Sam gives Castiel endeared smiles every morning when Castiel snaps open the paper before laying it out on their kitchen table.
When Sam moved in, Castiel had a hoard of old newspapers underneath his bed and in the closet of the guest bedroom. Sam gently told Castiel to consider getting rid of the papers, afraid of insulting what Castiel might consider to be a collection of sentimental value.
Castiel didn’t want to admit he was just too lazy to throw the paper away and they accumulated into an embarrassing amount. He tried to justify it by saying he planned on using the newspapers to clean his windows. They made plans to spend the weekend cleaning, but halfway through, Castiel became distracted by the stories in the papers. He dragged Sam down to the floor, away from cleaning the window above the house’s entrance door, and read aloud until Sam began to doze off with his head on Castiel’s lap.
The two tried shredding the papers to use for their guinea pig’s cage, but learned it made terrible bedding not an hour later when the paper was soggy and difficult to collect.
Sam and Castiel took the mess of papers to the recycling center, and Sam makes it his responsibility to drop off the week’s papers on Saturdays.
So while Castiel knows Sam does not understand Castiel’s interest in newspapers, Sam does make it known he’s grown to appreciate Castiel’s obsession in the way he listens to Castiel read the news to him.
(And, on hottest day of summer, when there’s a power outage in the neighborhood and the Wi-Fi is down, and Castiel finds screening times in the entertainment section of the Sunday paper, the two spend the blackout in an air-conditioned theater, watching the latest romcom. Sam kisses Castiel’s temple before the movie starts and says, “I love my cute, little, pretentious boyfriend.”)