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Ever since Castiel had lost his grace and fallen from heaven, he’d been thinking. He had spent a huge part of his life watching the human race, watching them grow and take over the world, becoming dominant over the creatures that could kill them with a swipe of their paw.
Castiel had loved the human race for their ingenuity and daring. He loved them for their ability to overcome difficulties and learn amazing things, things that had let them double the length of their lives and let them be warm in the depths of winter.
Castiel loved the human race for its ability to divert away from the path that God had designed for them. He’d never told his human charges that God’s initial plan had meant the eventual destruction of the species, but God, like Castiel, had been powerless to resist their charms.
When Cas had fallen for the human race (in the metaphorical sense, long before he did it literally), he’d decided to learn what makes them live and what makes them love and why they strive to greatness like they do.
When Cas fell for humanity for the second time, this time involving literal falling, he finally understood the human urges that he’d watched for thousands of years.
After explaining his and the other Angels falls to Sam and Dean, Cas had felt a new feeling, an emptiness in his gut that he thought was his death come already. While Sam scurried to try to find a cure, Dean had laughed and offered him a slice of pie. That had made Cas feel better. Dean had laughed even harder when Sam had rushed in with an old book, believing that he’d found something that could be what Cas was describing. Cas laughed too, a real human laugh that bubbled up suddenly and didn’t die for minutes. He’d laughed before, but it hadn’t been as real as this. Things really weren’t funnier in Enochian.
Dean had taken Cas to a bar to teach him to drown his spirits properly, though Cas had lost his taste for alcohol after the “drinking the liquor store” incident. Dean had laughed at that too, and ordered him a coke.
Cas had spent hours asleep, enjoying the respite from outside world, losing consciousness without thought, not spending every second noticing everything.
Sam had convinced Cas to watch some sports, namely boxing and football. Cas felt a feeling he’d never felt before when he watched these men take out all their anger on each other. Sam called it “getting pumped up”, and Cas decided not to say that he thought that that was what you did to a flat tyre.
Cas had watched TV before, but as an interested observer of the human race and not just a person watching TV. Doing this made Cas happy.
In fact, all of this made Cas happy. There were problems, of course: the thought of Metatron alone and ruling heaven was always on his mind, but Dean had told him that he was allowed to be worried without being completely focused. Dean encouraged Cas’s humanity. Cas liked that the most.
When Cas came back from a night of karaoke that Dean had taken him too as a joke, Cas was convinced that he had completed his human training. He’d enjoyed an evening of jollity with a friend, made some new friends, and embarrassed himself by singing a terrible rendition of ‘After the Fall’ by Journey. He knew he was human now.
“I think I’ve done it, Dean” he said, still gravelly voiced despite the loss of his grace.
“What have you done, Cas?” came the reply from the bathroom where Dean was brushing his teeth.
“I’ve cracked it. I know what being a human is.” Cas started to smile. He was still quick thinking, despite the fall, and believed that he had figured out what drove humanity forwards. “Humans are an endless list of urges. You- we- act on our urges and that’s why you- we- are the leading species on this planet.”
“Urges. Urges?” The slightly gargled reply was clear to Cas, who’d studied all of Dean’s moods and times.
“Urges. Food, drink, friendship. People want things and work to get them. Some people have different urges, like greatness or knowledge. They work towards that and the human race moves forward.”
“Okay, I see what you’re saying, like, our urges make each us human and that makes us great? One problem.”
“What’s that?”
“You missed one urge.” Without Cas noticing, Dean had snuck up on him. He now stood in front of Cas, who realised that he’d been talking with his eyes closed. His eyes where wide open now, though. He resumed his detailed study of Dean, each freckle, each eyelash, each crinkle at the side of his eyes. As he moved onto the flecks of gold in his eye, Dean moved onto him.
The first kiss was firm and didn’t last long. Dean didn’t move much and Cas was too stunned to do anything. Dean pulled away and now seemed to be compiling his own study, watching for a sign from Cas that it was okay. After Cas had given the tiniest of nods, Dean leaned in again, stooping slightly to kiss the shorter man. The two kept studying each other’s eyes until Dean saw something that made him close his.
Dean started to push Cas back with his body. He moved his hands up Cas’s back and rested them on his shoulders for a second, before moving one of them back down Cas’s back and the other on to the back of Cas’s head. Cas kept his on Dean’s hips as they gently moved back, until Cas fell back onto the bed and Dean on top of him.
Dean started to bite his friend’s lower lip, slowly at first and then more enthusiastically. With most of his mouth now free, Cas was able to mumble.
“Dean. Dean I- Dean!” Dean pulled away and stared at Cas. For once, he seemed almost nervous, almost shy.
“Don’t you want this Cas?” he asked, quietly, with a low voice, barely audible to even Cas, 6 inches away.
“I do, but I’m not ready, Dean. I’m barely human yet, Dean. I still try to flap my wings and disappear because I’m not properly human. I still have to work on that.” Cas laughed and Dean smiled.
Dean rolled away from Cas, although they kept their hands entwined.
“You were right, Dean.”
“What?”
“I had missed an urge.”