Summer, like always, passed by with a staggering swiftness. While Dean's occupation did not possess the typical vacations and leniency during warmer months, he noticed the usual signs of an approaching autumn. The foot traffic in the city steadily swelled as people returned to a more practiced routine, but the weather – hot and sticky – seemed determined to stay.

Sam's letters of late had mentioned nothing but cool ocean breezes, and Dean found that even whole worlds away his brother was somehow still able to give him ire.

Dean paused on a street curb, pulling distractedly at his collar as a car rolled on past him.

He was on his way back from Adam Milligan's apartment, closer to the one he had once shared with Sam and Jess. He had been less of a stranger to his half-brother as of late; the boy wasn't even Sam's age, but was married, seemed to be steadily rising in Lucifer's ranks, and had just let a newcomer into their home. The baby girl's name was Catherine, and for the hour or so he had spent with the fledgling family, she had seemed to take a shining to him. Admittedly, most kids did, whether or not he wanted them to. He had never pictured himself particularly nurturing or motherly, but it was better than the other – louder – alternatives that came with being around kids.

That was the train of thought Dean ran along with; the day had been slow, and he was left with a morose feeling. It was hardly the afternoon, but he had nothing else planned for the day; no chores, and he had already stopped by Castiel's shop that morning. It seemed that he'd just have to sit and stew into his own blue lined ennui; he wasn't exactly sure why watching happy families prattle around made him anything but. Partly his absent brother, he knew, but it had always been skewed like that, for as long as he could remember.

A man passing out of his apartment building let Dean catch the door. As he ascended the stairs, he slipped a hand into his pocket to search out his keys.

By the time he reached his landing on the steps, he was certain that he had somehow managed to lose them. He frantically felt at his trousers, jacket, even on his vest and shirt, but he got nothing – his gun was still there, as were his cigarettes, lighter, and the flat pouch he kept in case he needed to do some casual spending, but nothing even vaguely shaped like his keys.

Had he left them with Castiel? It certainly wouldn't have been the first time something slipped out of his jacket pocket when he set it down. Yes, that had to have been it – he nodded at his idea, calmed down a bit. Any excuse to head back east to the Novak's establishment was fine by him. And if he had dropped them somewhere among the city streets, it wasn't as if a locksmith wasn't around.

Still…

More of a reflex than a conscious action, he made a few short steps to the door and checked the knob.

It turned, opened.

Dean paused in the doorway, hesitant. He reached into the inside of his jacket, felt the revolver there, and slowly pulled it out, clasping it with one hand.

His shades were drawn – though he distinctly remembered leaving them open before he left that morning. The sunlight didn't permeate through enough to cast more than a few delicate overlays of light to the room. The door was pushed open just a crack – he could see a corner of the bed, his dresser and closet, but the majority of the room was kept hidden. Nothing besides the curtains seemed disturbed, but Dean wasn't sure if that was better or worse – a break-in wasn't necessarily pleasant, but most of the things he had could be replaced, and he doubted anyone would be able to get all of his savings from even a few hours in his empty apartment. But if it wasn't a thief…

Then there was quite a good chance that someone wanted to talk with him.

He pressed his hand to the barrel of the gun; it was always fully loaded. And how many people could be there? No more than four – he'd have been able to see some shuffling about, noticeable shadows through the bottom crack of the door.

Of course, if he waited around any longer, trying to strategize against what else was behind his door, then he'd probably end up getting shot through the wood. He breathed out his nose, straightened his jacket back in order. In one fluid movement he slammed open the door and turned on the lights switch by the side of the door, aiming his pistol at whoever happened to be there.

A moment passed where Dean stood in a stilted position – arm still outstretched, hand on the trigger; his mouth propped open.

In the arm chair sat Castiel, both legs propped up on one of the thick arms; a novel in his lap. His gaze settled first on Dean's face, then on his gun.

He seemed… relatively relaxed, considering.

Dean pressed a hand to his cheek, letting his gun fumblingly slip back into his suit. "Jesus Christ, Cas. What the hell were you…?"

Castiel contemplated him, he almost looked amused. "You ought to shut that," he nodded at the door behind Dean. "Don't know who might come in, otherwise."

Dean's hand slid from his face. "You making fun of me?"

"A little." Castiel swung of the chair, slipping a page marker into his book. "I didn't mean to scare you," he said in a sincere tone.

"I could've shot you, you know," Dean groused out in a harsh tone.

"I figured that popping up the second you opened the door would have set you off more."

"Couldn't have waited outside?" Dean's brows furrowed and he realized his expression was set in a glare.

"Like a dog?" Castiel licked his lips. "I'm not too sure that'd be the best way to go about it. Standing around on the street where anyone could see me, then you, and then the both of us coming up here together." He raised his eyebrows, as if daring Dean to come up with a better way to meet for him.

Dean reluctantly found some merit to Castiel's reasoning, though it left his mood worse than before. "Right." Dean said. "So, what's going on?"

"Nothing. Well," Castiel reached into his pocket and pulled out a small key ring. One was Dean's apartment, another was for a company car Crowley had in rotation between him and a few other guys he dubbed competent enough to handle them. "You left these on the counter."

"How –"

Castiel squinted, this time it looked like he was trying to maintain a serious expression. "I fear that Misha might become an admired pickpocket when he's older." Dean gave a start; too many kids for one day. After a moment, he related his visit to Adam Milligan just before, more out of necessity than wanting to share. "You have another brother?" Castiel asked, sounding surprised.

"Half brother," Dean corrected.

Castiel gave an indifferent turn of the shoulder. "Family hardly relies on blood. To me, at least." He added, after watching Dean's face. "Anyway, I was only working till lunch so I thought…" he shook his shoulders again, and then began walking towards Dean, "Sorry. I'll just see myself out." He hesitated by Dean's side for a moment, their arms brushing, but merely placed the set of keys in Dean's hand before moving towards the door. Dean turned around. He wondered for a moment why Castiel seemed flippant, before realizing that he had been the one rude enough to send him away.

He didn't want to be alone.

"You have somewhere to be?" he asked it gently, fingers flexing around the sharp metal in his grip.

"No." Castiel said, pausing in the aperture. "You seem… distracted, is all. I thought I would let you have time to think."

Dean groaned. "I hate thinking," Castiel smiled, gestured to the book still on the chair.

"Read that, then. It might take your mind from… whatever you don't want to think about."

"I don't think that'd help."

"No? I think of them as the best distractions you could ever get."

"You sure it's the best?" Dean smiled in an off-kilter way, and Castiel gave a curious look. Slowly, he turned from the exit and stepped more firmly inside.

"What do you do when you have to take your mind of things?" he asked. Dean got closer, stepped more into Castiel's space. He pushed the door, letting it click closed.

"Well," he said after a moment, "It's kind of difficult to describe. Can I show you instead?" Castiel slid a hand up to touch Dean's jaw and chuckled.

"You're not the typical brooding character," it sounded dangerously reminiscent of teasing.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I figured you would have wanted me to go so you could have your own little time to mope. But instead…" he put his other hand on Dean's chest, slipping down to undo the two buttons on his jacket. "Hardly a typical reaction."

"I'm hardly a typical man," Dean said, pulling Castiel in for a kiss.

He only barely remembered to lock the door.

xxxx

"Cas," Dean said, not too long afterwards.

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something?" the words were soft spoken.

"Of course." Castiel's head was tucked under Dean's chin, legs curled up to refrain from hitting the end of the board, toes tumbling off the edge of the mattress regardless. He didn't speak right away, instead carding hands through the inkwells of the other's hair, a hard habit that might soon match his need for cigarettes.

"What is it, Dean?" Castiel asked. Their chests rumbled, reverberating against each other.

Dean stared straight ahead. "When did you first decide you wanted… well, that fourth time to the shop, but this?"

Castiel murmured a word or two that were incomprehensible.

"Come on," Dean went, "Can't be worse than mine. Won't tease you or nothing – not unless you deserve it." Dean smiled as Castiel rose up to his eye level – the other man's face was grim.

"It's a long explanation. Complicated, hardly an entertaining thought in it. Besides, does it matter now?"

"I'm curious." Dean insisted. Castiel just looked pained. "Be honest. When I first came in to the shop, what did you think of me?"

Castiel sighed, like recounting his opinions would be a difficult ordeal. Slowly, he left Dean's embrace to lay beside him, slightly propped up by the pillows.

"I thought you were just some rowdy Italian prick." He paused, watching as Dean's eyes grew wide at the uncharacteristic frankness of Castiel's words. The other smiled in an innocent way. He leaned in closer to whisper against Dean's ear, "A boy too big for his boots. That's how it is for your sort. Think you can push me around just due to a gun; like I haven't ever been caught making eyes at a barrel before…" Castiel pursed his lips, like he was mad, and shut up for a second. Dean shuttered at some point during his speech; eyelids fluttering closed against the grit and hard inflections in Castiel's tone. But he was back now, and merely turned his head to press a kiss to the other's temple. "Anyway," he went on, "You were a prick." Dean laughed that time around. "And did I want to show you up. Saturday my brother works, but I told him I had to go make a point; can't afford to run away from any nasty customer that comes by." Castiel stopped again. Dean was still, enraptured in Castiel's presence. He now understood why he had shied away from answering the question; it wasn't a little sentence of insight – it was a complete recounting of Castiel's thoughts.

"Anyway," Castiel said again, rousing the both of them. He nudged Dean lightly, nodded towards the bedside table. "Light me up a cigarette will you?" Dean stretched over. "No, not yours, mine. Ah, forget it." He ended his commentary and stuffed Dean's factory packaged roll into his mouth, watching the other's hands flick open a lighter, kiss the tip and go out. Castiel sucked in a mouthful, blowing it out into the room. He sat back against the headboard, staring dazedly at his toes. "What was I saying?"

"How gorgeous I am," Dean supplied, lying on his side, looking like a prized example of smugness and pride and vanity all rolled into a single body of sin.

Castiel raised a brow, looking down at him. "Of course," he agreed, blowing out another cloud of smoke. "Dean Winchester, the gorgeous Italian prick." Dean laughed again at the profanity, spoken so seriously. "You wondered why I even bothered, correct? Truly though, if you're looking for a reason, it might be because of your brother." Dean gave him a curious look.

"Out of all the times you could be mentioning Sam," Castiel shrugged. "Okay, fine, what about him?"

"You felt a bit more polite and calm, when you brought your brother along. And I'm too hopeful to think so deeply around a guy like you. Five minutes go on and I see why you and Sam work together so well – you are family, and even Sam was nice. I began thinking that you could be that nice, too; if you wanted to be. Families are similar in that way, right?

"And the next time, after that, I thought maybe..." He contemplated his cigarette. "I don't even know what I was thinking, talking to you like that. I wasn't expecting a response though, not really, that's for sure. The dreams in my head and the pieces of real life got all mixed up, I think, because of you." Dean reached for the half done cigarette, inhaling while Castiel closed his eyes, hands on his stomach. "You let me keep dreaming, that was one thing. From all our meetings, it felt like we were just friends – good friends, one I wanted to keep." He glanced over at Dean. "But then you'd look at me or touch me, and I'd remember… that's not what you wanted, was it?"

"It's not what you offered." Dean said.

"But you weren't happy with what you had."

"Well how could I be?" he said, shifting. "I mean," he nodded at Castiel. "When I knew that I could have more."

"Was this your idea of more?"

"No." Dean said, dead stub rolling on his fingers before he reached over and snuffed it on the ashtray on his side table. "I never knew I'd want this."

"We didn't have to end up this way, you know? I decided, that after you leaning over me when I was sick, I… I wanted that. Moreover, I wanted you, and you needed to know that. And when I told you,"

"Cute way of telling me," Dean grunted.

Castiel regarded him closely, spoke slowly. "If I told you, and you shot me down – If I kissed you and you hit me and spat at me and hated me, well, then I wouldn't have to be pining away for a year."

"I ran away," Dean pointed out, a rotten feeling set in his belly.

"You didn't run away because you didn't want to be with me, you ran away because you didn't know what else to do. You hesitated first, and then you ran. But more important, you came back." his lips were only slightly upturned as he said that, his eyes crinkled – those were the only sign that Castiel had any age to him at all. Take away those and his scars and he might as well have been a walking statue. "And that's what matters."

Dean felt something stuck in his throat; Castiel stared at him with an expression that was nothing short of pure adoration; relief and thankfulness. Dean swallowed, feeling the same sort of overwhelming sensation that had him running away months ago. But he knew at the forefront of his mind; he wouldn't leave Castiel. Not now, not ever.

Not for anything.

xxxx

Dean's letters to Sam, like all of his notes, lacked any sort of formal finesse. He never followed what they had been taught in school; no Miss or Sir or To Whom it May Concern… The language wasn't for him – which was why his brother usually took up writing to landlords, bank tellers, or the occasional family that might have taken them in for a while, back when they were on the road.

Instead, Dean always started his letters with Sam. Or, if he was feeling more amused – what could also be interpreted as annoying – it'd be a Sammy.

The seventh day of September, Dean sat down and wrote, Sammy, the funniest thing happened to me last week… and he attempted to explain to his brother, living an impossible stretch of states away, who a man named Castiel Novak was.

"Are you going to tell him the truth?" Castiel asked, peering delicately over his shoulder, admiring the work. The writing was steady and clear; letters crunched together as if he was in a hurry, though there was truthfully nothing to do. It was just another late evening spent holed up in Dean's flat. An added touch of new scenery had rain pelting stubbornly against the windows.

Castiel had started to make a habit of coming over, albeit with difficulty, what with his heavy work schedule that sometime meant that they'd be separated for days at a time. Dean assured him that he didn't mind any of that – so long as he could still come by the shop and see him half the week. He was unwilling to admit that he had grown to crave Castiel's presence with alarming speed, and sometimes he would intentionally avoid visiting Castiel because of that, as if by depraving himself slightly he would regain some reassuring distance between the other man. He soon found that plan didn't work. In fact, it only served to miss him more for the stretches of time where they weren't in contact.

Whether Castiel wasn't fooled by Dean's occasional aloofness of him or was determined to see him just as often wasn't clear.

Dean looked over his shoulder to Castiel. "The truth? About us?"

"You have the dates wrong if you are," he supplied neutrally. He took his own seat at the table, shuffling through the collection of letters, this time not afraid to read through them. Dean hadn't moved to write more, so he looked up. "…He doesn't know, does he?"

"Know what?"

"About you. About – well, exactly who you've been with. He thinks you're regular."

Dean shuffled awkwardly in his chair. "Well most guys are." He put his pen down, rested his chin in his hands. "It's not exactly something to parade around, Cas."

"He's family. I thought nothing was higher than family in your mind."

"There isn't," Dean persisted.

"Then why lie?"

"I can't just break it to him that his older brother is a particular way when for his entire life he thought it was another. I mean," he waved an arm over to Castiel. "I know your brother and sister are alright with it, but – I don't know about Sam. I just… in a letter, too? How could I even write that?" Castiel shrugged unhelpfully. "You upset?"

"No. Curious, I suppose. I figured Sam already knew, but – I mean there are some men who have wives, children, and still go out and… I wouldn't force you. He's not my brother to talk to."

"…Thanks." Dean said at length. "I do want to tell him about you – just," he let his words die, unsure of how to proceed.

"I'm a friend," Castiel finished. "You saw me and Alastair and just… re-write everything after that." Dean idly jotted a few more sentences down.

"Yeah, that sounds good."

After a few moments, Castiel spoke up again, "Do you want me to go over it, to make sure you didn't embellish anything way out of proportion?"

Dean looked over. "What makes you think I'd do that?" Castiel nodded to the letter.

"Contrary to what you're writing there I did not get out of that party with three thousand dollars." Dean rolled his eyes, crumpled up the paper.

"Yeah, okay."

xxxx

It was the end of September, but the summer weather marched on like it was trying to prove something: Warm days and clear skies persisted even as schools re-opened and the leisurely feeling of August left.

Admittedly, it wasn't the most unusual time for inspiration to strike.

Once again, Sam was to blame. His return letter from Dean's faux history with Castiel was just as upbeat; he congratulated Dean on making friends, as it were, and didn't seem to suspect that anything Dean told him was more than inside the normal bounds of questionable. In his stead, Sam described an excursion with Jess to an empty farmer's town, where they slept twenty feet away from livestock and walked through the orchards hand in hand. He wrote, 'It was like all those times we'd spend a week on some farm in the middle of nowhere. It's much better when you don't have to work, though.'

Dean felt a sudden craving to leave the city.

He tried to mention it to Crowley, any trips that had to be made around Albany that he could do. Two days later, he found a note in his mail slot that stated he was scored a drop off and pick up; on the A fleet of cars would be going to Albany to transport several hundred gallons of Moonshine, and Dean, who was proving himself to be a more than capable chauffer when needed, could make the trip if he wished.

Well, that settled it. Not a day later, he asked Castiel over the table of his tailor shop if he had ever seen the Catskill Mountains before.

xxxx

A/N: This chapter went through what could be called a Development Hell. Occasionally I like chapters that are merely a compilation of scenes over time and aren't very connected except in a thematic sense. However this installment was originally twice as long, and I realized that's just too many split up scenes. After going back and forth on it I finally had to cut it in half and attempt to streamline the remaining pieces into a more linear narrative. I apologize that it took me so long – real life is very harmful to my writing output. I have nothing to offer except the mention of characters that aren't Dean and Castiel. And sex, sort of. Just know that I've written quite a bit for other, future chapters during this little hellatus, and I would probably cry if I abandoned this story. I suppose the only trivial offer is the Catskill Mountains are beautiful, and Google images is a wonderful place to look.