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The thing is, Castiel-as-a-human isn’t actually all that different from Castiel-as-an-angel. He’s still sarcastic and nerdy and stubborn as hell.
(He’s also still beautiful, but that’s surprised no one, least of all Dean.)
Case in point regarding all that stubbornness, he’s been working his way through about a thousand seasons of some British show about a doctor. After Metatron had implanted thousands of pop culture references into his brain, Cas had been determined to consume all the media they’d come from, so he could say he got them honestly. And by god, he’s been trying.
At first, Dean had secretly been a little excited to watch Doctor Who with him, because he likes medical shows. He was maybe hoping it would be like Dr. Sexy, MD.
It is not.
Overall, this show features significantly fewer hot doctors in cowboy boots and significantly more aliens in robot suits. Not bad, if you’re into that sort of thing, but Dean isn’t, so he mostly leaves Cas to watch that one with Sam. Silly little sci fi show for the silly little nerds.
So you can understand why Dean is more than a little concerned to walk in on Castiel downright weeping over Doctor Who. He’d laughed at plenty of them, been freaked out by a few, scoffed at the inaccuracy of most, but never been this devastated.
Dean lands on his knees by the couch and pries Cas’ hands away from his tear streaked face.
“Hey, hey, what is it? What happened? Are you hurt?” he asks, a little frantic. Castiel just shakes his head and tries to gather himself before he speaks.
“I’m fine, it was just this one… this episode was about someone I met once. A friend.” He sniffles, then smiles softly at Dean. “His name was Vincent. He was… well, I think maybe he reminded me of you.”
“Of me?” Dean’s surprised, and wonders if he should be jealous. “How come?”
“He was someone who lived with great pain. Like you,” Cas says, nodding once toward Dean. “And like you, he didn’t let his pain take away his love. And he was beautiful despite it.”
Dean’s never really known how to respond to praise, even though he knows Cas means it (maybe more so because he knows that), so he clears his throat and tries to will his flushing cheeks to desaturate.
“What happened to him?” he asks, trying to be gentle with his still teary boyfriend.
“His heaven is lovely,” Cas says around a smile. “Someday, many years from now, I’ll take you there. You’ll get along, I think.”
Dean smiles back and moves to sit on the couch, throwing an arm around Castiel’s shoulders. He presses a kiss to his temple and asks, “Do you want to watch something else for a little bit? Looks like Netflix thinks that if you liked this one, you might also like… Sherlock?”
Castiel wrinkles his nose slightly and shakes his head.
“Let’s just go for a walk, Dean. Let’s look at the stars.”