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It’s like a scene straight out of one of Dean’s nightmares.
Well - OK, maybe nightmare isn’t the right word to use there.
Or straight, for that matter.
“What are you talking about? You must know how to kiss,” Dean grunts. Cas goes back to reading the magazine in his hands. Dean shifts, moving further away down the sofa they’re sitting on. He suddenly feels, somehow, as though he can’t quite trust himself. He needs the extra distance. The soft clothes they’re both wearing are already an excess of intimacy.
“Yes,” Cas says. He’s in his pyjamas, all loose-limbed and soft and scruffy. “But I don’t know if I know how to kiss well.” He reaches up a hand and runs his index finger over his lower lip, frowning. “It says to keep your lips soft. Does it mean to relax them, or to apply chapstick before attempting the kiss?”
“Uh,” Dean says. “Probably the first one.” He throws a glance over at Cas’ lips, and then quickly jerks his head away when Cas turns to look at him.
“How do you kiss?” Cas asks.
He sounds like he’s asking about the weather, Dean thinks. Casually interested. Dean, on the other hand… Dean is already imagining all the kissing tricks he knows - he’s got a few moves. And picturing using them on Cas isn’t exactly hard…
Dean shrugs, and Cas waits in silence.
“I…” Dean says. “I guess I just put my lips on theirs. And figure it out.”
“Do you use your hands?”
God. Dean’s mind is suddenly awash in images of all the places that he’d very much like to use his hands as they kiss. On his cheek. On his neck. Down his chest…
“Sometimes,” Dean croaks.
“How do you… begin a kiss?” Cas says. “It says here that you meet their eyes…”
Dean turns his head, and Cas’ eyes are watching him. They stare at each other for a long, long moment.
Dean bites his lip. “I guess I just ask if they want to kiss,” he says. “If I’m feeling brave enough.”
Cas’ eyes don’t leave his own, not for a moment. Dean blinks, his heart thudding against his ribs. He swallows hard. Screw it. No, wait, I can’t. But - fuck, look at him - but I can’t. God. I can’t just kiss him… but for god’s sake…
“I want to know how to kiss,” Cas says. He bites his lip. “Can you…? You don’t have to actually… but I want to know how.”
In a detached way, Dean knows that somewhere in his brain, he’s panicking. He weighs his options. He can show Cas how to kiss, without touching him. He can grab Cas and kiss him, right now. He can sit still and stare at Cas blankly until the Apocalypse starts up again, or something, and takes the problem out of his hands.
The last option has serious merit, he thinks. It’s way too dangerous for him to be showing Cas how to kiss. Way too dangerous. He’s thought about it too often before, wanted to try it too much… it’d show too clearly…
Screw it, he thinks, and this time he speaks aloud before the rest of the mess of his thoughts can kick in.
“OK,” he says. “I’ll show you.” He shifts on the sofa, turning himself around so that he’s sitting facing Cas, cross-legged. Cas follows his lead. He has such a solemn face on that Dean almost wants to laugh, but he’s afraid it’ll come out too harshly - like he’s laughing at Cas, mocking him. He’s not. It’s just… a little bit adorable.
Way too dangerous, he says to himself. Way too dangerous.
“So, if I was gonna kiss you,” Dean says, doing his best to sound businesslike, “I’d start off by putting my hand on your cheek.”
Cas reaches out, and puts the tips of his fingers against Dean’s cheek.
“Like this?” he says. Dean does give a little snort, then. He feels almost giddy, everything just a little surreal - and he knows it can’t last forever, but Hell, he’s come this far. He’s going to enjoy it while he can.
He reaches up, and shifts Cas’ touch on his cheek - presses Cas’ palm to his skin, so that those long, tanned fingers rest higher up. Cas has a little line of concentration between his eyebrows.
“This is better?” Cas says. Dean swallows. It’s a while since he’s been touched like this… kindly, romantically. It’s doing things to him. Things that Cas doesn’t mean, he reminds himself. Cas is justpractising. He swallows hard, again.
“Yeah,” he says. “This is better.”
Cas nods. The tip of his thumb rubs against Dean’s skin just below the end of his eyebrow, deliberately and slowly. It brushes Dean’s lashes, and Dean almost shakes with how much he welcomes the touch.
“And then?” Cas says. His voice is lower than usual, but that’s probably just because he’s tired, Dean reminds himself. Not everyone in the room is harbouring the wish for this kiss to really happen. Not everyone is so completely and hopelessly in love as he is. God.
“And then,” Dean says recklessly - because at this point, continuing is the best form of punishment he can think of for himself for feeling the way that he does - “you lean in… and I lean in…”
Cas bends forwards. Dean watches him, and then with soft fingers under Cas’ chin, tilts his head a little to the right. He can feel his heart aching, and he leans into the pain. You deserve this, he thinks to himself. Let this haunt you. You deserve it for even hoping.
“You’re not leaning in,” Cas says. Dean’s fingers are still lightly caressing his chin, and Dean has to clench them to stop them drifting down Cas’ throat, reaching around to the back of Cas’ neck, burying themselves in Cas’ hair.
Dean leans in. Fuck it. Fuck. It.
“And then we just…”
“Kiss,” Dean says. He wonders how long he can bear to be this close to Cas, knowing that he’ll never get closer. It’s a test, he tells himself. It’s just a test, a game…
Cas leans in even closer, and gently nudges his lips to Dean’s.
Dean’s intake of breath is sharp. His eyes are wide and he holds himself still with shock, Cas’ hand still pressed to his cheek. It means nothing, he tells himself. It means nothing, it’s just practice, it’s just a game, it’s just a test…
Cas pulls back, just far enough that he can focus easily on Dean’s eyes. He doesn’t seem to like what he sees in them, because his face drops. Dean does shift his fingers, then; before he’s made a conscious choice, he’s sliding them up to Cas’ cheek, holding him.
“What?” he says.
Cas lifts a shoulder.
“The magazine says that we would see stars,” he says. “You don’t look like you’re seeing them. I still don’t think I’m doing it right.”
Dean frowns. Don’t, he thinks. Don’t, don’t -
“Well, I mean,” he says, ignoring himself as best he can. “You only did one tiny kiss. We probably need more.”
“You think so?” Cas says.
Dean shrugs. This is lying, he thinks, or as bad as lying. Cas is just practising, but for Dean this is far too real… but God, he wants it. Cas leans in - Dean’s lips are ready, hopeful, wanting. He needs this, needs it so badly, has been dreaming of it…
But at the last minute, Dean pulls away.
“Cas,” he says. He hates himself. “We can’t do this. It’s not right.” He hates himself, but he can’t do it. He can’t take Cas’ practice kisses and make them mean so much, without Cas knowing. He can’t lie like that, can’t cajole Cas into kissing him and then enjoy it, all in secrecy. It’s wrong.
Cas’ shoulders drop. He lets his hand fall away from Dean’s cheek, quickly, as though he’s been burned.
“It isn’t? You don’t want to… I’m sorry, I thought you were -”
“No, no, it’s not that I don’t want to. I just…”
“You just?”
Cas looks so crestfallen that Dean lets the next words of explanation fall out of his mouth without thinking. “Don’t you get it, Cas? It’s because I do want to, too much.”
There’s silence.
He blinks down at his hands. He thinks that he’s shaking - yes, his fingers are trembling. His heart is painful in his chest, and all he can think about is how everything is ruined, now, and all because he hadn’t known to leave this nightmare well alone…
Cas’ palm returns to his cheek. Those fingers are back in his hair.
“Look at me,” Cas says, and his voice sounds just a little wrecked. Dean can’t do it, can’t look up. He clenches his fists. “Dean… please. It’s in the magazine. I can’t kiss you if you don’t look at me first.”
Dean blinks up at him, his cheeks reddening.
“What? But - I just told you…”
“Dean, why do you think I started this?”
Dean stares at him for a long, long moment.
“You son of a bitch,” he says. For the first time since he started all of this, Cas’ face relaxes into a smile.
“Yes,” he says, like he’s happy about it. Dean’s blush worsens. He can’t stop his eyes from flicking down to Cas’ lips, over and over. They’d felt soft, in the brief moment they’d been pressed to his own. They’d felt good…
“So,” he says.
“So,” Cas replies.
He leans in, and brushes his lips against Dean’s. This time, the touch is a little more confident, and Dean is ready for it - he closes his eyes, leans forward, and kisses back. It’s a quiet, unmoving, shy kiss - but it’s a kiss, a real kiss, and Dean feels his aches, his worries, his tiredness being soothed. Just like that, he thinks. Gone. What have I been doing all this time.
Cas pulls back, his cheeks bright pink.
“It’s different when you kiss back,” is all he says. Dean can hardly keep the smile off his face long enough to press another kiss to the corner of Cas’ mouth, and another to his cheek.
“That was better,” he says. “But… I think you still need more practice.”
There’ll be time for words later - for explanations, for confirmations, for confessions. But for now, they let their bodies speak for them.
For now, they’ll kiss until they can both see the stars.