AN: This chapter contains a small portion of E rated material.

Dean felt the cold air from outside bite into him as he drove down the highway alone. He didn't go back to the motel. He didn't talk to the others. He just left. He'd feel bad about leaving them, but he had no room left in his heart for any more. He didn't stop anywhere for the night. He stopped for gas and that was it. He drove on until he came to the bunker, where he pulled into the garage, shut off the engine and went inside. It had been forever and no time at all. He thought he'd go back to his apartment, but that felt wrong somehow. He wanted to be at the bunker. He also wanted to be alone. He turned off his phone and tossed it into the passenger's seat and left it there.

He wandered to his old room where his bare mattress was waiting. He tossed himself onto it face down and fell promptly to sleep. It had been 24 hours since he had seen Cas' face, held his body in his arms, watched him fade away. He didn't think he'd ever be able to sleep with those things floating in his mind, but sometimes one's body just has to give up.

On July 3rd he woke up and rolled onto his back. It might have been day. It might have been night. He had no way of knowing for sure without getting up, so he did. He wandered into the war room and looked up at the stairs and the windows there. There was light, so it was day. He moved off to the kitchen and rummaged for something to eat. The place was not well stocked seeing as Sam had been with him for some time. He opened a cupboard and found one of those single serving cups of Easy Mac. He wondered if those things expired. Then he laughed at the thought that after years of fighting demons it could be the Easy Mac that finally takes him down.

He peeled back the plastic lid, filled it with water and put it in the microwave. Everything echoed, the opening of the drawer, the metal utensil set on the countertop, the crash of the pots that he grabs and throws across the room against the wall. He screams and slides down to the floor against the wall. The microwave beeps as it finishes and he closes his eyes against the world.

He pulls himself together enough to eat. Dean's head is swimming. He feels too warm. He rummages through the cabinets until he turns up a bottle of Old Number 7. He carries it back to his room and drinks until he blacks out.

The next day passes in a haze. He thinks when he sleeps that he might dream of him, but Cas doesn't come to him. Dean prays, yet he still hears nothing in response. I told you it was a shitty plan. I told you that I needed you. His words trailed off in his mind. He was angry and depressed. He had allowed himself to hope again. Now there was nothing, just a long string of empty days stretching out ahead of him. And Cas wasn't human. And Dean was. So somewhere in Dean's head, he had decided that there could be no reunion even in death.

By the 7th, Dean had decided that he'd need to leave. By this point Sam would have checked the apartment and found that Dean had not gone there. He'd likely check the bunker next. Dean found some old clothes hanging in the closet, took them to the bathroom where he showered and changed. The clothes were a tad musty, but they were better than the outfit he'd been wearing nonstop since even before he got to the bunker.

He took a final walk around the bunker, passing the door to Cas' room. They'd given him the space; although, he had never seemed to use it. Dean opened the door and stood looking in at the sparse place. There was a bed and a chair. Cas had a desk with some books, papers, and pens. Dean walked in slowly, breathing in deeply of the stale air within. He closed his eyes and imagined the smell of crisp ocean breezes and all the other scents he associated with Cas. He opened his eyes and looked down at the desk. The notepad on the desk had writing on it.

Dean reached out to it and let his fingers trail over the letters. The words were Enochian. There were symbols drawn around the edges too. None of it seemed to mean anything. It looked like doodling. He turned the page and saw that Cas had drawn a more elaborate picture. Dean sank into the chair to look at it more closely. It was a familiar image. It was a drawing of he and Cas sitting on the hood of the Impala under the starry sky. Dean felt the tiniest pin-prick of tears threatening to spill over.

"Cas.," he whispered as his fingers grazed over the drawing. It meant something to you too. He noted the way that Cas captured details in the small piece. In particular, Dean noticed how Cas had drawn their hands meeting in the middle, holding on. Dean's hand curled into a fist at his side as he thought about that night again, and the feel of Cas so perfectly close. He turned the page and saw that Cas had drawn the same image again, but a little different. This one had them pressed close together, Cas' head dipped down to Dean's head. Cas looked like he was kissing him. Dean smiled at the image, at the memory that it stirred. "If we'd just figured out our shit then. If I'd just figured out my shit then."

Dean traced over the edges of the drawing and noticed that Cas had even meticulously drawn the constellations into the sky. Most would just doodle and include a few random spots to represent stars, but Cas was not like most. Dean could see the accuracy now that he might not have seen if these drawings had come his way before years of study and focus on astronomy.

In the corner of the drawn sky was Denab. Dean stared at it. It seemed he was doomed to forever being haunted by a universe that was his Cas. He turned the page, and it was a drawing of the sky. It was just the constellations surrounding the quadrant that included Denab. Dean thought about that. He picked up the notepad and walked out to the front of the bunker. He stood in the middle of the room for a moment and just breathed. The observatory was there, unused for so many years.

Dean made his way in and stood at the side of the giant telescope. His hand brushed over the cool metal. His other hand still clutched the notepad. He began adjusting the telescope, aiming it at the coordinates that he knew by heart. He always knew where Denab was. He followed it's place in the sky like it mattered. It had, in his mind, belonged to him and Cas. That star, that constellation, was theirs.

It was the seventh day in the seventh month in the seventh year of Dean's loss. He leaned down to look at their star. And though he knew that nothing would be different, that looking at it would change nothing, he looked just the same, because if it was there, then so was Cas. It was there. It was theirs. Dean sat at the foot of the telescope and swiped away the tears that were gathering in his eyes. The stars, their stars were there, and they would always be there.

The twilight sky became full night, and Dean stayed in the observatory. He kept his hand on the telescope. It tethered him to the world and made him feel connected somehow to something of Cas. He had no hope of ever getting him back, but he had decided then to live out his days in this room with this view of their sky.

Dean's thoughts were interrupted by an unexpected voice."You can't stay locked up here forever." Dean jumped back from where he was crouched at the telescope and looked at the man that stood in his doorway. He looked like Chuck, but Dean could see that it was not Chuck. He was something more.

Dean let out a breath of frustration then said, "Yes, actually I can."

"He wouldn't want that."

"Doesn't matter what he'd want now, though, does it?"

"You'll have to tell me." He moved closer to Dean. Dean went back to looking at the stars through the telescope. "What are you looking for?"

"Anything that is far from here."

"You're looking for Cas."

"I'm looking at the stars."

"But you're thinking of him when you do that."

"Get out of my head." Dean turned from the telescope and glared at Chuck's form. "I barely let Cas do that. I'm certainly not gonna let you."

"You really have no choice. All powerful being here."

"Ain't that great. Thought that you wanted all of us to have free will. Seems the least you could do is let me exercise mine." Dean turned back to the telescope and tried to look as if he was ignoring him. He wasn't though. He thought that he could feel the gentle retreat of grace from his mind at least.

"I'm sorry. Boundaries were never my strong suit."

"Says the guy that ran away from all responsibilities and set up barriers to his discovery." Dean adjusted a knob at the side of the telescope and then returned his hand to the cool metal at the side.

"Why do you think he's out there?"

Dean heaved out a sigh and leaned away from the telescope, resting back on his haunches. "He told me once that if he were ever heroic enough that he'd like to have a place in the stars. I imagine that he was plenty heroic enough, so I sometimes think that I might find his form up there." It was the first time that Dean had admitted to his starry fixation. He wondered if he had been manipulated into sharing it now.

"Oh." He waited a beat, then asked, "Do you think that would be a good reward?"

"I think that would be a shitty reward. Doesn't matter what I think though. What matters is that he's happy, that he got what he had hoped for." Dean ran his hand back up through his hair and stared down at the floor between his feet. "I plan on spending the last bit of energy that I have looking out at the sky, looking to the stars until I find him or until I can't look anymore. So, I'm gonna just kindly ask you to leave me the hell alone."

"Such disrespect. It's why I think I always liked you, why we always liked you." He settled a hand on Dean's shoulder, and Dean could not shrug it off. Instead he was standing now with the weight of that hand on him. "Lucifer would say, he never liked you. He tolerated you well enough. You won over the others though. You won over me. When you look to the stars now, I hope that you'll look for us there too."

Dean croaked out, "Why?"

"Because if you look for us there, maybe then, I won't believe that you hate us for all that we've let you suffer. Maybe then, I can imagine that we've received your forgiveness."

"Are you planning something? What are you doing?" Dean was able to separate himself from Chuck then and noticed the way that Chuck just smiled at him. For a moment he could see other faces hidden in Chuck's countenance.

"I think that it might be time for us to give everyone their just rewards." Chuck smiled at him and added, "It has been a pleasure watching you Dean Winchester." His face shifted, and Amara's voice emerged, "Make sure he knows, what you mean to each other. Your humanity was what taught me to love." Another shift happened, and Billie's voice said, "Take care of Charlotte. Make sure that she knows how to be careful with her mortal flesh, not that you know anything about how one should be careful."

"I don't understand what's happening." Dean was frozen to the spot. He had his hand on the telescope to hold himself up. He still had it aimed at Denab.

"We only need to be tied here if the world needs our intervention. We've talked, and we've listened. We think that maybe the world will be just fine without us. In fact, it might even be better once we leave."

"What're you saying?" Dean could hardly get the words out. He was starting to shake with some measure of dread. After all of this...after all that they did...now they were just going to up and leave.

The voice that emerged now was that of Lucifer. He said, "Don't make me regret this. I was all for staying, but they said I couldn't torment you, so I agreed to the leaving. After all what fun would staying be now?" Dean took an unconscious step back. The voice shifted back to Billie's. "We needed to all be bound for this to even be a possibility. We had to go through the ritual. We were all here, all communicating with each other, but we were still bound to humanity. We needed to honor the last of Cas' demands. We learned from the human vessels that carried us, and now we are ready to leave as one. The ritual was the final step. Chuck thought that you would have trouble accepting the choices we were making even given the outcome."

"What's the outcome?"

"Well, there are many. One, we won't be here to heal the sick, or answer the prayers of those in need. No new creations will come to be. Mankind will be on its own."

"That's a lot."

"Yes, but the reward is that you all get to truly live with free will. This is a gift."

"Well, I'll remember to send a thank you card."

"There's more." She moved to Dean and set what seemed to be her hand lightly on his cheek. It was cold but not painfully so. "God felt that you deserved your reward too."

"Not sure I like the sound of that." Dean could have sworn that he saw a smile spread across what was the face of the being.

"I'll miss your wit Dean Winchester." She slipped away from him and faded back toward the door. Chuck's form wavered into the moment. "Goodbye Dean." He stepped back another step and seemed to fade. "You should go outside later. Denab is bright tonight." He winked and with a smile bright and beautiful, he faded away.

Dean fell to his knees and thought that he might throw up. He breathed deeply and tried to push past the choking that he was experiencing. He stood up slowly. Then the voice that he had heard a million times in his waking life and for the last several years in dreams said, "Dean."

Dean's eyes snapped to the doorway. He sucked in a sharp breath and stood frozen to the spot. Cas was standing there dressed just like he always was. His hair was finger combed back and his eyes shown bright and blue. "Cas." It was all he could choke out. Cas' eyes glowed less, but they still looked like they held the light of all of the stars, all of history, and the universe. Dean wanted to go to him, but he just couldn't move.

"This was not how I pictured our reunion." Cas smiled and added, "Somehow, I thought we'd be closer." That did it. Dean stalked over to him in two strides and pulled him in. He wasn't kissing him. He was holding him as tight to him as he could. His arms were around his shoulders and his waist. Cas held him too, just as tightly. Dean buried his head in the crook of Cas' neck and just breathed him in as he lost himself. He was crying. Here was everything. Here was what he had needed and wanted. Here was his universe. He couldn't speak just yet, but Cas smoothed soothing circles into the space between his shoulders and murmured into the spot near his ear. "I'm home, Dean."

"I never let myself really believe you'd be back with me." He leaned away a little and looked at his blurry Cas past his tears.

Cas reached up and wiped them away. "I never left you. I was always here." He tapped Dean's chest then let his hand sit there.

"So this is your reward?"

Cas raised an eyebrow. "Maybe."

"What do you mean?"

Cas cupped his face in his hands and said, "We don't have much time, and it's been seven years, Dean."

"What do you mean?" Dean was starting to get worried. Not much time...No, no, no…

Cas moved in impossibly closer and kissed him. It was light and seemed like the kind of kiss that one gives when they are testing the waters. Dean had not yet moved past his worries. Yet here was Cas, and Cas had kissed him. A small sob escaped Dean as he pressed his own kiss back to him. He held him like he thought the universe might rip him away again. He held him like all the world could be theirs if only they just hoped hard enough. He closed his eyes and drowned in everything Cas.

He focused on Cas' fingers in his hair. His tongue slid alongside Cas' own and they tasted each other. Cas had a little stubble on his chin and cheeks that rubbed against him gloriously. He's mine. He's mine, and I'll be damned if anyone takes this from me again. Cas broke the kiss then and said, "I am yours. I'll always be your's if you want that. It's a choice though, and not one to be made lightly." He looked past Dean then like he was searching for something. "How much time has passed?"

Dean considered his words and said, "Are you going somewhere or something?"

"Maybe. We don't have much time."

"You keep saying that. What the hell is going on, Cas?" Cas moved back closer again and seemed like he was going to kiss Dean again. Dean didn't let him.

"I'm sorry. It's a lot. My time with you is limited. I want to make the most of it in case this is it."

"What? How limited?"

"Seven hours." Cas let him go for a few seconds then seemingly realizing the mistake, pulled Dean back to him again.

Dean stood in shock. "No." It was all he could say. He shook and his face dropped to Cas' shoulder. Cas held him. And Dean couldn't even do anything but fall apart. "I can't lose you again. I can't."

"I don't ever want to take anything from you. Right now though, we can have this." Cas kissed into his neck. His hands found their way under his shirt and settled against his skin. Dean couldn't handle what was to come, the loss. He couldn't see himself content with a mere seven hours. It wasn't a reward; it was torture. He sobbed into the kisses that came and Cas moved them both to the back of the bunker. How he did this without zapping them there or making them trip over anything was nothing short of a miracle. In time they were in his room, and though no one else was in the bunker, Cas kicked the door closed behind him. "I love you."

"I love you." Dean repeated instantly. He knew the limits on their time left little room for dithering. "I need you." They pulled off layers of clothing and slowly edged back to the bed. When there was nothing but them and the darkness like so much night in the room, Dean backed himself into the mattress.

"You don't have sheets on your bed." Cas stood in front of Dean, his breath warm on Dean's cheek.

"I kinda neglected some things." Dean ran his hands up Cas' arms. The light in the hall was giving them a little illumination past the grate on the door. Cas smiled and leaned into Dean. They swayed a bit in each other's arms.

"I'm always gonna be with you." He kissed along Dean's clavicle. He moved his hands languidly over his ribs to his hips. Cas moved away for him for a moment and looked into Dean's closet. He found some blankets and put them on the bed. Dean sat back and Cas loomed over him. He rested a hand on Dean's cheek and let his fingers reach back into his hair. Dean lowered himself back onto the mattress and pulled Cas down with him. The weight of Cas on him was more than just arousing, it was a reminder that he was here, completely here. No matter how often he said that he was always with him, Dean did not think that a general feeling was enough. He needed to touch and taste. He needed to have the tangibleness of it all. He needed more than dreams.

They ceased talking and lived in the moment. In Dean's mind, a clock was counting down the seconds, the minutes, the hours he had left to really live. He tried to empty his mind of the worry. Cas rocked his hips into him, encouraging forgetfulness. Dean stared into his eyes at the stars that he thought he saw there, and he wanted to hang onto this moment forever. He wanted to make it last. He breathed Cas in and told him with his hands, with his mouth, with every look, what he meant, what he would always mean to him.

Their bodies seemed to move together like they were a single wave rocking far out at sea. Dean could see nothing but Cas as they moved together. He reached into his nightstand and found what he was looking for without ever looking away from Cas. He brought the lube to his side and Cas leaned back a little. Dean slicked his hand up and moved to grip them both at once. He watched Cas' face for signs that this was working for them both.

Cas licked his lips and closed his eyes a little, seeming happy with the new contact between them. He opened his eyes and smiled down at Dean. "I can't believe that I get to have this." He ran a hand up to Dean's face and held his cheek as Dean continued his ministrations.

Dean wanted to pull him down to him, taste him again and never stop. "You can have everything, whatever you want."

With those words, Cas came back down to him. His chest pressed to Dean's. Dean had to release them both. He moved his hands around Cas' waist and kissed into his neck. He felt a curl of grace slip through him. He leaned away and looked into Cas' eyes, trying to convey the why without actually asking. "I wanted to make sure you were healthy. I haven't been able to help you like this in a long time."

"So you figured now was the moment to mojo me?" Dean laughed a little.

Cas shrugged. "You said, 'whatever I wanted.'"

"Didn't think healing me was a turn on." Dean moved his hands up to Cas' shoulder blades.

"You'd be surprised." Cas leaned down and kissed behind his ear. Nuzzling in he breathed into the space, "Is it really so hard to imagine that being inside you in any way is less than stimulating?"

Dean hadn't thought of it that way, at least not with regards to Cas' feelings. For him it was always an intimate thing. For them it was always different too. In the past, Cas let his grace linger in Dean. He let his hands settle long on Dean's cheek or forehead. It was never the quick tap and done like it was for others. "It feels good for me too," Dean encouraged.

The grace whirled around in him some more. It coursed through him from head to toe. It was massaging away the aches accumulated over long years. It was warming the cold places. It was finding the places that had long since forgotten what it was to feel comfort and love. It also stimulated pleasure in Dean in a way that was intense and almost too much. "Is this okay?" Dean looked up at him and saw what it was to be well and truly loved.

"Anything you want. It's what I want too." And the grace pooled to a singular spot over his prostate. Cas' hands moved down to Dean's thighs and angled them out and up a little. He wedged himself between Dean's legs, dropping kisses to whatever skin was nearest. Dean could feel his body stretch and sting with pleasure.

"I want our bodies to be together too."

"I want that," Dean whispered.

Cas angled himself and pushed slowly into Dean. He held him as he moved by slow increments as if he thought that Dean might break. Dean laughed at him a few moments later when Cas had not made much progress and grabbed his hips to pull him the rest of the way to him. "Oh." It was all that Cas could say to that.

It took a few minutes more for them to establish a rhythm that worked. Everything was new and a little awkward. They hadn't done this before with each other, so it stood to reason that they'd need to work out the kinks. Cas filled him with himself and the grace. Dean felt like he wasn't dying anymore. This moment was all of the life he had been missing these last seven years. It was more than that; though, it was also all that he had come to believe that he'd never have and never deserve.

"God, I love you," Dean said as the spread of pleasure ran from his prostate to his whole body. His leg muscles tightened, and his eyes rolled back into his head.

"Let's leave my father out of this, if you don't mind." Dean's eyes locked onto Cas then. Cas dropped his hand to Dean's hip and angled him a bit better, and that works. Then Cas repositioned his other hand onto Dean. He began stroking him harder, running his thumb over the top each time he came to it. Dean noticed the pacing of Cas' movements as they became more erratic. He wanted this. He wanted this so much. They both did. And time passed slowly like long summer days as they moved together. The warmth and closeness, the way that it all seemed so right, the way that he and Cas held on, made it possible to forget time. It was possible as minutes passed and maybe hours, that there wasn't any time at all or that they had all of the time in the world. This was their eternity or could be if they just let themselves believe it.

The world around them seemed to fall away until it was just Cas over him, staring down into his face with so much love that it was all Dean could think about. He'd never want anything more. Just this. Just this. Cas' hand tightened around him and moved up his shaft with a little twist at the end for good measure. He'd give anything to have told his younger self about this, to have encouraged him to step up and make this happen sooner. He could tell that they were nearing their end.

This can't be it. This can't be all I get of him. The thought crashed back in an instant as they reached their climax together. Dean was shaking through it as Cas slowly slumped down to him, kissing him like he was all that would ever matter. Dean pulled him tighter to him and pressed his head into Cas' shoulder. His breathing was sharp and painful. It was stabbing at his lungs with no tenderness. He felt all of his muscles tightening around Cas like he had to fight to keep him there. "Please don't leave me. Please, Cas. Please don't leave me again," he murmured again and again into his neck, as if Cas had ever truly chosen to leave him in the first place, as if he knew what it even was to choose anything that wasn't for Dean.