(A/N: Above is Listen by Beyonce. It came to mind b/c of the "I am alone at a crossroads" line. I am so simple, XD. P.S. I feel like you guys might hate Sebastian a bit after this)

Chapter 45: Crossroads

Here I am, sitting at my boyfriend's dinner table alone as I wait for him to bring in the food.

While I sat with my legs crossed and my hands tucked in between my thighs, I imagined myself to have my tongue hanging out of my mouth and my hands rubbing together as I eagerly waited for dinner. I felt completely horrible and wrong for sitting here while Dean continued to cook for me.

But he had explicitly asked me to sit here and wait for him to finish. I wanted to listen to him and not push against such little orders. I hoped that by listening to the little things, I would be able to push against him with the little things.

One being my career choice . . .

I tried not to focus on that, drawing my attention back to the current moment. I felt ungrateful sitting still. I had to go see my boyfriend. I hoped that Dean wouldn't be too upset with me and got up, quickly walking into the kitchen.

It was a small room, short and narrow, only holding enough room for two people to cook comfortably. But, that was just fine for Dean and I, wasn't it?

I slipped into the kitchen, finding Dean stirring something in a small pot. Deeming my plan safe enough, I crept up behind him and, as smoothly as I could manage, I snaked my arms around his torso. In all of our time of dating, we hadn't explored such couple-y and domestic things like this before. It was fun to place the underside of my chin on his shoulder, looking at his work even as I felt my neck being strained a bit.

Dean barely jumped, but he did look back at me, eyes wide in surprise since he did not expect me to join him, especially not it the way I did. But, he did not complain and relaxed again. I hummed at his acceptance, swaying the both of us slightly before I spoke.

"What is this?" I asked him innocently, the skin on my cheek rubbing against his neck slightly as I spoke and causing him to shiver in my arms. I smirked but did not move my position, instead leaning further towards the side of his neck.

Dean smiled, now swaying with me and briefly resting his non-stirring palm on one of my hands.

"This is the sauce that will go on top." He answered, scraping at the sides of the pot before mixing it again. "I'm warming it now because I wanted it warm when you ate it so you could enjoy the whole meal even more."

I smiled, taking this convenient opportunity to plant a lingering kiss on Dean's neck. I felt it tingle through our bond that went from my neck down my body to a place far lower. It was telling me how that made Dean feel and my mind was suddenly far away from any sauce. At least, away from any edible ones.

I cleared my throat, taking my mind out of the gutter as best as I could.

"What a caring boyfriend." I drawled, smiling as I felt Dean's skin heat. "How did I ever get a mate like you?"

Dean shrugged, chuckling as he looked away from his task to glance up at me.

"I'm not sure, but I feel exactly the same way." Dean whispered softly, eyes boring into mine intensely with little distance between us. "I guess we're both lucky, Sebastian."

I grinned.

"Or we both did something really good in our lives." I added, watching Dean's eyes squint as he chuckled.

"Either way, I'm glad I met you." Dean told me, his voice earnest and sweet. I smiled an honest genuine smile and captured his lips in a sensual, languid, yet loving kiss. Dean soon broke the kiss and turned to the stove, turning it off and taking the pot off of the heat.

"Let's go eat, I really want you to try this." He added excitedly, a wide smile on his lips as he began to carry some filled pots and pans into the living room. "I have been practicing for a few days now." I smirked at his words, wiggling my eyebrows at him. Dean seemed confused by my reaction, but he quickly understood when I spoke.

"Didn't know that you cared so much. I would have put on my nice pair of panties." I joked creepily, laughing by the shock on Dean's face

That got a loud laugh and blush on Dean's face, and I laughed as I went to grab a couple of plates as well.

~~~~~

"You never tried to do it? Not once?" Dean asked me, laughing in disbelief as he spoke. I shook my head, again, giggling at how shocked Dean seemed to be.

"No, I didn't. I never felt like falling on my neck and dying, so I never tried." I explained simply, shrugging my shoulders as I did so. Dean gave me a confused look.

"Why didn't you just use some of your magic to protect yourself? Or even used it to do the cartwheel in the first place?" Dean then asked, leaning forward as he suggested how I could have tried it.

I pursed my lips, unable to come up with a response. A lightbulb seemed to go off in Dean's head and he stood up. Reaching a hand out to me, Dean's smiled.

"Come on, Sebastian. I'm going to help you land a cartwheel." He told me, gesturing to his living room. I didn't think that the space he was pointing towards was large enough for my trial gymnastic move, so I tried to make excuses for why we shouldn't try it.

"Dean, we barely just finished our food. What if I throw up or something?" I asked him, glancing at the plates in front of us. Dean smirked.

"I think forty-five minutes is plenty of time for you to have digested your food." He told me, grinning when I had a bit of a deer caught in the headlights expression.

"Uhh . . . " I trailed off, blinking up at my boyfriend as I searched for another excuse. "The-the dishes. We really shouldn't just leave them here to get crusty and dry . . . "

"Oh come on." Dean laughed, pulling me up, against my protests, and bringing me into the living room. I was pouting a bit as he stood me in the center. As I continued to silently protest, Dean began moving the coffee table and pushing chairs to make the space bigger in preparation for my cartwheel attempts.

I sighed when Dean returned, a wide, excited smile on his handsome face. It was hard to keep a smile on my face the longer I looked at Dean, and when he placed his hands on my waist, I already had a warm smile plastered on my lips.

"Okay, doing a cartwheel is very simple. Listen very closely to my instructions, okay?" Dean said, rubbing his hands up and down the sides of my body. I nodded, placing my hands on his shoulder. "All you have to do is stand up straight with your arms and legs spread like a starfish."

"A starfish?" I laughed, nodding again to attempt to be serious.

"Bend over sideways so one leg is in the air and one hand is near the ground." Dean continued, speaking slowly and clearly. "Transfer all of your weight onto both of your hands, then place one foot down before the other in the same direction. I'll show you."

Dean pulled away from me before he went and did a, slightly clumsy, cartwheel. I had seen it done dozens of times before so it was pretty unnecessary for Dean to explain it, but I still felt unsure of how I would get my body to do it.

"Ok, why don't you try doing one?" Dean suggested, smiling despite the now nervous look on my face. "You can put on some protection spell if you'd like."

"Oh, 'I'd like' very much." I told him, hearing him laugh as I quickly performed a simple protection spell. Once the spell was up, I felt a bit calmer. Letting out a breath, I shooed Dean further away and did my first ever attempt at a cartwheel.

The "wheel" was more like a half-destroyed tumbleweed barely moving from one part of the room to the next, being misshapened as it was. I was barely able to keep my legs halfway up, let alone above my head.

To put it simply, it was a horrendous cartwheel. Dean had wanted to be sweet and kind since it was my first attempt, but his first reaction was to laugh. Loudly.

I stood with my arms crossed as Dean crumpled over due to his laughs and waited for him to finish. He was still chuckling softly as he pulled me into a hug.

"Hey, it was pretty good." He tried to say, the mirth in his eyes not supporting his seemingly genuine statement.

"If it was really that good, then why did you laugh for so long?" I asked him, raising an accusing brow even when he was only inches away, arms still around me. "Actually why did you laugh at all at my 'pretty good' cartwheel then, babe?"

Dean shook his head but decided not to come up with an excuse. We ended up trying to get me to do a cartwheel several different ways, one of them being Dean standing behind me to hold my legs up. I ended up doing it correctly on my 24th attempt, and although it was still quite wobbly and bad, my legs had been straight up.

I resembled those dozens of little boys and girls at the parks and schools who had only been doing it for a couple of days, and I felt proud about it. The moment I was standing back on my two feet, Dean had engulfed me in another one of his hugs and we had celebrated as if we had just won the lottery.

~~~~~

An hour after all of that business had been finished, when Dean and I had wound down and were seated on his couch with two cups of coffee, it was time for us to talk.

There wasn't any formal declaration, just a mutual understanding that this was it. The time for us to address what had been weighing heavily on both of our minds for so long.

Dean sighed, putting his mug down on his coffee table and I followed his actions. Taking my hands in his, with his eyes fixed on where our skin met, Dean started the conversation.

"I know that both of us had things on our minds." He started, voice low, calm, and serious. "But, I don't want to prolong telling you about this out of fear that I will back out."

Dean paused, taking a quick moment to look up at me. I wasn't sure what kind of face I was making but Dean's eyes widened drastically in alarm.

"Oh, no! It isn't that bad! I mean it is kind of bad but I am not breaking up or cheating or, it's not about our relationship." He blurted out loudly, words leaving his lips in a rushed panic.

"I-I got a job offer." He finally admitted, a soft and nervous smile on his lips. "A team that I worked with a long time ago has evidence to suggest the possibility of a link in the evolution of some of the core species. They want me to be one of the researchers on the ground figuring out how true the evidence is."

I blinked once. Twice.

"Research mission?" I asked, my brain slowly wrapping around the words that had left his mouth. "You're going exploring? Now?" Dean shook his head, rubbing against my hand calmly.

"No, not now. It would probably leave in a month, maybe two." He told me, but those words did nearly nothing to ease the impending emotions growing inside of me. Hearing the actual time that he would be leaving made what would simply be an idea real.

I never liked to think of it because I wanted to believe that I was a confident person. But . . . Dean was famous. He was greatly respected, kind, funny, oddly quirky, incredibly smart, and handsome to boot.

He had basically any person who was attracted to males and them some there for the picking. He could have anyone he wanted, and just because I was his mate, didn't mean that he would stay with me.

There was no permanent consequence for it, and he would be over the loss in less than a year. To be quite frank, he was too good for me. I always feared that he would finally get tired and move on.

Now, he was leaving in a month for a trip that would probably take years, he would travel all over the place and meet so many people. People who were probably way more mature and beautiful than me. All of this news translated into one thing in my brain.

Dean is leaving me.

I became sad for a moment feeling a wave of abandonment hit my chest. But that quickly turned into anger.

"So, you're going to be leaving your current job to go and do what? Dig through some dirt to decide if there is another type of feii or something? Is that really important?" I asked him, visibly upset. Dean seemed insulted and took in a deep breath to stay calm.

"Yes, Sebastian, it is. This discovery could drastically change the way that people have viewed the species. What previously had been facts would have to be thrown out the window and then replaced with new ones." Dean told me, sitting up further as he went on about how important this opportunity was. "History and Science books would have to be totally rewritten because this discovery could change so much of what we know about the relationship between such prominent species. Heck, it may lead to decades, centuries of further research."

All of that went in one ear and out the other. All I saw was Dean gone, skipping around in some other dimension with a hot man or woman that would take my mate's heart after they took his body. No, he would have already taken himself away first. I scoff angrily.

"So what, now? You're going to be gone for how many years chasing this discovery? I just met you, and now when the two of us haven't even mated, you are leaving for one of your 'great expeditions.'" I angrily scoffed again, shaking my head with near disgust on my face. "And leaving me behind to do what? Wait for you?"

Dean's eyes widened, mouth falling open in shock and later anger. His grip on me tightens and his eyes narrow.

"So you want to go and find someone else?" He asks, the betrayal clear in his voice. "Just because I left?"

"I want my mate to be here with me, letting us get to know one another and build our new and frankly really fragile relationship!" I yelled, standing up and pulling my hand out of his to throw it up in the air out of frustration. "A relationship I doubt we could make work while you are half-way across the dimensions, thousands of portals away."

Dean seemed to barely hear what I said, clearly still fixated on the idea of me finding someone else while he was gone. He crossed his arms.

"You never answered my question." Dean's gaze did not waver, his eyes were still narrowed and piercing deeply into mine. I glared back before answering, little remorse in my voice.

"Well, I just want to keep my options open. God forbid that the next time I blink I am 45, just finding out that you married some other researcher while I was at home. Finding out I had wasted my life away waiting for you to come back."

"I wouldn't do that to you." Dean tried to tell me, voice tender and earnest. His words fell on deaf, fear-driven ears.

"Maybe you would if we never got to know each other properly." I threw back at him, stepping back a few paces so as not to be tempted by his touch. A heavy sigh was pulled out from Dean's lips, and he rubbed his forehead tiredly.

"Sebastian, I want us to get closer too." He began calmly, eyes staring into mine and trying to make me understand. "But this is not only a huge discovery but a very big opportunity for me."

I didn't understand.

"I thought that you are already immortal. Didn't you have enough of those?" I replied, hands thrown on my hips as I glared down at him.

"Sebastian . . . "

"I just can't believe that you are forgetting about the life that we had planned together." I said, now looking away from him as I tried to guilt him into changing his mind. "You are leaving just when we started to get a good handle on where we stand with each other."

Dean was getting angrier by the minute, and his cheeks puffed out at the accusation in my words.

"I never forgot what we planned, Sebastian." He told me firmly. He continued to try to calm me down, bring logic to the situation. But I didn't want that. I wanted to be pissed at my mate!

"My leaving doesn't mean that it's over, it just means that it will be, uh, a bit later on in life!" He explained, now bringing up another point that brought fear to my mind and heart. I attacked.

"A life that is only unlimited for you." I blurted, pointing an accusing finger at him. Dean stood up now, face filled with confusion and disbelief.

"You're my mate. Why wouldn't I make you immortal as well?" He asked me. His tone almost felt as if he were questioning my intelligence, and my vision went red.

"Maybe you wouldn't if we know so little of each other. Because we live trillions of miles apart, maybe you wouldn't love me enough to marry me, Dean!" I spat out, face twisted in the anger that my mind continued to feed on over and over again.

"Sebastian." Dean sighed, seemingly defeated by my repeated attacks no matter what he said. "Please just listen-"

"You are so easy, huh?" I asked then, a sick grin on my lips as I began to pace his small living room. "A little adventure, maybe some dirt and grim, and a case that will make you the center of attention. You just love that life, don't you?"

"You can't try to spin this like that, Sebastian." He said angrily, fists clenched in frustration. "I am doing this to help others."

I shook my head, turning back to look at him fully. My fists clenched, body prepared to put out even more of my anger and try to throw it on to him.

"You just love the thrill. Whatever high you get out there just excites you, I bet. More than a simple adventure would pleasure anyone else." The moment the words were out of my mouth, I knew that they had hit. "I doubt that you do it for anyone but yourself."

Dean paused for a moment, blinking as his shoulders sagged. He had felt that. It had been true! No matter how much of it actually was the truth, that seemed to confirm everything I had spat at him before, and it only spurred me on to try to hurt him more.

"I . . . I . . . " Dean fumbled over his words, grasping for anything to hit me back with after what I had said to him. "I thought that you would understand. I thought that you of all people, someone so dedicated to the study of the species, would understand why I have to do this."

My gaze lowered to the ground, a thoughtful expression on my face. I almost wanted to laugh at the irony of his words.

"Maybe I'm not as passionate as I thought." I wondered aloud, an unhappy smile resting on my mouth. "It would explain why I can't understand why you're giving us up. It would also explain . . . "

"What?" Dean asked, brows drawn together as he looked down at me.

"Now I feel so stupid for worrying about your feelings when you clearly never considered mine." I muttered lowly, eyes narrowing where they had still been focused on the floor.

"No, that's not-" He started to protest, but I quickly cut him off. I may as well just tell him now. My news is not nearly as bad as his.

"I want to go into magic." I told him bluntly, seeing the shock setting into his face. "For my career. At the end of the day I want to help people and I think that I may be able to do that more with magic than species study."

Dean laughed darkly, running a hand through his now messy locks. I was confused and bothered by his reaction. My body tensed up as I waited for his next words.

"Wow." He whispered, shaking his head as his eyes were pinned on me. "You are so hypocritical."

My eyes widened and I went to argue, but Dean was quickly speaking again.