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Dean Winchester was nothing more than a job in the beginning. A mission assigned to an angel. The task was straightforward, no questions asked.
Enter Hell and rescue this man from eternal damnation.
Castiel expected some kind of thank you but received the complete opposite. Although he barely showed it then, Cas detested Dean's attitude and blatant lack of respect. He was nothing more than a pawn after all. A puzzle piece that needed to be put into place in order to create the bigger picture. He felt nothing for the mortal or his kin. And at one point, he actually meant his threat of throwing Dean back into Hell when the hunter's defiant attitude rubbed the angel the wrong way. It was his job. He was an angel of the Lord.
But being on Earth, inside his vessel, for such an extended period of time affected Castiel. He'd gained a certain fondness for Dean. All the time spent agonizing over the prevention of Lucifer's release and later, after the former failed, preventing the apocalypse was weighing on Cas. He felt that weight more than ever now that Raphael dared to bring all of that back upon Heaven and Earth. So why was the angel so mentally preoccupied with this man? Why did he follow the Winchesters' every move just to watch Dean as he slept, fighting a strange urge to reach out and touch him, feel him...
Castiel halted his thoughts.
Being as detached from human interaction as he was, this new feeling was incredibly foreign to him. And incredibly unnerving. He didn't want to think that he would allow himself to sink to the level of this. Cas didn't think he loved Dean Winchester. He didn't know what love was. Or at least this type of love. He knew what it felt like to love his Father, but this, this... All of it was so unfamiliar. Painfully irritating. It ate at him, wouldn't let him concentrate. He had no idea how to deal with this, therefore he didn't. Castiel just kept it to himself, like everything else. It was hard enough fighting this civil war. He found that developing trivial human emotions would only cloud his judgement-- distract him from the task at hand. Emotions were a hinderance. Whatever this was--this strange attraction to Dean-- it would need to be ignored.
Cas felt a familiar tugging at his conscience.
It was Dean praying for him.
In an fraction of a second, he appeared in the brothers' motel room. It was morning on Earth.
"Hello Dean." Castiel greeted in his usual stoic tone. He made sure to throw away all of his thoughts that included the man in front of him.
Dean, as usual, was startled by his sudden entrance behind him.
"You called me?" The trench coat wearing angel fixed his blue gaze on Dean.