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Dean is probably the worst. He’s seen what happens (what could happen, could not will) to Cas without his mojo. And, Dean isn’t going to lie, future-Cas had been an odd little stoner, and interesting, and kind of creepy with how he laughed and had emotions other than ‘serious’ and ‘severe’ and ‘seriously severe’.
But.
So Sam has to explain to Cas why he’s not allowed to drink as a human. “It’s different,” he says. “You’ve got no natural tolerance.”
“Wouldn’t it make sense for me to drink so that I may develop one?”
Dean cuts in with, “No.” And Sam just gives Cas an apologetic shrug.
“We’ll take you out next time we’re not saving the world,” he offers. “I promise.”
*
Sam has taken up looming. He doesn’t mean to, it’s just that... it’s just that he’s pretty tall, and Cas seems so small to him all of a sudden now that he’s not crackling with angelic power, even though Cas is still a smidgeon taller than most.
So, it just makes sense for Sam to... to use his natural asset, to discourage any problems. To keep an eye on what Cas is doing, and who he’s talking to. And, okay, if sometimes he comes off as a little possessive (protective, he’s being protective), well.
“Dean talked to me once about personal space,” Cas says almost absently one day.
And, okay, if Cas is noticing Sam in his non-existent personal space bubble, then maybe Sam has been sticking a little close. What Sam means to say is “Oh, sorry.”
What comes out is, “There are lots of exceptions to those rules.”
And, you know, maybe sharing a bed with him is taking the ‘keeping an eye on you’ thing to far... but most rooms only come with two beds anyway, and splitting the three of them up just isn’t going to happen. It’s practical.
“I see,” Castiel replies.
Sam kind of hopes he doesn’t.
*
Bobby. Even Bobby. Which is... It really just shows how used to having an angel around they’d all gotten.
“You know how to use a gun?”
Cas nodded. “I know how one works.”
“That ain’t the same thing,” Bobby replies. And there’s a day gone with a small arsenal spread out and Bobby going over how each one works, how each one is handled, even getting a little lyrical about how each gun has its own quirks and habits.
“Never trust a gun sight unless you’ve tested it yourself,” Bobby tells him.
Castiel blows the face off of the rough demon-target that Sam had made for practice, and then gives Bobby a confused look. “What’s a ‘sight’?”
Bobby stares at the mess of cardboard. “You know what? Never mind.”
*
Chuck texts them a lot. And at first that had been really freaking scary, because if your prophet is just ‘checking to see you’re okay’, something messed up must be around the corner, right? So they spend three weeks with Sam and Dean jumping out of their skins and Castiel playing snake on his phone, before they decide to roll around to Casa De Chuck and shake some details out of him.
What they get is Becky asking after every single bruise, scrape, and shaving nick that Castiel has acquired.
“I’m sorry,” Chuck says, all heavy sighs and actual clothes on. “He’s her favourite character now.”
Becky is kneeled next to Cas on the couch. “And then losing your wings? Your grace? Having to be mortal and struggling to come to terms with the harsh intensity of human feelings?” She throws her arms around his neck, and bawls into his shoulder.
It’s the first time they see raw, genuine fear on Castiel’s face.
They lay down a ‘no girls’ law after that. And if it’s a little weird, giving their own sordid pasts, well.
It’s just different with Cas.
*
They get jumped in a bar, and why does this stuff still happen to them? Dean is punching, and Sam is backing him up, and they have no real clue what’s going on because something is possessing these people but they’re not full of demon smoke.
And then suddenly they realise that Cas is a beige blur of swiftly moving (not swift enough), tightly focused (but he doesn’t have his sight now), so horribly stoppable (flesh, now, and no healing mojo, and why was he so stupid?) violence.
And then they see a slice of sliver slip down from his sleeve, and go through the neck of some skeevy guy in the middle of the room. Cas holds it there, tight and firm and maybe twisting be blade just a little bit, before he steps back and pulls it out, and the guy drops, and everything goes back to normal.
“I forgot he had a sword,” Sam says as is disappears back inside his coat.
“Yeah.”
And then Castiel is standing beside them, calm and bland.
“Wow, Cas. That was...”
Cas gives them both a long look, very blue, and very impassive. “I have been a soldier since the dawn of time,” he tells them flatly.
“Right,” Sam says. “Of course.”
“Gottcha,” Dean adds.
*
He’s still stuck with mocktails, but sometimes Sam will let him be the big spoon.
It’s not weird. Honest.