Dean waited a bit to return to the shop; a few days longer than normal. He tried not to worry that he had sunken into a routine with his visits. Of course, Dean's hesitant behavior had more to do with the dank, wet weather of the month versus any social anxieties he didn't have, ever– it appeared that New York would suffer another wet summer; so much for Augustine thoughts, then.

Plus a few more odd jobs, courtesy of the boss. Nothing high profile and glamorous, at any rate – he wondered if Castiel knew.

He stepped into the shop, curious to find out, but instead found another man at the front – shorter with a large forehead and hair like sand grit – sucking on a cigarette and watching a few men paint the shop's inside a pleasant color; warm and cozy like fireplace embers. But Dean didn't realize any other details more than the fact that for the first time, Dean didn't see Castiel where Castiel always was.

For a frightening moment he had thought the tailor had simply fled. Maybe he had died. Maybe one of the other families in the neighborhood had a beef with him and, and –

"Can I help you?" said the man, through the mental panic that Dean was oddly enough having. (He didn't panic at gun fights or hit and runs or police raids but he panics when a man he faintly knows is not in his spot, figures.) Dean managed somehow to waltz up to the counter; Castiel's counter, as if nothing in the world was wrong.

"I'm here to speak with Castiel." He was unsure whether the first name basis would help or hinder.

"My brother is not working today. It's Saturday." Dean must have been pulling a face when the other man stared hard at him before saying "Oh." As if the other had reached some astounding clarity. "Oh, you must be Dean Winchester."

Dean stiffened. "He's mentioned me?"

"All I know is that you're the reason my little brother has been taking my shifts. Waiting for you to show up, I presume." Dean blinked in response, wondering when the Hell that started, and then, on second thought, how much sense that made. How many of these stores were actually run by only one person all week? The late and random visits had been going on for a while, and this was the first time he had not seen Castiel. The man that – well, friend was too generous, since they were both well aware of what the other was looking for. And why nothing had been initiated Dean wasn't quite sure - and why he hadn't demanded it yet…?

At any rate, Dean pressed on; "Is he in?"

"He's resting at the moment. Hay fever, I think, but it's better to waste a day or two now than a week and a funeral down the line."

"Pleasant." Dean muttered.

"Not all of us can afford the regular doctors," The other said it with a sort of accusation in his voice, but before Dean could bother to draw himself up and go, 'care to repeat that again?' he was being gestured at. "He would probably want to see you. Come on, if you don't think your shoes will get too dirty or something."

He cautiously walked around the workbench, taking his time as the other man shouted a few words in Russian at the painters, probably the same thing most people shouted at their painters; "I'll be back in a moment, don't run off or kill each other!" Or something along those lines. The hallway was black and not quite as dusty as he was expecting. A few paces in the man pointed up a narrow set of stairs and said, "Bedroom's on the first left," before continuing on again, even further down the corridor. Into the back room, Dean guessed, where all the real work got accomplished. Dean felt that odd sense of foreboding; the feeling of going somewhere he didn't quite belong. He thought he had shaken that off long ago, going below and beyond the reaches of common law and, hell, morals on a regular basis – but a skeleton of the trepidation remained, surfacing up from a part of his brain where he was still a kid – when he still had a shadowed figure to cling behind.

Moreover, it was just common decency, and the idea of going up to Castiel's bedroom, led by his brother of all things, seemed embarrassing in some way. But then again, maybe this was the chance that the both of them had been waiting for. It made sense, after all: With another person occupied with watching the painters, and an entire flat above quite possibly unguarded…

Dean felt the back of his neck heat up – not for shame or nervousness, but a thrill curling deep down in his belly.

Except when he actually knocked on the door and a redheaded woman answered – beautiful, and more preferable than Castiel on principal, until he caught sight of the dozing baby in her arms and a tiny ring on her finger. He tried not to look crestfallen. "Are you Dean Winchester?" she asked in a hushed tone, like it was a secret he was there, and it kind of was. Even Sam only had a vague notion of where he was going, and if he deduced the tailor shop, it wasn't for Castiel.

"Yes," he whispered back, eyeing the child. Another thing about men; they didn't give you an extra mouth to feed. "A man downstairs said –"

"Gabriel. My husband, Castiel's brother-in-law." She wriggled a hand out from under the child. "I'm Anna, his sister." Dean took the offered hand in a light shake. "This is Misha." She adjusted him again, ruffling her blouse.

"Cute kid," Dean said, smiling. He didn't really mean it – it was just something you said, of course. But the kid did have a head of dark hair, making Castiel's image pop back into his head.

Anna smiled, looking sweet and lovely in her ankle-length blue dress, and if the last thought he had before she dismissed him was something along the lines of what exact shade of blue Castiel's eyes possessed, well, he didn't dwell on it much.

The door to Castiel's room opened in a creaky, yawning way, and Dean wasn't sure what he was expecting to find. From the quick glimpse around, the place was snug, but livable. Their kitchen had tiles and clean cabinets and yes, a four-person kitchen table in the middle, covered with a checkered table cloth, of all things. Castiel's room only had one cot – well, no, it was a few steps better than that, actually; a real mattress with fitting sheets. There was an antique desk stacked with a few books by the window, along with an armchair nearby. The shades were drawn; the wardrobe was partially open and not empty, and everything looked clean and humble but nice, and that kind of caught Dean off guard. He expected others. A grandma and a dozen kids running about and cots stuffed into the crevices of the room, meant to be pulled out at night after work was done. He expected cheap chairs split and half broken and scratchy sheets and no tables at all. Not this. Not normality.

Castiel, wrapped up in thick blankets, let out a breathy sigh, as if frustrated with sleep. He turned around and settled in deeper for a moment as Dean shut the door.

He crept up to the other man, trying to see if the relaxed state he was in was merely a ruse.

His hair was mussed; an easy job, just like Dean figured, falling over his brows like an ink stain. This was what sleep looked like, no doubt. Dean let out a sigh of his own – disappointment – and patted Castiel on the cheek, waiting for the other to wake up.

He grunted, tossed, and opened his eyes. Castiel smiled freely, as if sharing a moment with a lover or a wife. "You're not dreaming," Dean said, because that was almost positively the reason for the other's expression.

In an instant, Castiel's face became pinched, drawn into himself, and he sat up quickly, in a panic. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and Dean let himself stare, trying not to feel guilty about it – as if he was taking advantage of a situation – because he wasn't, not necessarily, just making the most of an unfortunate one.

The pale planes of the tailor's chest just weren't as interesting as his eyes, Dean reflected, and that was where he focused on after all. "You weren't in today."

Castiel moved slow, trying to sound out a few words, face hazy with a sleepy, sickly fog. "…I wasn't."

"Your brother-in-law sent me up here. And your sister, too." He smiled. "A Novak family reunion; just add a few more kids and old folks, you know what I mean? Where's the rest of 'em, anyway?" Castiel looked downright lost for the longest time, like Dean had started speaking in fluent Italian – or tongues. Looking down, he stared hard at the sheets pooled around him, little off-white wrinkles settling against his skin. Dean spoke up again: "What is it?"

"It's just them." Castiel said sullenly. Dean felt his ears twitch, as if he was trying to make sure he heard right the first time around.

"Oh." Dean said, tasting an echo. He bit down on an apology.

Obviously there used to be more. More friends; brothers, aunts and parents. The similarity between them was kind of dizzying, and Dean wondered why Castiel hadn't let that little fact slip before – he now felt almost selfish with the urge to know more about the other's life, to see if any other points of empathy would come up.

Castiel breathed in a little, coughed some, too, and let his eyes rove over the room. "You can sit, if you want." Dean was halfway to sitting slightly lower on the mattress before figuring that Castiel meant the armchair a few feet away, but rising again in some form of a physical stutter would have just been embarrassing, so he plopped down where he was.

"So, when were you going to tell me you were taking extra shifts?"

Castiel had the audacity to look bashful, smiling at nothing in particular. "I wasn't. Shop work isn't too hard and, well, I had no idea when to expect you."

"You could've said something."

"I didn't think you'd bother." Castiel was right, he probably wouldn't. But now that he knew – well, too little, too late, that was how it usually worked for him.

"Well, you can quit the extra shifts; I'll just stick to when you're supposed to be working. My job isn't as regular as yours, anyways." The skin around Castiel's eyes crinkled in an unshed sign of pleasure.

"Alright then." He didn't seem bothered to add anything else to their conversation, leaving Dean feeling a little panicked at the silence. There was just a minute amount of awkwardness to it, but it was the principle of the thing; Dean didn't like silence, the waiting for someone else to say something, do something.

He looked around the room again, searching for inspiration.

"These the books you were talking about?" Dean hopped up and went towards the desk, leaning down to get a glimpse at the titles: Flappers and Philosophers, The Metamorphosis, The Bible – that was so predictable that Dean couldn't even be bothered to register it – and a few little paperbacks that looked like they could have been picked up on a news rack, any time from last week to a decade ago. Those were the only novels he could clearly make out in the stack. Everything else strongly resembled philosophy. "No Hemingway?" he said, thumbing through the top book. It was English halfway through, before doing a direct translation to Russian in the back.

Behind him, Castiel shifted. "Not a fan of the war, I'm afraid."

Dean smirked, turning back to him. "Figured that. No one's a fan of the War. I can't even remember it; I spent all my time back then just wondering…" his face fell, and he looked around, half bewildered. "Just wondering when Dad was gonna come back.

"I mean he did, of course, just two years after. They say war changes people but I figured he'd seen enough for any war; he would shuck it off eventually, right? …Sorry, what am I doing, bothering you when you're feeling under the weather and all,"

"It's just a cold, I'll be fine." Dean nodded and looked back at the book; On Love it read. Dean brandished the cover and Castiel pretended to look embarrassed.

"I'm a bit of a romantic," he admitted. "It's better than any of that serious stuff they have out there."

"Says the man with ten pounds of thinking material on his table." Dean put the book down and sat back down on the bed, Castiel keeping eye contact by propping himself up on his forearms.

"All those war stories about gritty men with wives and lovers and guns that they give names to; it's all very pretty and patriotic and noble. That's what we'll think when we go on to have more wars. We'll forget everything except how angry we're getting at the moment, right?" he shrugged, as if to assure that his words weren't meant to be dangerous. "It's all fantasy, really – war is just your entire world gone to Hell – no, worse than that."

"Shit." Dean offered.

"Sure. Fine, that works. Anyway, I don't want to hear about American heroes and German bastards and Russian cowards or anything else. And as for failed American Dreams… I don't know, it's there; why bother waste time reading about fake suffering when you can be lending others a hand?"

Dean hummed at that, and Castiel suddenly lurched forward and hacked into the blankets, shoulders rattling. Dean moved back, afraid Castiel would pull back and be wiping blood off the sheets, or he would just collapse in a pile of limbs or something like that. To busy his hands, he found a pitcher sitting on the window sill and filled it with a half drained glass by Castiel's bed, giving it to him when the other's attack stopped.

No blood. No sudden death. "It's gotten better, if you can believe it," Castiel supplied, taking the gently offered glass and downing the whole thing, his throat throbbing with the quick effort; slick with the slight sheen of sweat. "Hardly do that anymore." He rubbed his eyes.

"I guess I'll take my leave then," Dean said, filling the water glass one more time before putting it back, listening to the rattle and rustle of the sick man's breathing and covers pulled over his body. "Don't die on me, you hear?"

Castiel's eyes were closed. "I don't plan on it," he replied, settling in.

"Yeah?" Dean laid a hand on the man's forehead, staring down. "You promise?"

"As much as one can promise such things," Castiel said, letting his lips twinge into a smile.

He could kiss him then, Dean thought, without any problem at all. He could just lean down, cough be damned.

It wouldn't take much at all.

"Bye, Cas."

"Goodbye, Dean."

He shut the door on his way out. Angrily he kicked at the dirt in the streets.

He wasn't there to romanticize some half-way Russian guy for a one night stand. Had it gotten that bad? Had he distracted himself so fully that he couldn't even remember what he was there to do in the first place? Dean's mind didn't dwell on the possibility that Castiel was searching for more out of him – why should anyone expect more than face value with him? The tailor wasn't a fool; he wasn't some dumb corn-fed farm girl or half illiterate boy in the street – he certainly knew better than to be getting his standards up around someone like Dean.

And he couldn't keep clinging on to this, Dean figured. This was a yes or no thing. A binary choice. Castiel was a self-proclaimed romantic, but even he knew how these things played out now, didn't he? He was older, and with a face like that... no way Dean was the first to walk into his life.

He paused at that, halfway down the street, before deciding it was better if he didn't reside on Castiel's escapades; wouldn't do either of them any good.

A few more streets went by before Dean was able to go through his views and nod to himself, deciding that the next time he saw Castiel, well and whole again, he would have to make him choose.

xxxx

A/N: The books mentioned are popular novels at the time, the Bible – which has been popular for like five-hundred years, and On Love, a short philosophy about how love 'crystallizes' and different forms of romance, written by some French dude in the 1800s.