SPN: The Common Denominator
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Alien!AU. Castiel is an envoy from another world with the ability to learn everything about a person through touch. Sam is his guide. Together, they explore different aspects of human life - from the concept of ownership to the great pancake vs waffles debate, to the various ways that people can care for each other. [Written for Zee for The Great Blind Sassy Exchange.]
This is how the day starts - with Sam stumbling out of his apartment, late already and rushing it to the embassy because today is the big day. The day where the Angels finally agree to send an envoy between their planets. The Ambassador will be busy with the Angels' military leader, Michael, but Sam gets the other one - whoever it is. Sam hasn't met them yet, but he can't help being excited about it. An Angel - all to himself, to watch learn and soak up information like a sponge. Dean's been making bets that it's going to be Anael that they choose because she's curious about everything and eager, but Sam doesn't think so because she's a soldier first and under Michael's jurisdiction to boot. The Angels will probably send someone … he doesn't like thinking in terms of expendable, but whoever they send is likely to be less critical to the safety of their home planet and more likely to be able to hold their own.
In any case, it doesn't matter who bet what anymore because they'll find out soon enough, and even though Sam shows up late and has to brush pieces of granola bar off his shirt, he's still there before the Angels are, left to mill around with his teammates and the Ambassador for a few minutes before the room they're in splits open at the far end. It's blue light and song - the sweet trill of notes fluttering like birds' wings around the faint taps of two sets of feet finding ground.
The light is so bright that everyone has to turn away to avoid being blinded - so bright that it should be frightening, yet the emotion that stirs Sam's heart to pounding isn't fear but excitement. Sam will never not be amazed and slightly intimidated by this show of technology and power. Spaceships, sure. Basic superpowers like telekinesis and pyrokinesis, sure - Sam's got the first up his sleeve as it is. But instantaneous interplanetary travel through light and the Angels' species-wide gift of psychometry? It makes dealing with the Angels as a whole rather difficult because they have no need for any technology that Earth might give them; their interests lie with only one thing - cultural knowledge - and it's the reason why Sam's here today, as mediator between the Angelic envoy and Mankind.
Michael is the one that breaks forth from the light first. He seems slight, but he carries himself as if he were bigger, broader - as if his body does not quite suit him or as if he's used to wearing something heavier, like armor. He's dark haired and followed by a companion, also with dark hair and a slight build, and together, they stride forward one after the other until the blue light snaps away behind them as if it had never been.
Ambassador Coulson - good guy, nerves of steel - hesitates a fraction of a second before he takes the hand that Michael holds out and no wonder. Secrets are the hazardous byproducts of his position, and one touch from an Angel reveals an awful lot in just plain factual information. Talk is brief with Angels, always. It can't help but be brief. There isn't any need for explanations because a single handshake can tell them everything that you already have planned for the day. As soon as Ambassador Coulson releases Michael's hand, Michael turns to his companion and touches his shoulder, passing on the information silently as his other hand gestures toward Sam and the rest of his team.
"This is Castiel," Michael says. "We will be leaving him with you to gather information. He will be the reservoir for our knowledge on your kind."
Then, the Ambassador is off to the side with Michael, and it's Castiel who takes up the whole of Sam's attention as he turns first to Dean. Their handshake is brief, barely there, and Dean withdraws as quickly as he can - scared, Sam thinks, that Castiel will see too much of all the thoughts and feelings he holds close to his chest - and Castiel follows his example with an uncomfortably furrowed brow. Castiel makes his way through Bobby, who is just as antsy about being known as Dean is, and Ellen, who is guarded too but bold about it. By the time Castiel makes his way to Sam, he looks very shaky and uncertain about the task he's been set with and his welcome. Sam feels a surge of sympathy. He knows what that's like - even with Dean... especially with Dean - because of his super-freaky mutant powers and humans not being sure that Sam's one of them anymore because he can throw things across the room with his mind. He gets it, though he isn't sure that Castiel gets it, and so when Sam grasps his hand, he tries to project as friendly and calm an atmosphere as possible.
Next thing Sam knows, not only does he have Castiel's hand in his, but Castiel's other hand is reaching to grasp his elbow and then his shoulder and then his neck. Castiel steps in close like he's greedy to feel how happy Sam is that he's here. It's weird, to be honest, and Castiel's presence is like a faint tingle along his spine, slipping through his thoughts like a whisper - polite and unobtrusive; perhaps a bit sweet.
For anyone else, it might feel like an invasion to know that the Angel's reading everything he's thinking and everything he's feeling, but for Sam... God he's just curious. Can't fault him for that, can you? He's curious as all hell and he watches Castiel read him with a sort of morbid fascination, wanting to see Castiel react to his thoughts - if he reacts at all.
Castiel's lashes flutter and his hand shifts until it's not just fingers against Sam's spine but the whole, heavy palm resting there like he might drag Sam down at any moment for a kiss. He says, "Oh," like the things he reads in Sam's brain are a surprise. Then he says, "You are quite pleasant," in a distantly observing tone, "and curious. I like curious things."
Sam gets distracted for a moment by the Ambassador asking awkwardly how long they can expect Castiel to be staying on Earth, and Michael's reply is a disconcerting, "Indefinitely, or until such a time as he has a full grasp on what it means to be human." Which - wow, okay, that might be a damn long time, and Sam wonders how Castiel feels about that - if he's excited about exploring a new culture or dreading the prospect of an overlong visit on a world that's so vastly different from his own. Maybe he doesn't feel any of these things because these emotions are purely human - attachment and sentimentality over people and places and objects and
Castiel's fingers grasp ever so lightly at Sam's nape, tugging, and Sam turns his attention back to Castiel in time to feel a gasp of breath and the press of dry lips against his cheek. Then Castiel's voice: "You are very kind, Sam Winchester. My thanks."
So that's that. Castiel withdraws by inches, fingers daintily sliding away from Sam's neck and from his hand until there's space enough between them for another person at least. If there was ever clinical detachment in his expression, Sam is at a loss to see it now as Castiel says, "It is a pleasure to know you."
Sam's sort of dazed in the wake of the whole moment, helplessly watching after Castiel as Michael explains that he'll be leaving as soon as possible, and he's too busy sort of soaking in the fact that he can still feel a tingle in his skin where Castiel touched him to realize that the blinding blue light he's turning away from means that Michael has left and that Castiel is, officially, under his charge.
That by itself is sort of mind boggling, despite the foreknowledge of that arrangement. Of course, he's glad that Castiel seems to like him - flattered really because everyone seems to be under the assumption that Sam's being favored over the rest of the team - but the idea that this assignment might take the rest of his life and then some is pretty overwhelming. He expected a few days or a month at the most, like Castiel was some study abroad student getting a basic grasp of life in a new place. He'd been prepared for that - had Castiel already set up with a furnished apartment and everything just a couple doors down from him, as a matter of fact - but understanding what it means to be human? Hell, most humans didn't figure that out within their lifetime and they didn't have the benefit of the extraordinarily long lives of Angels.
If Castiel is at all troubled at the prospect of his task, it doesn't seem to show - not when Sam drives him to the apartment complex or gets the keys for the apartment from the clerk, and not when Sam leads him into what's going to be his new home. Castiel's cool as a cucumber to be honest. Unflappable and somewhat stoic and unblinking as he takes in everything and touches everything. His hands ghost over the furniture in the same way that he'd touched the dash of Sam's car, and Sam has to wonder if Castiel can get information from objects like he can people - if he touches the wooden chairs and senses how it was built and which trees it took to put it together, if he knows the lumberjack that cut the trees and the machinery that cut the pieces and whoever it was that put the pieces together and set it here. He suspects that Castiel would answer if he asked.
Angels don't seem to have the same scale of personal anything - not personal space, not privacy. There are no secrets between Angels, and Sam figures that just goes hand in hand (ha ha) with their abilities. How could you conceal anything when the slightest touch revealed everything? You'd have to cut yourself off entirely from your people to get a sense of individuality, which begs the question of why Castiel's okay with being separated from the rest of his people for so long.
Sam feels the question rising in his throat, feels it filling his lungs with curiosity. He wants to know, but can't ask the question - too soon, too strange. For himself anyway, even if Castiel wouldn't mind. Hell, Castiel would probably encourage the questions, seeing as he likes curious things so much, but instead of asking, Sam casts the apartment keys toward the coffee table and heads toward the kitchen.
"I wasn't sure what you liked, so I got a bit of everything," he tells Castiel as he opens the fridge.
Castiel drifts up behind his shoulder and peeks in at the fruit and the vegetables, the small packages of meat, and the milk. Sam had kept it simple when he'd chosen the food - didn't want anything too complicated, but also wanted to give the kitchen potential for something more. During the grand total of two meetings between Angels and Mankind, Sam never saw Angels eat, though there had been tidy banquets at both. Sam's two steps away from thinking that eating is something intimate for Angels, when Castiel plucks an apple from the shelves and steps back, turning the fruit over and over in his hands.
"You intend for me to eat this?" Castiel asks. "The seeds are poisonous."
"Well we don't eat the seeds," Sam says. He shuts the fridge and turns to rummage through the drawers for a knife before taking the apple from Castiel's hands and cutting him off a thick slice. "Here."
Eyes flicking attentively between Sam's face and the apple, Castiel brings the apple piece to his mouth and cautiously bites down. He chews for a long time and swallows. "Interesting. This is a custom common to humans?"
"Yeah, I guess," Sam replies, trying to think of how to describe human eating practices and floundering. He's not exactly a sociologist here or an anthropologist. "We... um. Actually-" and then he just grabs Castiel's hand and focuses his thoughts on everything he knows about eating.
He tries not to force the information out, tries to make it a bit organized even in his own head - the science of it and the importance of getting the right amount of nutrients every day and vitamins and minerals and calories and the things he was told as a child with three square meals a day and eating your vegetables and how there's breakfast lunch and dinner but also snacks sometimes and how it was common for people to eat together in groups but not necessary because some people went off by themselves to eat and how sometimes people felt weird about eating alone, and actually really eating is a lot more complicated than he thought before and he didn't realize just how complicated it is until he was tripping out over how some food is shared religiously and how there's giving up certain foods for Lent and how food is the way people meet lots of times, whether it's trading pudding for fruit roll ups in grade school or going on first dates at a restaurant, and how it was sometimes the last important thing that people did, what with the Last Supper with Christ or the last meal that a person got before execution, and God, that's pretty morbid and maybe Castiel doesn't want to know about that kind of thing or maybe he'll think it's weird or-
"Amazing," says Castiel with the softest of whispers, and that's when Sam realizes that they're close like they were at the Embassy - all in each other's space and with Castiel's fingers pressing firmly over the knobs of his spine. "You are so complex."
And that's just great, actually, Sam thinks - that Castiel isn't turned off by the way humans operate, though they eat when Angels don't and they sleep when Angels don't and they do all kinds of things differently. Except maybe that's the point and why Castiel was chosen to be the envoy. Because he's curious and he likes curious things and he likes knowledge and everyone would know that and so of course Castiel would be the best choice to send.
"Good," Sam whispers. "Good, I'm glad."
Somehow, he's disinclined to make Castiel step back, though he's long stopped thinking about eating and how complicated it is when he really started examining it. He's not thinking about anything in particular, certainly nothing that'd be of cultural value like religion or traditions or daily routines or whatever. He's just standing here with an apple in his hands and an Angel's fingers on his neck and an Angel's hand in his, and it feels sweet and quiet and close and intimate and way more than he anticipated back when Castiel was just an envoy. That's okay. That's good. It's positive, whatever it is, and maybe it's one of the reasons why Castiel is cool with being away from his world - because he's not exactly separate like this. It might be awkward in these first few days, but he'll pick up stuff on how to behave and how to speak. In a few weeks, a few months, Castiel might not seem all that different from anyone else Sam meets.
That makes Sam take a deep breath. He's been worried about screwing this up already because he's so not an expert on what it means to be human. He's not what Castiel would need, but that doesn't seem to matter because Castiel's just fine, no matter who he's with and that's-
"Good," he says - again - and sighs, relaxing and opening the eyes he hadn't realized he closed.
Castiel's watching him with blue eyes that are blown nearly black, and he quirks his head to the side as he slowly slides away from Sam and takes the knife and apple with him. "We have done enough for today. You have given me much to absorb. You should rest. And eat," Castiel says as he carefully cuts away a thick slice of apple and puts it in Sam's palm as if it is a gift. "I will want to learn more tomorrow."
"Right, tomorrow," Sam says as he backs toward the door. Castiel follows him, smiling pleasantly - innocently - and one last time for the day, Sam touches him. He takes his hand and puts it against the lock on the door, asking for Castiel to be safe without saying anything. "Tomorrow. First thing in the morning."
*
The next day comes too soon, with yesterday feeling much like a dream. Sam goes through his morning routine knowing that he's getting ready to see Castiel, but cannot shake the feeling that the Angel was, in fact, merely a dream. It doesn't help, of course, that no one answers the door when Sam knocks. He waits for one minute and knocks again, ignoring the stare of one of his neighbors as they pass him in the corridor - but there's no response. Surely, Sam thinks, Castiel would come investigate a new sound out of sheer curiosity even if he doesn't understand what it means.
Unless he's hurt, his paranoid mind suggests.
So Sam tries the door, and he doesn't have to force the lock. The door opens to him without any trouble, and as he crosses the threshold, the apartment beyond is absolutely silent. Fretting thoroughly, Sam quickly moves into the deeper rooms, searching for some sign that Castiel is around or fought kidnappers or something. He's about to pull out his cell phone and call the cops - and report what? Missing person? Please look for young man in early thirties, in a suit and tan coat, who is touching everything - responds to Castiel and means no harm? That'll go over swell, Sam bets.
He thinks about sitting and waiting for Castiel to come back (if he comes back), but remembers that Castiel needs neither sleep nor food. It would be possible in theory for him to wander for days without ever needing to return to the apartment (if he could return). Still, Sam doesn't feel comfortable just leaving the apartment unlocked and empty on the chance that he'll be able to find Castiel on his own. Instead, he cooks and hopes and leaves his phone sitting out on the counter with the ringer turned all the way up and his email alerts on, just in case his superiors contact him to say that they've got a John Doe matching Castiel's description and oh, by the way, you are totally fired from doing anything again ever because you are a failure at responsibility. He's worked his emotions up to a frenzy and has almost finished with a chicken and rice stir fry when the doorknob jiggles-
-and jiggles again because right, Sam totally locked it, and the one person in the world who wouldn't bother knocking is the same person who wouldn't understand why the latch didn't just give away.
Sam dives for the door at once, opening it to Castiel's minutely surprised face. "Oh, thank god, you're okay," he says, though that is perhaps a phrase spoken too soon.
Castiel's still wearing the same business-like attire that he'd arrived in - a suit that's fitted to him and a coat that's definitely not - but it's all rumpled and somewhat stained. His hair, too, is standing more on end than it was the day before. When Sam steps back to give him room to enter, Castiel does so without hesitation and goes straight to the coffee table, pulling things out of his pockets - mints, business cards, the crumbled remains of a food sample, a folded flyer for a local band, and a half dozen coins (three of which are pennies).
"Hello, Sam," Castiel says as he starts pushing the items around on the table until they're in a neat row.
It's as if he can't tell that Sam's just spent the last ten, twenty minutes having a near panic attack. Perhaps he can't. Sam stares at him from the door as Castiel finally looks up from his cache of items, sniffing the air and then drifting toward the kitchen. He glances at Sam briefly, but ultimately focuses on touching the items that have been brought out of the cabinets and fridge - the small assortment of spices, the measuring cups, the spatula... Each touch is increasingly tentative, yet he returns to some spots again and again - the handle of the still-hot pan, the knob that Sam only just had the presence of mind to turn before he answered the door - and Castiel bites his lip.
"Sam, you-" Castiel pauses, troubled, and then he pulls away from the stove entirely, looking at his palms as if he doesn't understand what he's just read. "Worry?"
Sam shuts and locks the door before he crosses the room to reach Castiel. He grasps Castiel's hands in both of his, and that jolts a startled gasp out of both of them and maybe that was a poor decision on his part, maybe he shouldn't have done it and should let go before he gives Castiel too much. But Castiel holds him fast before he can do anything, eyes drifting closed and mouth parting as he drinks in the remaining traces of Sam's frazzled and frayed panic.
"We're gonna have to work on some ground rules, okay?" Sam says. "I can't have you running off on your own until you're a little more..." human, he doesn't say but Castiel probably hears it anyway. He barrels on: "Rule number one, you gotta lock your door. You can't just leave it open for people to come and go as they please. They could take stuff."
Again, there's a thought that rises, unbidden: They could take you.
If Castiel thinks that thought is too forward or strange, it's another thing that Sam doesn't know and may never. Castiel merely squeezes his fingers in reassurance and tilts his head to the side as he absorbs and makes sense of what Sam is telling him (and not telling him). "I understand," he says, "but it is strange for one of the dominant species on the planet to fear itself, rather than its potential competitors."
"Yeah, strange," Sam huffs, largely grateful that Castiel accepts the rules as is. "Mankind isn't exactly peaceful."
"So I have learned," Castiel agrees and pulls one hand out from Sam's grasp to indicate a tear on the shoulder of his coat. "Today's lessons seem to be largely about material possessions and their acquisition and retention."
Sam thumbs at the tear and then squints at the curled threads at the seam - snapped, it seems, from being pulled on. "What happened? Did someone try to rob you or something?"
"Rob?" Castiel's fingers curl into Sam's. "Oh, yes. But of course, I have nothing to take. The man did not believe me and was a bit rough in his search."
Boggling at Castiel's dismissive tone at the encounter, Sam feels his worry spike again. "But you're okay?"
Castiel looks up from where he's watching Sam's thumb peel back one side of the torn sleeve. His eyes are heavy-lidded, considering. "You do not wish for me to be hurt," he says. "I am glad, but you needn't bother." His mouth spreads into a slight grin. "I may look human, but I am much stronger than this physique would imply. The man who attempted to rob me could not have harmed me."
Sam feels a bit stupid for having worried so much. It's just as he thought when meeting Castiel - that the Angels wouldn't send someone they didn't think could protect themselves. Still, he's never seen an Angel fight or get upset or even get cut on accident, so he wonders what to trust, forgetting for the moment that his doubt is slipping across the telepathic bond between his hand and Castiel's.
Almost as soon as the doubt has occurred to Sam, he's got his face against the wall - pinned there by Castiel's weight at his back - and Castiel's voice curls from behind his ear around a hot breath. "We would not usually fight this way. Without the proper precautions, we would be overcome by the thoughts of our attackers, but with a touch, you see-" and here, Castiel covers Sam's neck with the broad flat of his palm and bears down, easing him to the ground gently with an insistent strength. "I can read whatever I like from your mind. I may also see how you plan to use your powers to fight me off, and be able to react accordingly."
Shuddering, Sam stares down at the linoleum tiling between his knees and the fine cracks between the baseboard and the wall. He feels closed in - boxed in by the wall and Castiel's legs and the shadow of his coat hanging down in his periphery. The instinct to throw Castiel off of him fizzles out first, without Sam having to shove it down. Castiel's grip on the back of his neck is secure, applying a firm pressure through the length of his spine, and it isn't as if Sam couldn't wiggle free if he wished because his hands are even free or he could even shove Castiel back with his mind if he wanted - though as soon as he thinks it, it seems ludicrous to bother. He's not sure why he wants to fight in the first place-
"You see?" Castiel murmurs. "Just like that."
When Castiel lets him go, Sam lurches to the side, breathing hard as he looks up at him. "What was- That- You made it like I couldn't... Shit."
"I eliminated your desire to fight," Castiel explains, squatting down next to Sam. He doesn't move to touch Sam, though surely that would make it easier for them to communicate over Sam's stuttering and faltering reaction to being subdued. "We have not had to fight for many years now, but all my brothers and sisters are trained in this manner. It's preferable to using our brute strength."
Sam squints at him. "Brute strength?" he echoes.
Castiel ducks his head, looking embarrassed. "Yes," he says. "Your species is very fragile, compared to mine." Very gingerly - as gingerly as, Sam realizes, most of Castiel's touches have been - he pushes a lock of hair behind Sam's ear. "My point is that you do not have to worry for my safety or my life. I do not require your protection or help, but I... I appreciate that you are willing to give it. It is a credit to the generosity of your kind."
It should be frightening that this moment is the one where it really sinks in that Sam is dealing with something that's not human - that's alien, that's natural in a way that's completely unlike anything that exists on this entire planet. Just looking at Castiel, he almost wouldn't know it, except the way he perches near Sam has a way of seeming to take up more space than required - almost like he has an aura about him or something. The way he watches people - or Sam, anyway - seems to linger a little longer than necessary, and the way he walks is too much as if his body does not belong to him, and the way he touches... Sam can't pretend he doesn't know. The way Castiel touches is different - meaningful - by the very nature that his hands are his way of speaking and listening.
A laugh bursts out of Sam's chest. "You're a little unreal, you know that? I mean, you don't eat, you don't sleep, and you're stronger than anything I know. I don't even want to know what it'd take to kill you, but seriously, what do you need to survive? It's gotta be something basic, right?"
"Very basic," Castiel says, then grasps Sam by the arm. "Come. We will share the food you made before my return, and I will explain my kind to you. Then, you will teach me."
"About material possessions, their acquisition and retention?" Sam says because he remembers.
Castiel's smile is warm. "About everything."
*
So that's how it goes for a bit. They make some basic rules to live by and settled into a routine. Castiel comes and goes as he pleases at night, and Sam tries not to worry about what he does - if he wanders and meets people or gets in trouble - so long as he's at the apartment for breakfast the next morning. Sam gets Castiel a cheap tv and a local map. The tv gets set to one of the public channels and never gets changed, so it's always on the news by the time Sam drops in. While the tv plays, Sam cooks or brings something different for breakfast, and Castiel sits on the floor with the maps spread out on the floor in front of him. Most of the time, Sam joins Castiel while he nibbles on his serving and Sam eats heartily at his, and together, they pour over the possibilities for the day.
The best thing about leading an alien through Earth culture is the same best thing about being the native to a tourist friend. It's like rediscovering the city through different eyes, and Castiel never wants to visit the same place twice. There's restaurants and libraries and botanical gardens and parks. There's the old theatres and the new theatres - the ballet palaces and the movie houses. Castiel asks to go to taverns and to museums and to fire departments and police departments, and while he's there, he learns everything that he can.
Castiel learns about money and weather, price gouging and gardening, and the Dewey decimal system. He learns about groceries when Sam takes him on errands (sometimes going well out of his way so that it's a new place for both of them) and about clothing (because Sam is not going to have Cas wearing the same thing all the time). He shakes hands with the sheriff and the fire chief, cashiers and car salesmen. Nearly everyone they meet actually gets at least a brush of his fingers, and Castiel comes away with a little bit more knowledge, a little bit more culture - and seems more human because of it.
It turns out that there hundreds of places that Sam hasn't visited in his city - places he never thinks of going to and people he never thinks of meeting - and Castiel drags him by the hand through one door and then the next. That's the most important thing right there, as a matter of fact: the hand-holding is nearly constant.
It almost gets to be that Castiel doesn't bother asking questions. Sometimes Sam is just talking, explaining this or that, and he's a big gesticulator a lot of the time - comes from being a younger brother but it also comes from being a telekinetic and from having to shape the world with his hands. Anyway it makes it hard for Castiel to catch his hand or his wrist or his arm without disrupting the conversation. So sometimes Cas takes off his shoes (which are more often just slippers now to suit the hot weather, not that Castiel would notice) and lets his toes creep up Sam's shin while his face falls into this relaxed sort of wonder as he gathers the full meaning of everything Sam is saying. Sometimes, Castiel won't bother with just that either, and he'll just - it's so embarrassing that Sam is sure that's the first thing Cas feels every time he does it - he just leans into Sam's space and slides the backs of his fingers against Sam's neck. It's so natural and so casual that Sam stops noticing after the first half dozen times that it happens and just sort of happily shivers instead.
Sam tries not to read too much into it, you know. He doesn't have Castiel's advantage here. He can't read Cas nearly at all because Castiel has adopted this sort of amalgamation of body languages and facial expressions that look sort of right, except that Castiel isn't always using them in the way they're intended. Anyway, the point is that he does try to read Castiel in the way he would another human because touching is a thing for Angels - a thing that's altogether different from the way it is with humans. For Angels, touching is every day; it's easy and uncomplicated and all of them do it from what Sam understands (at least, from the conversation that resulted from his freak out when Castiel snuck his toes up the hem of Sam's pants the first time). The intimacy that has to be achieved by humans before that sort of touch is allowed doesn't occur to Castiel, so Sam does his best to just shiver and take it. It's better that way, so that he doesn't get preoccupied with jealousy when he sees Castiel touching someone else's hands in the cereal aisle or going knuckle-to-knuckle with strangers.
It should be weird, Sam guesses, but Castiel keeps to their arrangement. He's there every morning and he's with Sam through the day. Meals take two or three times as long to eat because half the time, Sam's eating with just one hand because the other his holding Castiel's or he's having to chew very deliberately because he's trying to ignore that he can feel warm toes rubbing up and down the side of his leg, eating up information from his subconscious.
Even if it isn't weird - which it really, totally is - the stirrings of insecurity are more than enough to make Sam feel antsy when he sees Castiel with other people. He's sure that at some point, it's going to become clear to both of them that Sam is not an expert. Sure, he can drive Castiel wherever he wants to go, and sure he hasn't exactly exhausted the internet's repertoire of recipes yet - but sooner or later, Castiel's going to ask a question that Sam won't be able to answer and then where will they be? Sam tries to focus on the fact that - while Castiel may visit with other humans, touching them and reading them - he always comes back to Sam.
In fact, there's this one time when they're at IHOP - which, yes, Sam realizes that sounds like the opening to a really, really humiliating story - but they're there for lots of reasons, like how Castiel is extra shifty and frazzled when Sam sees him after having taken the subway home and in the fifteen minutes it took him to commute during the morning rush, rubbed shoulders with fifty or sixty different people, touching the safety bars and the hundreds of thousands of people that have left behind their traces. It's also because Sam starts thinking about how he always likes waffles as a comfort food and maybe Cas will too, but he can't make waffles without a waffle maker and besides which, Castiel doesn't understand the debate between waffles and pancakes. He's really only beginning to grasp the concept that humans do a lot of things just for the pleasure of it anyway - reading and music and eating and … and other things that don't bear thinking about while Sam's holding his hand.
Anyway, they're at IHOP and Castiel's abandoned him in favor of a particularly long conversation with their waitress about how she's doing and what it's like working the night shift at a restaurant and whether there's something she loves from the menu even after so long. Castiel doesn't actually take the details of what she's saying - doesn't need them, it's too much; he gets what he needs through touch, and right now he's gently hold the hand she has covering his. The waitress allows Castiel about ten minutes' worth of conversation before she remembers that she has other tables to wait on, and he lets her go without argument, sagging back into his seat in a very human display of relief.
A second later, one of his feet is settled against Sam's knee, and Castiel says, "I hope you know that I am grateful for you," apropos of nothing, it seems, except maybe everything that Sam can't help feeling and Castiel can't help knowing. "You are open to me and-" He pauses, searchingly. "Your kind is young and cautious. There is much fear in the individual. It's what makes you lock your doors at night and distrust things with which you are unfamiliar, be it actions or other beings."
"That's normal, isn't it?" Sam asks. The fear of the unknown. When faced with a darkened room, how was one to know what it contained - if it was something good or something dangerous? "I'd think it'd be a survival instinct."
Castiel hums, hands turning Sam's palm upward and fingers tracing the thin creases that mark his individuality. "For humans, that seems to be the case. For Angels, it is different. We are a culture that thrives on knowledge. Unlike humans, we have already achieved our physical peak, so now our purpose is to achieving an enlightened state.
"When faced with a darkened room, an Angel would not be afraid but curious. We would enter without hesitation," Castiel says. He curls Sam's fingers around his own and then, remarkably - so much so that Sam feels his breath catch - he brings them to his lips. "After all, if we do not investigate, how are we to know what lies within - whether it is something good... Or something dangerous?"
Something in Sam squirms uncomfortably and at the same time, thrills. "So you're grateful for me because I'm afraid?"
Sam feels a smile stretch against his knuckles. "No," says Castiel. "I am grateful because you are not."
[ Part Two]
Summary: Alien!AU. Castiel is an envoy from another world with the ability to learn everything about a person through touch. Sam is his guide. Together, they explore different aspects of human life - from the concept of ownership to the great pancake vs waffles debate, to the various ways that people can care for each other. [Written for Zee for The Great Blind Sassy Exchange.]
This is how the day starts - with Sam stumbling out of his apartment, late already and rushing it to the embassy because today is the big day. The day where the Angels finally agree to send an envoy between their planets. The Ambassador will be busy with the Angels' military leader, Michael, but Sam gets the other one - whoever it is. Sam hasn't met them yet, but he can't help being excited about it. An Angel - all to himself, to watch learn and soak up information like a sponge. Dean's been making bets that it's going to be Anael that they choose because she's curious about everything and eager, but Sam doesn't think so because she's a soldier first and under Michael's jurisdiction to boot. The Angels will probably send someone … he doesn't like thinking in terms of expendable, but whoever they send is likely to be less critical to the safety of their home planet and more likely to be able to hold their own.
In any case, it doesn't matter who bet what anymore because they'll find out soon enough, and even though Sam shows up late and has to brush pieces of granola bar off his shirt, he's still there before the Angels are, left to mill around with his teammates and the Ambassador for a few minutes before the room they're in splits open at the far end. It's blue light and song - the sweet trill of notes fluttering like birds' wings around the faint taps of two sets of feet finding ground.
The light is so bright that everyone has to turn away to avoid being blinded - so bright that it should be frightening, yet the emotion that stirs Sam's heart to pounding isn't fear but excitement. Sam will never not be amazed and slightly intimidated by this show of technology and power. Spaceships, sure. Basic superpowers like telekinesis and pyrokinesis, sure - Sam's got the first up his sleeve as it is. But instantaneous interplanetary travel through light and the Angels' species-wide gift of psychometry? It makes dealing with the Angels as a whole rather difficult because they have no need for any technology that Earth might give them; their interests lie with only one thing - cultural knowledge - and it's the reason why Sam's here today, as mediator between the Angelic envoy and Mankind.
Michael is the one that breaks forth from the light first. He seems slight, but he carries himself as if he were bigger, broader - as if his body does not quite suit him or as if he's used to wearing something heavier, like armor. He's dark haired and followed by a companion, also with dark hair and a slight build, and together, they stride forward one after the other until the blue light snaps away behind them as if it had never been.
Ambassador Coulson - good guy, nerves of steel - hesitates a fraction of a second before he takes the hand that Michael holds out and no wonder. Secrets are the hazardous byproducts of his position, and one touch from an Angel reveals an awful lot in just plain factual information. Talk is brief with Angels, always. It can't help but be brief. There isn't any need for explanations because a single handshake can tell them everything that you already have planned for the day. As soon as Ambassador Coulson releases Michael's hand, Michael turns to his companion and touches his shoulder, passing on the information silently as his other hand gestures toward Sam and the rest of his team.
"This is Castiel," Michael says. "We will be leaving him with you to gather information. He will be the reservoir for our knowledge on your kind."
Then, the Ambassador is off to the side with Michael, and it's Castiel who takes up the whole of Sam's attention as he turns first to Dean. Their handshake is brief, barely there, and Dean withdraws as quickly as he can - scared, Sam thinks, that Castiel will see too much of all the thoughts and feelings he holds close to his chest - and Castiel follows his example with an uncomfortably furrowed brow. Castiel makes his way through Bobby, who is just as antsy about being known as Dean is, and Ellen, who is guarded too but bold about it. By the time Castiel makes his way to Sam, he looks very shaky and uncertain about the task he's been set with and his welcome. Sam feels a surge of sympathy. He knows what that's like - even with Dean... especially with Dean - because of his super-freaky mutant powers and humans not being sure that Sam's one of them anymore because he can throw things across the room with his mind. He gets it, though he isn't sure that Castiel gets it, and so when Sam grasps his hand, he tries to project as friendly and calm an atmosphere as possible.
Next thing Sam knows, not only does he have Castiel's hand in his, but Castiel's other hand is reaching to grasp his elbow and then his shoulder and then his neck. Castiel steps in close like he's greedy to feel how happy Sam is that he's here. It's weird, to be honest, and Castiel's presence is like a faint tingle along his spine, slipping through his thoughts like a whisper - polite and unobtrusive; perhaps a bit sweet.
For anyone else, it might feel like an invasion to know that the Angel's reading everything he's thinking and everything he's feeling, but for Sam... God he's just curious. Can't fault him for that, can you? He's curious as all hell and he watches Castiel read him with a sort of morbid fascination, wanting to see Castiel react to his thoughts - if he reacts at all.
Castiel's lashes flutter and his hand shifts until it's not just fingers against Sam's spine but the whole, heavy palm resting there like he might drag Sam down at any moment for a kiss. He says, "Oh," like the things he reads in Sam's brain are a surprise. Then he says, "You are quite pleasant," in a distantly observing tone, "and curious. I like curious things."
Sam gets distracted for a moment by the Ambassador asking awkwardly how long they can expect Castiel to be staying on Earth, and Michael's reply is a disconcerting, "Indefinitely, or until such a time as he has a full grasp on what it means to be human." Which - wow, okay, that might be a damn long time, and Sam wonders how Castiel feels about that - if he's excited about exploring a new culture or dreading the prospect of an overlong visit on a world that's so vastly different from his own. Maybe he doesn't feel any of these things because these emotions are purely human - attachment and sentimentality over people and places and objects and
Castiel's fingers grasp ever so lightly at Sam's nape, tugging, and Sam turns his attention back to Castiel in time to feel a gasp of breath and the press of dry lips against his cheek. Then Castiel's voice: "You are very kind, Sam Winchester. My thanks."
So that's that. Castiel withdraws by inches, fingers daintily sliding away from Sam's neck and from his hand until there's space enough between them for another person at least. If there was ever clinical detachment in his expression, Sam is at a loss to see it now as Castiel says, "It is a pleasure to know you."
Sam's sort of dazed in the wake of the whole moment, helplessly watching after Castiel as Michael explains that he'll be leaving as soon as possible, and he's too busy sort of soaking in the fact that he can still feel a tingle in his skin where Castiel touched him to realize that the blinding blue light he's turning away from means that Michael has left and that Castiel is, officially, under his charge.
That by itself is sort of mind boggling, despite the foreknowledge of that arrangement. Of course, he's glad that Castiel seems to like him - flattered really because everyone seems to be under the assumption that Sam's being favored over the rest of the team - but the idea that this assignment might take the rest of his life and then some is pretty overwhelming. He expected a few days or a month at the most, like Castiel was some study abroad student getting a basic grasp of life in a new place. He'd been prepared for that - had Castiel already set up with a furnished apartment and everything just a couple doors down from him, as a matter of fact - but understanding what it means to be human? Hell, most humans didn't figure that out within their lifetime and they didn't have the benefit of the extraordinarily long lives of Angels.
If Castiel is at all troubled at the prospect of his task, it doesn't seem to show - not when Sam drives him to the apartment complex or gets the keys for the apartment from the clerk, and not when Sam leads him into what's going to be his new home. Castiel's cool as a cucumber to be honest. Unflappable and somewhat stoic and unblinking as he takes in everything and touches everything. His hands ghost over the furniture in the same way that he'd touched the dash of Sam's car, and Sam has to wonder if Castiel can get information from objects like he can people - if he touches the wooden chairs and senses how it was built and which trees it took to put it together, if he knows the lumberjack that cut the trees and the machinery that cut the pieces and whoever it was that put the pieces together and set it here. He suspects that Castiel would answer if he asked.
Angels don't seem to have the same scale of personal anything - not personal space, not privacy. There are no secrets between Angels, and Sam figures that just goes hand in hand (ha ha) with their abilities. How could you conceal anything when the slightest touch revealed everything? You'd have to cut yourself off entirely from your people to get a sense of individuality, which begs the question of why Castiel's okay with being separated from the rest of his people for so long.
Sam feels the question rising in his throat, feels it filling his lungs with curiosity. He wants to know, but can't ask the question - too soon, too strange. For himself anyway, even if Castiel wouldn't mind. Hell, Castiel would probably encourage the questions, seeing as he likes curious things so much, but instead of asking, Sam casts the apartment keys toward the coffee table and heads toward the kitchen.
"I wasn't sure what you liked, so I got a bit of everything," he tells Castiel as he opens the fridge.
Castiel drifts up behind his shoulder and peeks in at the fruit and the vegetables, the small packages of meat, and the milk. Sam had kept it simple when he'd chosen the food - didn't want anything too complicated, but also wanted to give the kitchen potential for something more. During the grand total of two meetings between Angels and Mankind, Sam never saw Angels eat, though there had been tidy banquets at both. Sam's two steps away from thinking that eating is something intimate for Angels, when Castiel plucks an apple from the shelves and steps back, turning the fruit over and over in his hands.
"You intend for me to eat this?" Castiel asks. "The seeds are poisonous."
"Well we don't eat the seeds," Sam says. He shuts the fridge and turns to rummage through the drawers for a knife before taking the apple from Castiel's hands and cutting him off a thick slice. "Here."
Eyes flicking attentively between Sam's face and the apple, Castiel brings the apple piece to his mouth and cautiously bites down. He chews for a long time and swallows. "Interesting. This is a custom common to humans?"
"Yeah, I guess," Sam replies, trying to think of how to describe human eating practices and floundering. He's not exactly a sociologist here or an anthropologist. "We... um. Actually-" and then he just grabs Castiel's hand and focuses his thoughts on everything he knows about eating.
He tries not to force the information out, tries to make it a bit organized even in his own head - the science of it and the importance of getting the right amount of nutrients every day and vitamins and minerals and calories and the things he was told as a child with three square meals a day and eating your vegetables and how there's breakfast lunch and dinner but also snacks sometimes and how it was common for people to eat together in groups but not necessary because some people went off by themselves to eat and how sometimes people felt weird about eating alone, and actually really eating is a lot more complicated than he thought before and he didn't realize just how complicated it is until he was tripping out over how some food is shared religiously and how there's giving up certain foods for Lent and how food is the way people meet lots of times, whether it's trading pudding for fruit roll ups in grade school or going on first dates at a restaurant, and how it was sometimes the last important thing that people did, what with the Last Supper with Christ or the last meal that a person got before execution, and God, that's pretty morbid and maybe Castiel doesn't want to know about that kind of thing or maybe he'll think it's weird or-
"Amazing," says Castiel with the softest of whispers, and that's when Sam realizes that they're close like they were at the Embassy - all in each other's space and with Castiel's fingers pressing firmly over the knobs of his spine. "You are so complex."
And that's just great, actually, Sam thinks - that Castiel isn't turned off by the way humans operate, though they eat when Angels don't and they sleep when Angels don't and they do all kinds of things differently. Except maybe that's the point and why Castiel was chosen to be the envoy. Because he's curious and he likes curious things and he likes knowledge and everyone would know that and so of course Castiel would be the best choice to send.
"Good," Sam whispers. "Good, I'm glad."
Somehow, he's disinclined to make Castiel step back, though he's long stopped thinking about eating and how complicated it is when he really started examining it. He's not thinking about anything in particular, certainly nothing that'd be of cultural value like religion or traditions or daily routines or whatever. He's just standing here with an apple in his hands and an Angel's fingers on his neck and an Angel's hand in his, and it feels sweet and quiet and close and intimate and way more than he anticipated back when Castiel was just an envoy. That's okay. That's good. It's positive, whatever it is, and maybe it's one of the reasons why Castiel is cool with being away from his world - because he's not exactly separate like this. It might be awkward in these first few days, but he'll pick up stuff on how to behave and how to speak. In a few weeks, a few months, Castiel might not seem all that different from anyone else Sam meets.
That makes Sam take a deep breath. He's been worried about screwing this up already because he's so not an expert on what it means to be human. He's not what Castiel would need, but that doesn't seem to matter because Castiel's just fine, no matter who he's with and that's-
"Good," he says - again - and sighs, relaxing and opening the eyes he hadn't realized he closed.
Castiel's watching him with blue eyes that are blown nearly black, and he quirks his head to the side as he slowly slides away from Sam and takes the knife and apple with him. "We have done enough for today. You have given me much to absorb. You should rest. And eat," Castiel says as he carefully cuts away a thick slice of apple and puts it in Sam's palm as if it is a gift. "I will want to learn more tomorrow."
"Right, tomorrow," Sam says as he backs toward the door. Castiel follows him, smiling pleasantly - innocently - and one last time for the day, Sam touches him. He takes his hand and puts it against the lock on the door, asking for Castiel to be safe without saying anything. "Tomorrow. First thing in the morning."
*
The next day comes too soon, with yesterday feeling much like a dream. Sam goes through his morning routine knowing that he's getting ready to see Castiel, but cannot shake the feeling that the Angel was, in fact, merely a dream. It doesn't help, of course, that no one answers the door when Sam knocks. He waits for one minute and knocks again, ignoring the stare of one of his neighbors as they pass him in the corridor - but there's no response. Surely, Sam thinks, Castiel would come investigate a new sound out of sheer curiosity even if he doesn't understand what it means.
Unless he's hurt, his paranoid mind suggests.
So Sam tries the door, and he doesn't have to force the lock. The door opens to him without any trouble, and as he crosses the threshold, the apartment beyond is absolutely silent. Fretting thoroughly, Sam quickly moves into the deeper rooms, searching for some sign that Castiel is around or fought kidnappers or something. He's about to pull out his cell phone and call the cops - and report what? Missing person? Please look for young man in early thirties, in a suit and tan coat, who is touching everything - responds to Castiel and means no harm? That'll go over swell, Sam bets.
He thinks about sitting and waiting for Castiel to come back (if he comes back), but remembers that Castiel needs neither sleep nor food. It would be possible in theory for him to wander for days without ever needing to return to the apartment (if he could return). Still, Sam doesn't feel comfortable just leaving the apartment unlocked and empty on the chance that he'll be able to find Castiel on his own. Instead, he cooks and hopes and leaves his phone sitting out on the counter with the ringer turned all the way up and his email alerts on, just in case his superiors contact him to say that they've got a John Doe matching Castiel's description and oh, by the way, you are totally fired from doing anything again ever because you are a failure at responsibility. He's worked his emotions up to a frenzy and has almost finished with a chicken and rice stir fry when the doorknob jiggles-
-and jiggles again because right, Sam totally locked it, and the one person in the world who wouldn't bother knocking is the same person who wouldn't understand why the latch didn't just give away.
Sam dives for the door at once, opening it to Castiel's minutely surprised face. "Oh, thank god, you're okay," he says, though that is perhaps a phrase spoken too soon.
Castiel's still wearing the same business-like attire that he'd arrived in - a suit that's fitted to him and a coat that's definitely not - but it's all rumpled and somewhat stained. His hair, too, is standing more on end than it was the day before. When Sam steps back to give him room to enter, Castiel does so without hesitation and goes straight to the coffee table, pulling things out of his pockets - mints, business cards, the crumbled remains of a food sample, a folded flyer for a local band, and a half dozen coins (three of which are pennies).
"Hello, Sam," Castiel says as he starts pushing the items around on the table until they're in a neat row.
It's as if he can't tell that Sam's just spent the last ten, twenty minutes having a near panic attack. Perhaps he can't. Sam stares at him from the door as Castiel finally looks up from his cache of items, sniffing the air and then drifting toward the kitchen. He glances at Sam briefly, but ultimately focuses on touching the items that have been brought out of the cabinets and fridge - the small assortment of spices, the measuring cups, the spatula... Each touch is increasingly tentative, yet he returns to some spots again and again - the handle of the still-hot pan, the knob that Sam only just had the presence of mind to turn before he answered the door - and Castiel bites his lip.
"Sam, you-" Castiel pauses, troubled, and then he pulls away from the stove entirely, looking at his palms as if he doesn't understand what he's just read. "Worry?"
Sam shuts and locks the door before he crosses the room to reach Castiel. He grasps Castiel's hands in both of his, and that jolts a startled gasp out of both of them and maybe that was a poor decision on his part, maybe he shouldn't have done it and should let go before he gives Castiel too much. But Castiel holds him fast before he can do anything, eyes drifting closed and mouth parting as he drinks in the remaining traces of Sam's frazzled and frayed panic.
"We're gonna have to work on some ground rules, okay?" Sam says. "I can't have you running off on your own until you're a little more..." human, he doesn't say but Castiel probably hears it anyway. He barrels on: "Rule number one, you gotta lock your door. You can't just leave it open for people to come and go as they please. They could take stuff."
Again, there's a thought that rises, unbidden: They could take you.
If Castiel thinks that thought is too forward or strange, it's another thing that Sam doesn't know and may never. Castiel merely squeezes his fingers in reassurance and tilts his head to the side as he absorbs and makes sense of what Sam is telling him (and not telling him). "I understand," he says, "but it is strange for one of the dominant species on the planet to fear itself, rather than its potential competitors."
"Yeah, strange," Sam huffs, largely grateful that Castiel accepts the rules as is. "Mankind isn't exactly peaceful."
"So I have learned," Castiel agrees and pulls one hand out from Sam's grasp to indicate a tear on the shoulder of his coat. "Today's lessons seem to be largely about material possessions and their acquisition and retention."
Sam thumbs at the tear and then squints at the curled threads at the seam - snapped, it seems, from being pulled on. "What happened? Did someone try to rob you or something?"
"Rob?" Castiel's fingers curl into Sam's. "Oh, yes. But of course, I have nothing to take. The man did not believe me and was a bit rough in his search."
Boggling at Castiel's dismissive tone at the encounter, Sam feels his worry spike again. "But you're okay?"
Castiel looks up from where he's watching Sam's thumb peel back one side of the torn sleeve. His eyes are heavy-lidded, considering. "You do not wish for me to be hurt," he says. "I am glad, but you needn't bother." His mouth spreads into a slight grin. "I may look human, but I am much stronger than this physique would imply. The man who attempted to rob me could not have harmed me."
Sam feels a bit stupid for having worried so much. It's just as he thought when meeting Castiel - that the Angels wouldn't send someone they didn't think could protect themselves. Still, he's never seen an Angel fight or get upset or even get cut on accident, so he wonders what to trust, forgetting for the moment that his doubt is slipping across the telepathic bond between his hand and Castiel's.
Almost as soon as the doubt has occurred to Sam, he's got his face against the wall - pinned there by Castiel's weight at his back - and Castiel's voice curls from behind his ear around a hot breath. "We would not usually fight this way. Without the proper precautions, we would be overcome by the thoughts of our attackers, but with a touch, you see-" and here, Castiel covers Sam's neck with the broad flat of his palm and bears down, easing him to the ground gently with an insistent strength. "I can read whatever I like from your mind. I may also see how you plan to use your powers to fight me off, and be able to react accordingly."
Shuddering, Sam stares down at the linoleum tiling between his knees and the fine cracks between the baseboard and the wall. He feels closed in - boxed in by the wall and Castiel's legs and the shadow of his coat hanging down in his periphery. The instinct to throw Castiel off of him fizzles out first, without Sam having to shove it down. Castiel's grip on the back of his neck is secure, applying a firm pressure through the length of his spine, and it isn't as if Sam couldn't wiggle free if he wished because his hands are even free or he could even shove Castiel back with his mind if he wanted - though as soon as he thinks it, it seems ludicrous to bother. He's not sure why he wants to fight in the first place-
"You see?" Castiel murmurs. "Just like that."
When Castiel lets him go, Sam lurches to the side, breathing hard as he looks up at him. "What was- That- You made it like I couldn't... Shit."
"I eliminated your desire to fight," Castiel explains, squatting down next to Sam. He doesn't move to touch Sam, though surely that would make it easier for them to communicate over Sam's stuttering and faltering reaction to being subdued. "We have not had to fight for many years now, but all my brothers and sisters are trained in this manner. It's preferable to using our brute strength."
Sam squints at him. "Brute strength?" he echoes.
Castiel ducks his head, looking embarrassed. "Yes," he says. "Your species is very fragile, compared to mine." Very gingerly - as gingerly as, Sam realizes, most of Castiel's touches have been - he pushes a lock of hair behind Sam's ear. "My point is that you do not have to worry for my safety or my life. I do not require your protection or help, but I... I appreciate that you are willing to give it. It is a credit to the generosity of your kind."
It should be frightening that this moment is the one where it really sinks in that Sam is dealing with something that's not human - that's alien, that's natural in a way that's completely unlike anything that exists on this entire planet. Just looking at Castiel, he almost wouldn't know it, except the way he perches near Sam has a way of seeming to take up more space than required - almost like he has an aura about him or something. The way he watches people - or Sam, anyway - seems to linger a little longer than necessary, and the way he walks is too much as if his body does not belong to him, and the way he touches... Sam can't pretend he doesn't know. The way Castiel touches is different - meaningful - by the very nature that his hands are his way of speaking and listening.
A laugh bursts out of Sam's chest. "You're a little unreal, you know that? I mean, you don't eat, you don't sleep, and you're stronger than anything I know. I don't even want to know what it'd take to kill you, but seriously, what do you need to survive? It's gotta be something basic, right?"
"Very basic," Castiel says, then grasps Sam by the arm. "Come. We will share the food you made before my return, and I will explain my kind to you. Then, you will teach me."
"About material possessions, their acquisition and retention?" Sam says because he remembers.
Castiel's smile is warm. "About everything."
*
So that's how it goes for a bit. They make some basic rules to live by and settled into a routine. Castiel comes and goes as he pleases at night, and Sam tries not to worry about what he does - if he wanders and meets people or gets in trouble - so long as he's at the apartment for breakfast the next morning. Sam gets Castiel a cheap tv and a local map. The tv gets set to one of the public channels and never gets changed, so it's always on the news by the time Sam drops in. While the tv plays, Sam cooks or brings something different for breakfast, and Castiel sits on the floor with the maps spread out on the floor in front of him. Most of the time, Sam joins Castiel while he nibbles on his serving and Sam eats heartily at his, and together, they pour over the possibilities for the day.
The best thing about leading an alien through Earth culture is the same best thing about being the native to a tourist friend. It's like rediscovering the city through different eyes, and Castiel never wants to visit the same place twice. There's restaurants and libraries and botanical gardens and parks. There's the old theatres and the new theatres - the ballet palaces and the movie houses. Castiel asks to go to taverns and to museums and to fire departments and police departments, and while he's there, he learns everything that he can.
Castiel learns about money and weather, price gouging and gardening, and the Dewey decimal system. He learns about groceries when Sam takes him on errands (sometimes going well out of his way so that it's a new place for both of them) and about clothing (because Sam is not going to have Cas wearing the same thing all the time). He shakes hands with the sheriff and the fire chief, cashiers and car salesmen. Nearly everyone they meet actually gets at least a brush of his fingers, and Castiel comes away with a little bit more knowledge, a little bit more culture - and seems more human because of it.
It turns out that there hundreds of places that Sam hasn't visited in his city - places he never thinks of going to and people he never thinks of meeting - and Castiel drags him by the hand through one door and then the next. That's the most important thing right there, as a matter of fact: the hand-holding is nearly constant.
It almost gets to be that Castiel doesn't bother asking questions. Sometimes Sam is just talking, explaining this or that, and he's a big gesticulator a lot of the time - comes from being a younger brother but it also comes from being a telekinetic and from having to shape the world with his hands. Anyway it makes it hard for Castiel to catch his hand or his wrist or his arm without disrupting the conversation. So sometimes Cas takes off his shoes (which are more often just slippers now to suit the hot weather, not that Castiel would notice) and lets his toes creep up Sam's shin while his face falls into this relaxed sort of wonder as he gathers the full meaning of everything Sam is saying. Sometimes, Castiel won't bother with just that either, and he'll just - it's so embarrassing that Sam is sure that's the first thing Cas feels every time he does it - he just leans into Sam's space and slides the backs of his fingers against Sam's neck. It's so natural and so casual that Sam stops noticing after the first half dozen times that it happens and just sort of happily shivers instead.
Sam tries not to read too much into it, you know. He doesn't have Castiel's advantage here. He can't read Cas nearly at all because Castiel has adopted this sort of amalgamation of body languages and facial expressions that look sort of right, except that Castiel isn't always using them in the way they're intended. Anyway, the point is that he does try to read Castiel in the way he would another human because touching is a thing for Angels - a thing that's altogether different from the way it is with humans. For Angels, touching is every day; it's easy and uncomplicated and all of them do it from what Sam understands (at least, from the conversation that resulted from his freak out when Castiel snuck his toes up the hem of Sam's pants the first time). The intimacy that has to be achieved by humans before that sort of touch is allowed doesn't occur to Castiel, so Sam does his best to just shiver and take it. It's better that way, so that he doesn't get preoccupied with jealousy when he sees Castiel touching someone else's hands in the cereal aisle or going knuckle-to-knuckle with strangers.
It should be weird, Sam guesses, but Castiel keeps to their arrangement. He's there every morning and he's with Sam through the day. Meals take two or three times as long to eat because half the time, Sam's eating with just one hand because the other his holding Castiel's or he's having to chew very deliberately because he's trying to ignore that he can feel warm toes rubbing up and down the side of his leg, eating up information from his subconscious.
Even if it isn't weird - which it really, totally is - the stirrings of insecurity are more than enough to make Sam feel antsy when he sees Castiel with other people. He's sure that at some point, it's going to become clear to both of them that Sam is not an expert. Sure, he can drive Castiel wherever he wants to go, and sure he hasn't exactly exhausted the internet's repertoire of recipes yet - but sooner or later, Castiel's going to ask a question that Sam won't be able to answer and then where will they be? Sam tries to focus on the fact that - while Castiel may visit with other humans, touching them and reading them - he always comes back to Sam.
In fact, there's this one time when they're at IHOP - which, yes, Sam realizes that sounds like the opening to a really, really humiliating story - but they're there for lots of reasons, like how Castiel is extra shifty and frazzled when Sam sees him after having taken the subway home and in the fifteen minutes it took him to commute during the morning rush, rubbed shoulders with fifty or sixty different people, touching the safety bars and the hundreds of thousands of people that have left behind their traces. It's also because Sam starts thinking about how he always likes waffles as a comfort food and maybe Cas will too, but he can't make waffles without a waffle maker and besides which, Castiel doesn't understand the debate between waffles and pancakes. He's really only beginning to grasp the concept that humans do a lot of things just for the pleasure of it anyway - reading and music and eating and … and other things that don't bear thinking about while Sam's holding his hand.
Anyway, they're at IHOP and Castiel's abandoned him in favor of a particularly long conversation with their waitress about how she's doing and what it's like working the night shift at a restaurant and whether there's something she loves from the menu even after so long. Castiel doesn't actually take the details of what she's saying - doesn't need them, it's too much; he gets what he needs through touch, and right now he's gently hold the hand she has covering his. The waitress allows Castiel about ten minutes' worth of conversation before she remembers that she has other tables to wait on, and he lets her go without argument, sagging back into his seat in a very human display of relief.
A second later, one of his feet is settled against Sam's knee, and Castiel says, "I hope you know that I am grateful for you," apropos of nothing, it seems, except maybe everything that Sam can't help feeling and Castiel can't help knowing. "You are open to me and-" He pauses, searchingly. "Your kind is young and cautious. There is much fear in the individual. It's what makes you lock your doors at night and distrust things with which you are unfamiliar, be it actions or other beings."
"That's normal, isn't it?" Sam asks. The fear of the unknown. When faced with a darkened room, how was one to know what it contained - if it was something good or something dangerous? "I'd think it'd be a survival instinct."
Castiel hums, hands turning Sam's palm upward and fingers tracing the thin creases that mark his individuality. "For humans, that seems to be the case. For Angels, it is different. We are a culture that thrives on knowledge. Unlike humans, we have already achieved our physical peak, so now our purpose is to achieving an enlightened state.
"When faced with a darkened room, an Angel would not be afraid but curious. We would enter without hesitation," Castiel says. He curls Sam's fingers around his own and then, remarkably - so much so that Sam feels his breath catch - he brings them to his lips. "After all, if we do not investigate, how are we to know what lies within - whether it is something good... Or something dangerous?"
Something in Sam squirms uncomfortably and at the same time, thrills. "So you're grateful for me because I'm afraid?"
Sam feels a smile stretch against his knuckles. "No," says Castiel. "I am grateful because you are not."
[ Part Two]