A/N: Apologies, readers. I've run into some writer's block with this story and it's been a struggle. But with that said, this is probably one of my favorite chapters I've written so far, and includes the very first sex scene I've ever put to page. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and if you do, please let me know! Your feedback really does keep me inspired.

"Flying like a cannonball, falling to the earth
Heavy as a feather when you hit the dirt
How am I the lucky one? I did not deserve
To wait around forever when you were there first
First you get hurt, then you feel sorry" - Cold War Kids

.

Anger is like a coiled snake. Waiting, ready, always active.

It takes Dean just over a minute to get from the bedroom down to the back porch. Maybe seventy-five seconds tick by, and then the anger overwhelms him to a point of explosion. In an instant, he's no longer high; he's no longer drunk. He's ready to kill something, and what he sees is a beer bottle sitting on the deck.

It's in his hand and then leaving his hand before he even realizes it. He throws the bottle as hard as he can against the side of the house, where it explodes into shards that twinkle in the crisp spring air. Dean hears Jessica shriek behind him, and inside the house he can see Anna snap awake from the sound.

He's breathing heavy like a bull and the muscles in his back are horribly tense and he's coiled, he's ready, he's waiting to explode.

A hand on his shoulder, gentle but firm. Reassuring, weighty, something to anchor him back to Earth. Dean turns to see Castiel beside him, his blue eyes confused and hurt. "Dean, what's wrong?"

"Is everything okay?" comes Jess' timid voice. He knows she doesn't mean any harm, but to Dean it sounds like screeching nails against a chalkboard. Castiel must sense how frustrated he is, because he turns back to Jess and shakes his head. No. Not the right time.

Anna's tousled red head appears at the back door, a scowl on her face. "Dean. What in the entire fuck is wrong with you? Why are you destroying my house?"

"Because I felt like it," he spits.

"Wrong answer."

"Because it's none of your fucking business."

Anna steps right up into his personal space and her gaze is like ice. "Try again."

She's shorter than he is, so this time it is Dean who towers over Anna, but nonetheless she is right where Sam stood a few minutes before—and now Dean's anger is poised to strike with frightening force. But he feels hands gripping him by the shoulders, and he is turned to meet Castiel's blue eyes.

"Dean. Please take three deep breaths."

There's something about that no-nonsense, impossibly calm voice. Dean finds himself inhaling deep and slow, and his muscles start to relax.

"Okay, seriously, what the hell just happened to you?" Anna's voice is now concerned.

"Sam," Dean croaks. "Sam is...he's gone off the deep end. I don't know what happened but he...he's quit law school and he's just..." Behind him, he hears Jess dissolve into quiet, steady weeping.

"Rebelling," Anna finishes.

"Excuse me?"

"He's rebelling." She looks nonchalant. "Listen, Dean. Sam's going through something right now, and he needs to have the independence to just get it out of his system. Leave him alone."

"You knew about this?!"

Anna shrugs. "A little. I know he stopped going to classes."

"Why didn't you say something?" Dean knows he sounds hysterical but he can't pull himself together.

"Because it's his life, Dean," Anna's voice is firm, but not angry. "Sam has the right to do with it what he likes. And you cannot stop him."

"But—"

"—trust me, Dean," Anna says, and then turns around to face Jessica. "You too, Jess. Both of you are concerned about Sam, and I get that, but if you try to pen him in he will just act out even more. Let him have a rebellion."

"Sam already had a rebellion," Dean grumbles. "When he left for college."

Anna bursts out laughing, and it sounds crisp and sudden in the cool night air. "Dean. Think about what you just said. Rebellion isn't doing the responsible thing and going to college. C'mon."

"But—but what about you?" he sputters. "You play the freaking piano as a rebellion, you said so yourself."

Anna rolls her eyes, turns sideways, and lifts her shirt so that Dean can see her ribcage—and the image inked onto her skin. "It's a spiral galaxy and a Sagan quote. I got it when I was twenty years old, the same year I dyed my hair neon blue and married a Buddhist scholar in training named Floyd."

"I remember Floyd," Cas reminisces. "He was nice."

Anna grins. "Sadly got a little too wrapped up in his studies and I got bored."

"You're kidding," Dean says.

Anna shrugs, lowering her sweater once more. "Nope. Now, I'm not saying that Sam should get a tattoo or marry a dude with a topknot. But speaking as someone who's become an expert in pissing off authority figures, just let him do his thing for a while. It'll be a lot less unpleasant that way." She whips around to face a wilting Jess. "You too, miss. Support him or you'll lose him. Got it?"

Jess nods. "Okay," she says, sniffling.

Anna puts her arm around Jess' quivering shoulders and helps her to her feet. "Come on. I'll set up the guest bedroom for you to stay. I'll be right down the hall." They disappear inside.

Dean remains stoic for twenty seconds, and then he begins to shake with anger. He's stopped by sudden pressure on his forearm—Castiel's hand.

"Come on, Dean. I'll walk you to your place."

"I want to be alone."

"We've both been drinking and smoking. I'd prefer to see that you get back safely; I will sleep on your couch, if you'll allow it."

Dean can barely move from anger, but he forces his shoulders up and then down—a shrug. "Do whatever you want, Cas," he manages through gritted teeth.

"Very well. Let's go home."

.

A thick fog has rolled in by the time Dean and Cas reach the Winchester house. It's so early in the morning that the streets are utterly empty of cars, and it feels as though they're the only two people on earth. Dean has been quiet the entire time, walking in a brisk and consistent manner. Castiel has kept pace, hands in pockets, staring at his feet.

When they reach the house, Dean stops short as he feels the anger overwhelm him and burst free of its restraints. He turns and hits the wood siding as hard as he can—a thud-smack as his fist connects with the house. Dean feels a frightening intensity pushing his fists forward, again and again. Blow upon blow upon blow, leaving splatters of blood in the rough shape of his knuckles. A guttural howl escapes from his lips. Destroying something just feels so good—

And then his fist stops, lurching against his momentum. It's Castiel, hand on Dean's wrist, and before Dean knows it he's been slammed backwards against the wall with a force that knocks the breath from his lungs. All he can see in front of him is a pair of blue eyes.

"Dean! Stop. It. Right—ow!" Castiel yelps as Dean grabs his hand and twists, ducking out from between his arms and shoving Cas up against the side of the house. Automatic reflexes kick in; one forearm pins Castiel's sternum and the other hand holds his wrists together, bone-grindingly tight. Nostrils flaring, Dean gets right up in his friend's face and snarls like a goddamn animal.

Castiel doesn't flinch.

Dean is still breathing like a bull about to charge, but those blue eyes never waver, never dilate, never fill with tears. Nothing. Dean feels Cas slowly exhale, and in that moment it's like all the air gets sucked out of his lungs, too. The vacuum seems to pull him forward and suddenly he's mashing his lips against Castiel's, hungry and desperate and furious and animalistic.

Destroying something just feels so good.

It takes a second for Dean to realize what's happening, as adrenaline and endorphins surge through his brain and down to his groin. He opens his eyes and jerks backward, and every spot on his body where he'd been pressed against Castiel feels naked and cold.

Cas wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Time slows and then stops.

"Dean—"

Dean shakes his head and runs to the front door. He gets his key in the lock on the first try, flees inside, slams the door, and finally lets his knees buckle beneath him. He stays prostrate, leaning back against the door, as he listens to Castiel knock and say his name for what seems like hours.

Unable to reply, Dean squeezes his eyes shut and waits through every agonizing moment until he hears Castiel's footsteps retreat and fade. He remains on the floor, silent and trembling, until the sun's rays begin to shine through the hallway windows.

.

Cas doesn't hear from Dean the next day, nor the one after. It's a bit of a shock.

He has seen or spoken to Dean almost every day for the past two and a half months. Even if it's just been texting back and forth, they've been in almost constant contact—and now there's nothing. The silence overwhelms him, distracts him, and makes it clear how much Dean has become part of the daily grind. Castiel stares at his notification-less phone and feels a swell of sadness; for once, he thought he actually pulled it off. He made a friend, a true friend—and now that friend won't return his calls.

And as for the reasons why, well. Castiel tries so very hard not to think about that.

He chips away at the pages of John Winchester's journal. He completes other research work for the university, staying late at the lab. He puts on a playlist of piano concertos and lets the music carry him away.

Cas replays the night over and over again in his mind, cursing the instinct that made him reach out to stop Dean's breakdown. If only he hadn't pushed Dean against that wall. If only he'd said something different, in that moment after—something that would have stopped Dean from running away.

I'm sorry is the first thing which always comes to mind, even though it's irrational. Castiel knows he has nothing to apologize for. Dean was the one who—assaulted is probably the correct term, but it feels nauseating to even consider. It wasn't an attack. It was a cry for help.

Dean may never speak to him again. Castiel is back at square one, just with a burned journal that he keeps working on. So instead of speaking to his friend, he learns about Dean's father, page by painstaking page.

John Winchester was a brutally honest diarist. His writing reeks of desperation—of a man documenting his life not because he wanted to, but because he had to. Castiel has tried to resist the urge, but he's taken to reading the pages as they come out of cleaning. He deposits each into a crisp plastic sleeve, isolating that particular moment in its own little bubble, and he reads. He's found out about John's proclivity for scotch, about his hunting trips in the woods with his friend Bobby, and caught brief mentions of work. The pages have sketched out a man who was distracted, insecure, unsure about fatherhood—but trying. Trying to be a good man.

Castiel sits in his lab and reads the entries from after the fire which killed Mary, and fights back tears as he learns the extent of John's insane grief. Dean has talked, a little, about moving around and living in motels while growing up; now Castiel knows why. John Winchester dragged his sons back and forth across the country because he ran away.

The Winchester men, it seems, have many traits in common. They are good-looking; they are stubborn; they will take a bullet on your behalf. When chaos descends upon them they will fight until they can fight no more, at which point they will bolt like frightened deer.

I can't go back to that house, John writes. I made Bobby promise to pack it all up. The boys might want some of the stuff someday. I will never touch it again. We will never go back. It will kill me to walk where Mary once lived.

Dean wants to know where Mom is. He won't stop asking. I can't answer.

What do I say?

What the fuck do I say?

Castiel closes his eyes against the image of little Dean, so lost and hurt and confused. He wishes he could wrap his arms around that little boy, and feels a flash of bizarre tenderness for the man that boy has become.

.

Sam doesn't cheat on Jess the night of the party. He does it a week later, on a Saturday afternoon.

He goes to Ruby's place to return her bus pass; she swings the door open, her ink-black eyes glittering and beautiful hands smelling of pot. They share a joint, take half a tab of ecstasy each, and sit on Ruby's ratty old couch giggling at Robot Chicken and overanalyzing why it isn't funny, except it is.

Sam spent school days in anti-drug seminars and knows his shit from several years of college. He knows the word euphoria, but he's never felt so incredibly light and beautiful and free. The dust particles spinning in the sunlight look like sparkles of gold, suspended in midair as if by magic. He's so busy watching them that he doesn't realize Ruby's gotten up until the music starts. The song has a beautifully apocalyptic high bass line and a hypnotic beat, and Sam watches entranced as Ruby spins and dances her way back to the couch—the way her hair flies around her face, the carefree smile framing her white teeth, the way her shirt rides up a little to show off her smooth stomach and flawless skin. Sam imagines its softness before he even reaches out to touch her.

Oh my god, that skin.

Something primal takes over, and suddenly Ruby is fumbling with the buttons on Sam's shirt and she's already topless and he just wants to be against her, climb into her, feel her skin against his. Every contact point is a bolt of lightning. They press their naked torsos together, hands exploring every curve, and Ruby's tugging at his hair and Sam's running his teeth lightly across her jawbone and then their first kiss shoots pleasure through them like electric shocks. Sam barely feels Ruby undo his pants; he's consumed with the feeling as he runs his hands over her body again—down her ribs, dipping in with her waist, continuing down past her hips to her impossibly gorgeous legs and then he's inside her and his whole body is alive and alert as they move and moan and can't contain their cries, and it's perfect—a perfect moment of bodies and skin and sweat and primordial lust.

When Sam gets home that night he sees the bus pass on the kitchen table, waiting to be taken back to its rightful owner, forgotten right from the start.

That's how it happens the first time.