The couple on the screen moaned, their bodies entwining, all arms and hands and mouths pressed together. Cas' eyes narrowed, finding the movements strangely fascinating. Dean was in the shower, having decided to do so twenty minutes ago when Sam left to research at the local library, leaving Cas alone with the remote control. Leaning forward, elbows on knees, he watched the two continue their groping and mouth-crushing. He had seen a few kisses, but this one was different somehow. Deeper, though he wasn't sure why. His head tilted to one side as their lips twisted together, their mouths opening, and… Cas' eyes widened a fraction. Their tongues were touching and winding between their lips. That was… very unexpected. Something stirred in his middle. Some faint emotion in his chest that was unidentifiable to him; something that felt crushing and uplifting all at once.

The act of kissing involved more than just lips, apparently, and that was very intriguing. Humans and their complexities, their emotions that ebbed and flowed, their static life force that was electric and vibrant and beautiful, were entirely intriguing to him. Some, of course, more than others. Those, especially, whose souls shone in many-colored hues, like the Winchesters'. The pulsing lights of their souls made them two of the most fascinating creatures with whom Castiel had every come in contact. Dean's, specifically. Something about him had always drawn Cas closer, captivated. Since their first meeting he had wanted to study Dean close, closer still, closer than he'd ever managed to get even when he stretched the bounds of "personal space."

The conversation on the television focused Castiel's glazed gaze, and he realized the pair had finally stopped kissing. They stood talking very close to one another, and Cas wished he hadn't missed the few seconds prior. He wondered what it would be like to kiss someone like that. To kiss with everything you have. He wondered what it would be like… to kiss Dean like that.

The one kiss he had shared with the demon Meg, the one he had learned from the pizza man, had been strange, pleasurable in its way, but also distasteful, tasting the darkness of the soul inside the body. It would be different kissing a human, a good human with a soul like Dean's, a human Castiel cared deeply about. A human he… he thought he actually loved. He'd never been in love so he wasn't completely sure, but the things he felt… He was fairly certain that's what love was meant to feel like.

The problem was, he wasn't sure if he could do it right. Kiss right. He had managed ok with Meg, but he didn't know how to kiss like the couple in the show.

The running water of the shower in the bathroom shut off, and Cas glanced in that direction. He blinked at the door and suddenly had a thought. I wonder… I wonder if Dean would teach me.

Dean finished shaving and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, leaving his hair a damp mess to worry about later. The bathroom was too hot and stuffy to deal with any longer. Kicking out the door, he crossed the room to the mini-fridge and bent to retrieve a beer, grabbing a knife on the counter and popping off the lid. The sound of commercialized voices drew his attention after his first taste, and he glanced over at Cas sitting on the bed in his trenchcoat in front of the tv but looking right at him.

Glancing around the room, he asked, "Sammy not back yet?"

"He's only been gone twenty-three minutes," Castiel replied. "It is probably the research will take longer than that."

"I wish he'd hurry the hell up," Dean grunted. "He's supposed to pick up pie on the way back." He took another swig of his beer and offered a bottle to Castiel. The angel silently shook his head, and Dean shrugged, leaning against the counter to let his over-heated skin cool in the drier air.

"Dean…" Cas began. He muted the tv. "I was wondering if you would help me with something." Dean knew the angel's eyes were blue, but in the dimly lit room they looked dark and curious when they glanced hesitantly up at him, and something in his abdomen twitched with that familiar and unpleasant feeling. Immediately, he shut it down, denying its existence. "Course," he said, his voice smooth. "What do you need help with?" The cold neck of the bottle felt good in his hands, so he focused on that, forcing himself to relax on the counter, his elbows pressed into the fake marbled top.

The angel shifted, his mouth making a small, uncertain movement. "I don't know if I should be asking you this as I've realized it may make you uncomfortable… But… I was wondering if you would be willing to teach me how to kiss."

Air somehow got trapped in Dean's throat, and he found himself coughing on absolutely nothing at all. Coughing until his eyes watered, and he was drinking down beer to keep his throat in his throat, blinking repeatedly against the threatening tears and breathing slowly until the pain settled to a distracting soreness.

"Are you ok?" Cas asked, half-risen from the bed, eyebrows puckered with concern.

"I'm fine! I'm fine," Dean bellowed, making a sit-the-hell-back-down gesture until Castiel complied. Dean shifted his stance agitatedly. "Did you honestly just freakin' ask me to teach you how to kiss?" he demanded. "The tv not educational enough for you? What about the 'pizza man'? Meg?" Uncomfortably, Dean realized his heart was yammering in the cage of his chest, and his hand was shaking so much he had to set down his beer before he dropped it. Then he immediately scooped it back up and drank the rest of it down because hell if he needed some intoxication.

"I know the basic mechanics," Cas clarified, hunching a little more on the bed. "But I don't know to kiss like they do," he spread his fingers at the tv. "And Meg was a demon. I would very much like to experience kissing a human."

"You want to kiss a human!" Dean swept his hand through the air. "How about someone like Chastity?" Opening the fridge, he grabbed another bottle and popped the lid off before he even realized what the hell he was doing. What the hell am I doing? he thought. Kiss Cas? Kiss Cas! I can't do that. I cannot do that. He hated how much he wanted to.

Cas' eyebrows drew closer together. "I would rather learn the intimacies of such a practice from someone I know. From someone I care about."

Dean's head jerked up. Someone he…? His eyes met those of the angel's across the hotel bedroom. Cas' face was still and stoic like usual, the tv's lights dancing across his face. But somewhere about the eyes was a reflection of hope. And doubt. A doubt that was growing with every damn second that passed. He was suddenly uncertain. And then he was crestfallen, as if he already expected what Dean's answer would be. His eyes twitched between Dean's, and then his gaze dropped to the carpet. "Nevermind," he ground. "I knew it was probably a bad idea."

It was a terrible idea. A god-awful idea.

Castiel sat still and silent, accepting and unnaccusing, the remote sitting forgotten on the bedspread beside him. A lank of dark hair drooped across his forehead, a curved shadow, crescent-shaped on his skin. The deep whirlpool blue of the eyes of the angel Castiel flashed in Dean's mind, open and naïve and hopeful.

The bottle wobbled where it met the countertop unevenly. It didn't settle its quavering until Dean was halfway across the room. Castiel looked up with surprise, and then Dean grabbed his forearms and yanked him to his feet.

"Dean?" he asked with some confusion.

"Alright," Dean rumbled. "I'll teach you how to kiss, Cas, just stop your damn wallowing."

"I'm an angel of the Lord, Dean. I don't wal—"

Growling, Dean tugged Castiel forward and effectively shut him up with his mouth. Grunting in surprise, Cas stiffened, and a spasm of trepidation lanced through Dean's stomach. He jerked back, heat creeping up his neck. "I'm sorry—" he muttered.

Cas shook his head. "No, my apologies. You took me by surprise." Visibly relaxing, he said, "Try again?"

Dean wasn't afraid of anything, not really. Ok, he was afraid of losing Sammy, he was afraid of losing Cas, and deep down he was afraid he'd rot in hell one day when Death decided he'd been cheated one-too-many times. Other than that, there wasn't much that gave Dean Winchester nerves, shakes, or tremors.

But standing there gripping Cas in the hotel room, staring as his lips as the angel asked him to kiss him again, Dean realized his gut was tightening and his throat was constricting, and it took more than a little willpower to keep himself from shaking. He was suddenly terrified of what this was, of what was happening, of the look in Castiel's eyes, and the look he knew was on his own. This… This was something he had never let himself think would happen. Now that it was, however it had been started, he realized suddenly that he wanted very much to do it right.

Loosening his vicelike grip on Cas' arms, he licked his lips and swallowed passed the growing lump forming just above his adam's apple.

"Ok."

The lips of Dean Winchester weren't soft like Castiel had once found himself imagining. In fact, they were slightly cracked and a little rough while also being warm and welcoming.

A lot like the hunter himself. The coherent thought made its whispery self known in Castiel's mind before fading to the sensations that were filling his senses one by one. First had been sight, a tiny, flickering smile on the corner of Dean's lips that was nervousness and a twinge of something else before he closed the space between them, his eyelids falling shut seconds before Cas' followed suit.

Second was smell, the whiff of pure Dean Castiel had the pleasure of inhaling just before their lips met for the second time. Hotel soap and shampoo were the most imminent, but beneath that was the faint tint of leather and car grease, scents that suited Dean Winchester as well as his favorite pair of jeans.

Not unexpectedly, third was touch. Soft pressure and achy deepness that mounted with every new trace of lips and fingertips. A twisting of the mouth. A touch, a swerve. A gliding hand that rose up his sleeved arm and curled in his neck, gripping his jaw and turning his face.

Fourth and fifth, soundandtaste, mixed together when Dean coaxingly pierced Castiel's mouth with his tongue. The sour aftertaste of beer was present there in a strangely not unpleasant way. And a rumbling sort of growl vibrated through their connected skin as it rose up Dean's throat, doing something strange to Cas, to the nerves in his body that felt suddenly activated, transforming every soft brush of a thumbprint into an antithesis of burning fire and shivers of ice.

All of this together made him moan. It was heavenly.

Without thinking, knowing only he wanted to be closer, deeper, Castiel let his free hand rise, winding beneath Dean's and curving around his neck, pulling him near, nearer than he had ever been before. The vibrancy of the hunter's soul, touching Castiel in this angel's sixth sense, was like a feeling he had never felt before. It was colors bright and dark, and it was static light, and it was music spinning around them in sheets and choruses. It was like nothing Castiel could describe with words, but all he knew was that he never wanted to let go… Never wanted to let go of Dean.

Shuddering with willpower, Dean broke the kiss, peeling back and breathing in deep breaths that shook his entire frame. Castiel's own lungs puffed with needed oxygen in slow gasping breaths. But he didn't open his eyes, he kept them shut, trying to memorize every second of the last sixty before bits and pieces could slip away.

The hand that still gripped Cas' forearm released him and draped around his neck instead, drawing their foreheads together. Cas' eyes fluttered open. Dean's were still closed, his mouth open to let in the oxygen, his face smooth and relaxed.

"Dean?" Castiel breathed.

"Mm?"

"I found that very enjoyable."

A twist of their foreheads, skin against skin, and then a shaking started. It came from the hunter's waist and climbed up through his stomach, rising through his throat until a vibrating, almost silent, inescapable, trembling laugh dispersed between them in fits and snorts. Cas watched confusedly, and Dean shook his head against him and pulled back just a bit. "So did I," he admitted with a crooked grin, still chortling.

Euphoria spaced inside Cas' chest, and he felt himself smiling. "Perhaps…" he said. "We should try it again."

A snarky grin replaced the crooked smile. "You need a little more practice?"

"It may be some time before I quite grasp all of the subtleties," Cas admitted. "And… besides which—" He broke himself off, glancing away, not completely able to meet the yellow-green irises of Dean Winchester.

"What?" he asked gently.

His heartrate, which had ebbed a little in the space of breaths since the kiss, kicked into gear again, and Cas found it very uncomfortable. "There is no one on the planet… like you, Dean." There was more to be said, more that he felt, more that he meant, but he wasn't sure how Dean would react to all of these things just yet, so he left it at that and hoped it would be enough.

It was.

Dean's expression sobered and softened. He said, "There's no one quite like you either, Cas," and then he pulled him in again and their mouths connected.