A/N: Yes, I know, yet another distraction from the bigger fics I should be writing. I'm working, really, I am. These little plot bunnies keep jumping out at me, though, and man, are they relentless. On the upside, I now know how to assemble a Beretta 9mm thanks to this fic. Yay?

It had all started out so simply.

"If you're gonna be apart of this family, you're gonna have to start acting like a Winchester."

After all, Castiel had been traveling with them for a while now; he was as close to being family as Ellen or Jo, and almost as close as Bobby. It just seemed fit that he learn a few of the tricks and skills that your run-of-the-mill hunter had. He was basically human at this point anyway, or at least as close as a rebelling angel could be without falling. A little unconventional know-how could save his life, or theirs, one day.

Now, though, it wasn't looking quite as easy as he'd originally thought.

Castiel cautiously eyed the parts spread across the bed, as if they might spring up at any moment and attack him. Standing next to him and borderline exhausted from the few hours he'd put in teaching the angel, Dean patted his back in the most reassuring way he could muster at this point.

"Come on, man, just do it like I showed you," Dean said. "It's not that hard, once you get the hang of it." Cas looked to the man, an eyebrow raised.

"What if I don't want to get the hang of it?" was his rebuttal, sounding for all the world like a mouthy kid. He turned his attention back to the parts and pieces covering the slightly greasy looking bedspread. "It's a skill that angels have no use for." Dean rolled his eyes at the excuse he'd heard a million times in the past few hours and nudged the guy forward.

"Just quit stalling and do it, Cas." The angel cast a quick, hopeful glance to Sam, who shrugged over his laptop and went back to searching for a new hunt. With great hesitation, he picked up the spring and guide, pushing them together. Dean nodded patiently, watching Cas' every move just in case he managed to screw up this relatively easy task.

As he tentatively picked up the barrel and slide, the angel muttered, "I still don't see the point in any of this."

God, it was like dealing with a kid. A really passive-aggressive one. Frankly, Dean was getting tired of it. He'd spent the last three hours dealing with these quiet comments, all while he was trying to teach the guy a skill that could save all of their lives. After all, a gun without a barrel wasn't a whole lot of good in any situation, unless you were lucky enough to be in hitting range.

For a brief moment, Dean wondered if this is what Dad dealt with when they were kids, but he quickly brushed that aside; it was too weird to think about that right now.

"I get it, you're an angel, you don't need our little human weapons," Dean quipped, carrying on before Cas could retort. "But as long as you're cut off from the cloud patrol and you're hunting with us, you're gonna have to know some of this stuff. And I know, you work better with knives and swords, and that's great, but sometimes killing a werewolf is just easier from thirty feet. So quit bitching and be done with it."

A few seconds of silence permeated the room, only broken by Sam's intermittent typing; Cas wouldn't meet Dean's eyes, focused on the few pieces left with sudden attention. Well, at least he knew he'd gotten his point across. Cas pressed the spring into the combined barrel and slide, attaching all of that onto the frame; he paused momentarily as he felt the faint snap of them connecting properly. Despite his ongoing protestations, he pushed the clip in like an old hand; he looked it over for a moment, a hint of pride in his work gracing his features, and then looked to Dean.

"Is this satisfactory?" He proffered the weapon exactly how Dean had showed him, with the handle facing toward the Winchester. Taking the handgun, he looked it over, but there wasn't much to see–the guy did a spot-on job when he wasn't whining. He nodded, a slight smile on his face.

"Yeah, this is great." Looking up from the gun, Dean met Castiel's eyes. "See? Not so bad, once you just do it." The angel nodded so slightly that if Dean hadn't been looking directly at him, he wouldn't have noticed the movement at all.

"True," he acquiesced, and that was all the acknowledgment that Dean needed. He set the gun down on a dresser and all but collapsed onto a bed, exhaustion from teaching the angel catching up with him. The room fell into relative silence once again, only broken up by Sam's typing and the hum of the small fridge as it turned on. Dean lay quietly on the bed, one arm draped over closed eyes, while Cas remained standing in the same spot.

"Dean?" came the query a minute later; from under his arm, the elder Winchester peeked one eye open.

"Yeah?"

Castiel shifted his weight from one foot to the other, eyes wandering around the room as he said, "Are we done with this instruction?" His eyes met Dean's only after he'd finished speaking; the elder Winchester raised an eyebrow.

"Why? You got somewhere better to be?"

"No, I just -" Dean held up a hand before the guy could wander off into some excuse.

"Whatever, man. If you're staying here, I might as well teach you something else about being one of us." He patted around the bed for a moment, blindly searching for the remote. When he realized it wasn't in arms' reach, he cursed quietly and sat up, quickly retrieving it from the night stand. He motioned for Cas to sit on the other bed as the television buzzed to life; the angel took a seat on the end, sitting up stiffly. Dean watched this for a minute, but decided against trying to get the guy to relax and redirected his attention to the tv.

"Now, Cas," he began, only the barest hints of a smile donning his features, "you're about to learn the fine art of channel surfing."