A/N:

Question: Who is the awesomest?

Answer: My readers.

Thank you so much for all of your reviews. You make me extremely happy. As a reward, you get - INTERNET HUGS! YAAAAAAY!

Also, Dean's bisexuality speech struck a chord with some of you, so I'll make up some memorabilia. Maybe some pins, with slogans... "Kiss me, I'm Bi-rish"? "Equal Opportunity Lover"? "It's Like Being Ambidextrous, But With Your Junk." "Seriously Though Guys, I Am No Longer In Junior High So You Can Stop Acting Like This Is a Phase or a Fad Like My Obsession with Backstreet Boys; I Am Not Going To Wake Up One Morning and Realize I Was Only Attracted to Both Genders Because All My Friends Were. Also The Backstreet Boys Are Still Awesome."

That last one miiiiight not fit on the pin.

In all seriousness, I firmly stand by what Castiel said some several chapters ago, in that the waters of sexuality are a murky and ill-defined place. You don't have to identify as bi or gay to occasionally see a person of your same gender and find them attractive, but these experiences can be confusing for a straight person. I think that's why people have a hard time accepting bisexuality; we all want to say, "Yeah, well I had a weird dream about Natalie Portman once, and I'm not bi. Sure, I was worried there for a minute, but then I came to my senses." And then there are bisexual people who will later come out as gay, cementing the idea that it's a "transition" orientation. Like little gay training wheels. *facepalm*

ANYWAYS. That's enough of that. I'm glad you guys liked the chapter, and my treatment of Sam. I firmly believe that Sam has an important place in any Destiel. Remember how when Dean and Lisa broke up, and Dean kept not calling and ignoring Lisa's calls? At the time, Sam had no soul. But the MINUTE he got his soul back - like, I think within the same episode, he was like, "Dean. Call her. Talk to her. Dean. DEAN." It's just who Sam is. And Dean really needs that.

Here's the new chapter, and I hope you enjoy it. Sorry about the delay in getting it to you. Please review, and I will send you hugs straightaway.

Dean stepped out into the bright winter sunlight, surging with purpose and bravado. He marched to Castiel's house, each footstep a forceful affirmation of his newfound resolution. He knocked on the door, the every thump of his heart sending adrenaline coursing through his body. He braced himself, his eyes on the doorknob.

No one answered.

Dean knocked again. "Cas," he called, "it's Dean."

No answer.

"Cas," he said louder, "it's Dean. I wanna talk to you. Please open up."

Nothing.

He tried the knob. It was locked.

Dean waited there for a few minutes longer, then trudged back to his house.

…

Every day for the next week and a half, Dean did the same thing. First he did it in the mornings; then after he went back to work on the third, he knocked as soon as he came home. Cas never answered. His house was always dark, too – Dean would look out the window at night, and none of the lights were ever on. He was starting to wonder if maybe Cas really wasn't home, if he had somehow spirited away in the night, if maybe he was knocking on the door of an empty, vacant, dead house and on the inside his pleas echoed through the stillborn silence and fell on cold floorboards.

But he kept knocking. Every day. Sam never had to ask if Cas was there; Dean knew it was written on his face.

"Cas, it's Dean. Again."

"Cas. Cas, open up, dammit!"

"Please, I just want to talk. You don't have to let me in."

"Cas?"

"Hey, it's me again. You there?"

"Cas, I'm sorry. I mean it."

"Cas."

"Castiel."

"… Cas?"

"Cas, I don't know if you're there, but… if you are, just… answer the door."

Then one day, as Dean walked up to the door, he saw a white paper taped to it, fluttering in the wind. He ran to the door pressed it flat, reading the words scrawled there in Cas's handwriting.

Please stop

That was it.

Please

stop

And just like that, something inside Dean crumbled like ash and disintegrated into dust.

He walked home and told Sam he didn't feel well and he went into the bathroom and knelt down, and gripped the toilet seat, and hung his head over the bowl, and he stayed there for a long time. Every time he started to think he was alright and moved to get up, his stomach twisted and churned painfully and nausea forced him down again, white knuckled, and squeezed his vision gray at the edges and he grimaced and panted and shuddered.

So he stayed where he was.

…..

At work the next day, Dean tried to focus. But every time he looked down at his papers, the letters just stared back at him blankly, like another language. He found himself having to read entire paragraphs three or four times before actually registering what they said. And his hands felt heavy, like his bones had filled with lead in the night and he was dragging around his metal skeleton, struggling to turn pages and open drawers.

Please stop

Fuck. That was all he had to say?

Please stop

He wasn't - he wasn't ever going to open the door, was he?

Please stop

He was in his house. Every time, he had been there and he had just sat there, waiting for Dean to leave.

Please stop

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, and sucked in a breath between his teeth.

Around three o'clock, Dean got a call from HR. They wanted to see him; they wouldn't say what for.

Dean slowly stood up from his chair, and left his office.

…..

When Dean went to work everyday, Sam amused himself around the house, mostly on the TV and the internet. At around noon, he'd go for a jog around the neighborhood. The icy air cut into his lungs and numbed his face but it was a good kind of pain, the kind that makes you feel alive, and the sunshine brightened him in a way he couldn't explain. He liked his jogs.

Then, the day after Dean locked himself in the bathroom for two hours, Sam was jogging back to the house when he saw –

Castiel, sitting on his doorstep. Smoking. In sweats and a t-shirt.

And suddenly Sam was shooting right past the drive and running straight to him. "Hey! Hey! Castiel!" He reached the step and stopped to catch his breath.

Castiel looked up nonchalantly. "Hello."

Before Sam could check himself, he blurted, "What the hell is your problem?"

Cas took a drag. "Deeply rooted misanthropy. What's your problem?"

"Dean has been trying to get ahold of you for days!" he exclaimed. Sam knew it wasn't his business, and he didn't care. "Where have you been?"

Cas squinted at the sky. "Something bad is about to happen. I can feel it. Not here, somewhere else."

The well of anger that Sam kept deep inside himself bubbled up, boiling hot and overflowing. "Who the fuck cares?" he shouted. He snapped his fingers in Cas's face. "Look at me! I'm talking to you right now, asshole! Dean has been on your doorstep every day and you won't even give him the chance to apologize! What the hell did he do that was so terrible that you can't even open your goddamn door?"

Castiel's eyes flashed, and he stood up slowly, glowering at Sam. "I'm not mad at Dean," he muttered around his cigarette. "And you'd better watch it."

Sam threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. "You're not mad! You're not mad? Then why won't you talk to him? It's killing him, Cas!"

Cas tapped the ashes from the cigarette butt and looked past Sam, to the road. "I'm doing both of us a favor."

"Well, you don't get to decide that!" Sam said irritably. "Let Dean decide what's best for Dean!"

Castiel took another drag, and exhaled it, and mumbled, "He was right about me."

"What does that mean?" Sam asked.

Castiel just looked away, sucking away on his cigarette.

Sam balled his hands into fists. "You know what?" he snapped. "I get it. I don't know why I didn't get it before, but I get it. You like to screw with people, don't you? You like to mess with their heads, you like to be unpredictable. So that's what you did with Dean. You're just screwing with him. You fucked him and now you're done with him."

Cas's eyes turned pale and livid, and his brow furrowed darkly. "Shut up," he said sharply.

Sam pointed accusingly. "And you know what else? I think you're glad Dean fucked up. I think it's what you wanted all along. I think you were just looking for an excuse to get rid of him, and now that he said the wrong thing you get to watch him kick himself over and over and while you just sit back and fucking bask in it, you sick son of a bi-"

Cas slapped him hard across the face.

Sam's entire head snapped to the right, and his eyes stung.

"I said shut. Up," Cas growled, black and deep. "You don't know shit about me and you don't know shit about me and Dean. You think this is easy for me? This is the hardest thing I've ever fucking done."

Sam rubbed his smarting cheek and rasped, "So you do care."

Castiel went rigid, wide-eyed.

"Look, I don't know your reasons." Sam rubbed his jaw and rotated it to make sure it still worked. "I don't even really know you. But if you care about Dean at all, the least you owe him is an explanation. Because right now, he's blaming himself. That's the only explanation he's got. He thinks it's all his fault." Sam looked him in the eye. "And in my personal experience, that's rarely true."

Cas met his eyes for a moment, not saying anything, his hands hanging limply at his sides, his cigarette forgotten.

"I'm leaving in a few days." Sam shoved his hands in his pockets. "So maybe that's why I'm doing this. But I think the real reason is that I liked you, Cas." He shrugged. "I thought you were better than this. I know Dean deserves better than this."

Cas pressed his lips together, and his nostrils flared. "Yes," he whispered.

"So give him a chance." Sam sighed. "Or at least give him closure."

And he walked away from Castiel and didn't look back, but he could feel the man's eyes burning on his back the entire walk to the house.