Dean had seen death many times in countless human corpses. He had seen Death himself, in the flesh. He had felt death in the many times he had been ounces of blood and seconds away from the gates of hell. He had even been dead himself, and though it was only one true time, his months as Lucifer's little chewtoy allowed him to experience it tenfold over.

But despite all of those experiences, he had only tasted death once, on the lips of a girl that he had fallen in love with against all odds.

Jo.

In that building, her insides spilling over to the outside and her once laughing, vivid brown eyes now holding only pain and tears, he had finally given into the temptation of what he had wanted to do every minute of every day he had known her.

Only it wasn't what he had expected, what he had wanted. He had wanted to kiss her, her body healthy and robust, to kiss her with the hestitation of the first kiss that held promises of many more to come. This kiss was going to be their first and last one.

And it tasted of death.

It was an intangible taste that couldn't be described with words. It left a bitter taste in his mouth that he still tasted whenever he closed his eyes and saw her face.

Yet once he got past the memory of bitterness, he remembered what he had tasted briefly under that death. Thinking back on it, it was even worse than death.

He had tasted life.

No woman he had ever kissed before or after had made him taste life - pure, refreshing life. Had she not sacrified herself for him, had he not allowed her to follow through with her suicide plan, he would still be tasting that life on her lips today. And that knowledge was worse than the death he had tasted.

And after he had kissed those life-giving lips a thousand times, he would have married that bull-headed, stubborn, pain-in-the-ass woman. But he never allowed himself to dwell on that, because to feel was to allow yourself to become vulnerable. And vulnerability was the worst thing a hunter could feel.

Alcohol and a bevy of faceless women let him forget that smiling blond haired, brown eyed girl for the majority of the time. But it was her face he saw whenever he closed his eyes, her touch he felt whenever the wind fluttered over his skin.

He had tasted death only once. But he would gladly trade anything in the world, himself, hunting, everything, to taste that life once more.