel enjoy himself, and still cheaper than trying to get him together with a hooker again.

Dean makes a point of buying Castiel food from good restaurants, deli's and bistro's whenever he gets the chance. Castiel is surprised and grateful for each new offering

Sometimes he can even be convinced to share.

2

Castiel, for all his fussiness about food and bedding, has no taste in music.

He appropriates the laptop and downloads (illegally, Dean is mildly proud to say) whole albums of...well some kind of auditory torture.

"What the hell is this?" Dean looks up at the former angel, swaddled in an old hoody and ripped jeans, propped up against the headboard.

"Mika." Castiel looks down to check. "Rain."

Dean listens to a few more lines.

"Is it really necessary
Every single day
You're making me more ordinary
And every possible way
This ordinary man is broken
You did it and you don't even know
You're leaving me with words unspoken
You better get back because I'm ready for

More than this
Whatever it is
Baby, I hate days like this"

Dean wonders if Castiel can grasp why he likes this song. Why he also likes 'Hallelujah' 'God and Satan' or, bizarrely 'Who Knew?' by Pink.

The music is an awful mix of pop, pop-rock and plain 90's grunge music.

But Dean allows it because he understands, more than anyone, what it means to hear someone who can imitate – in some meaningless way, what's going on inside your head.

3

Castiel's discovery of hot showers and baths is something that will forever change the way the Winchester's operate.

It used to be that Sam would shower quickly, and then complain that Dean took too long when he spent over twenty minutes under the hot jets. Any other shower-related activates were joked about but tolerated, and they'd gotten along with that routine for years.

Castiel screws it up the first time Dean points out that he could use a wash.

Cas had sniffed himself experimentally, agreed with a slight wrinkle to his nose and accepted the bar of plain white soap Dean had dished out, along with a towel and a razor.

He was in the bathroom for over an hour, very nearly two.

"Uh...Cas? you ok in there?" Dean asked, tapping on the door.

"I'm fine." Castiel sounded confused. "Why wouldn't I be?" Dean heard a faucet being turned on, Castiel sighed at the new rush of hot water into the cooling bath.

"Don't drown." Dean muttered at the door.

"Mmmm...?" came the muffled response and Dean let it drop.

It escalated quite quickly, because as it turned out, Castiel was kind of a slut for hot water and long, steamy showers. He wasted soap like an especially popular bathhouse and frequently bemoaned their lack of scented products.

Dean gave into his demands quite quickly – he'd learnt the hard way that once Castiel wanted something it was best to just let him have it.

He'd gotten quite good at manipulating Dean anyway, something Sam found hilarious and Dean found mildly humiliating.

Locking doors though, was a skill Castiel had yet to acquire. Which was how Dean came to open the door to the bathroom, expecting it to be empty, and instead found Castiel languishing in a tub brimming with hot water and some kind of mineral, oily crap that had cost him twenty dollars and smelt like rosemary. It was also the kind of stuff that didn't foam, so whilst it rendered the water a little murky with silt, Castiel's body was by no means comfortably obscured.

Dean froze.

Castiel opened his eyes, dark hair heavy with water, head only just protruding from the surface.

"Oh...hello Dean." He blinked lazily.

"Cas...Lock. The. Damn. Door." Dean stresses, turning away as Castiel sits up a little and rubs at his neck. The other man sighs tersely and dips back down beneath the water, head disappearing and legs, long and pale with a prickling amount of dark hair, rising out of the water to hang over the end of the tub.

Dean ducks out of the bathroom as quick as he can.

He really needs to give Castiel a follow up lesson to that on personal space – Dean's commandment number two – Thou shalt keep all thine parts covered.

4

Castiel soon grasps the importance of modesty. Although it seemed like something an angel shouldn't have trouble with, it seemed that in his newly human skin Castiel couldn't grasp that when he was hot he shouldn't just take his clothing off, that he needed to sleep in some kind of pyjamas, and that to deal with certain uncomfortable occurrences, he should wait until he could use the shower, or at least for Dean to wake up and vacate the bed.

It was tough, and awkward, but they'd gotten there.

Teaching gender appropriate behaviour is a little trickier.

Castiel had developed an odd habit of trying out new human experiences without prior warning. Dean occasionally woke up to find that Castiel had shaved his beard, or smoked his first (and last) cigarette, or else tried out yoga or tuned into a baseball game.

He was starting to get used to Castiel's forays into human culture, and then he took him to Wal-mart.

They were just buying salt, masses and masses of road salt to replenish their supply, but he lost track of the former angel for about ten minutes and that proved to be his undoing.

Castiel successfully shoplifted, took home, and used, a bottle of bright red nail varnish.

Dean wasn't really sure what to make of the matching set of finger and toenails, all painted with psychotic neatness in the same ruby red.

"Why...did you do that?" is all he can manage.

Castiel looks down at his feet, long and pale and tipped in crimson.

"They look nice." Is the only reason he can think of.

Dean really wants to tell him that men don't do that, or at least, that men of Dean's acquaintance don't. But its Castiel's body (now at least) and he hasn't seen the former angel exhibit any kind of pride in it, despite his occasional bouts of nudity. This is something Castiel decided upon and did for himself, and he likes the way it looks.

"They do indeed." Dean says instead, and Castiel smiles at him, uncertain but pleased.

5

For all that Dean has suffered with Castiel failing to lock doors, making pornographic noises when he eats, and dabbling in feminine beauty products, it's the sounds he makes when Dean isn't around (or when he thinks he isn't) that screw him up the most.

Castiel is loud when he thinks he's alone, on the few occasions that Sam and Dean head off and leave him at the motel room. Those times when Castiel does what Dean would do in such a situation – take full advantage of having the shower to himself and no one to overhear.

Dean only discovers how loud the ex-angel is by accident, when he returns to the motel because Sam interview grieving families better when he's alone, apparently.

The gut wrenching moan that comes from the bathroom makes him start, launching himself towards the door before his brain kicks in, his danger sensors dying out as he realises what's probably going on behind the door.

Then he really doesn't know what to do. He's kind of stuck, transfixed by the sounds coming from the other room, barely muffled by the thin wall and the slight splashes of the bath water. He really shouldn't be listening.

Castiel groans, deep and tortured, sounding more animal than human, then gasps, whimpering something like "Cah-uh...oh..." and then that groan again. Like he's stuck on the edge, frustrated and out of his mind with it.

Dean swallows.

"Oh, please..." half whimper, half growl. "pleasepleaseplease...oh..." his breath catches. "nugh...uh...Go-d." Spaced out to two syllables, then a slosh as Castiel's presumably spent body falls back against the bathtub. Dean's stuck with the image of Castiel wringing himself for everything he's worth.

The sound of the bath draining is enough to wake him from his daze, backtracking to the door and outside again to re-enter the room with a lot more noise than before.

Castiel looks up from his place crouched over his duffle bag, towel around his waist.

"Oh, how was the interview?" he asks, dragging some boxers free of the ball of clothing that he always insists is organised.

"Sam's taking care of it, so I thought I'd crash with you for a while." Dean removes his tie and unbuttons his collar. It's weird wearing a suit when Castiel is only just wriggling into a t-shirt, like they're backwards or something. He feels like he should be delivering a warning about the apocalypse.

Then he's left wondering how many times Castiel has dropped in and heard his own alone-in-the-motel noises.

6

Dean hates flying. Dean would never use the word 'scared' to apply to his distaste for planes, but that's what it is nonetheless.

Sam's scared of clowns. Sam wouldn't use the word 'scared' either, but Dean does, because he thinks his brother is kind of a girl.

Castiel hates the dark.

He hates the way his human eyes trick him into thinking there's someone or something there in the shadows when there isn't. He hates the way he can feel the paranoia, the fear, creeping in on him in his bed. They way he's powerless to prevent an attack in his current form.

He tells none of this to Dean.

The elder hunter is only aware of a tugging at the blankets that cover him as he sleeps. Castiel is standing over him, ludicrously expensive sheets in tow.

"Can I stay with you...for a while?" he whispers, eyes not quite meeting Dean's. But Dean has a younger brother, he knows the look of someone who's scared to sleep alone. He makes room for Castiel and snuggles into the sheets (which it turns out were totally worth the money – go figure) which smell like expensive coffee and fancy liquor chocolate. Castiel is warm and heavy and after a while Dean reaches out and pulls him closer, lacing his fingers through the ex-angel's and just making out the chipped red paint in the dark.

Castiel sighs happily and falls asleep against him.

This becomes a habit of theirs, and not one either of them is keen on breaking.

Later Dean discovers that Castiel does not need solitude to be loud, and, if anything, amps up his soundtrack when he's with someone – it's a discovery that doesn't shock him so much as boost his ego – Though Sam does not agree that Castiel's lack of inhibition is 'the best thing ever' – but then, he's scared of clowns, so his argument is invalid.