Chapter Text
“Holy Crap!” Gabriel exclaimed so suddenly that Castiel jumped, swerved, and almost mounted the curb. Fortunately he was driving slowly enough that it was easy to wrestle back control of the vehicle, but the trailer hitched to the back of his station-wagon slewed dangerously for a moment as though it might detach and continue down the sidewalk by itself.
“What?” he demanded, his damp palms slip-sliding on molded plastic as he turned the wheel to regain control. He grimaced apologetically at a hobbling old lady who had almost dropped her groceries in fright at the near disaster.
As she straightened and regained her balance, an apple rolled out of her paper sack and raced for short-lived freedom before it expired under his tires with a loud, dirty squelch.
His grimace deepened into a wince of guilt at the inadvertent applecide. A pummelled Malus pumila. Was that Malucide, perhaps? Or did the lack of premeditation make it ‘appleslaughter’? Maluslaughter? Before he could spiral further down that particular mental rabbit hole, he was distracted by a fresh horror.
Instead of rightly shaking her fist at him, her face twisting into old lady rage, she shrugged her frail shoulders lightly and offered him a sweet, thin-lipped smile of benediction. Serene. Forgiving.
The incongruity made his heart leap into staccato.
He had a sudden conviction that behind those old lady lips lay not dentures but teeth as sharp and dangerous as a shark’s.
One, one thousand; two, one thousand; three, one thousand; inhale, exhale.
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Gabriel squealed like a teenage girl, clutching his cheeks dramatically in a parody of ‘the scream’. “This is turning into a Stephen King book. The whole town is cursed or something. You can’t possibly move here.”
One, one thousand; two, one thousand; three, one thousand; inhale, exhale.
Yet, as always, Gabriel’s outrageous behavior created a safe wall he could drop beneath and become the normal one. Impossible for him to ever be the focus of attention when all eyes were drawn to Gabriel’s antics. In his brother’s company, the bar for normality was set so abnormally low that it was always achievable with a little breath control.
One, one thousand; two, one thousand; three, one thousand; inhale, exhale.
So, as his heart beat slowed, as his lungs stopped burning, Castiel simply rolled his eyes at his older brother’s antics. “It is too late to change my mind, as you well know. I have already bought the house and I fully intend to live in it.”
“Sight unseen,” Gabriel intoned darkly. “Just like the start of a creepy horror movie about ghosts and cursed artifacts. It’s gonna turn out to have been built over the bones of slaughtered settlers or shipwrecked sailors. Or... or built on top of a hell gate maybe.”
“As you have been telling me for the last five weeks,” Castiel sighed, rolling his eyes as his own panic receded completely. As he became the reasonable one. The sane one. “Perhaps you should have become the writer. You certainly have a fertile imagination. Or perhaps you’ve been binge watching the Buffy box sets again?” he suggested.
Gabriel flushed hotly. “Don’t diss the Buff. She’s the sole reason I pay for Netflix. Hubba. Hubba.” His eyebrows danced dramatically. “But seriously, Cassie, have you seen this town? It looks as fake as a movie set. Twee. Cute. And not in a good way. Where’s the litter? Where’s the weeds? You think it’s normal for every single building to be painted in pastels and perfectly maintained? And what’s with all the lush hanging baskets? You telling me not one person here ever forgets to water their goddamned flowers? And, most damning of all, everyone is smiling. Everyone. That’s not normal. It’s Stepford-level creepy.”
Castiel huffed out an audible breath. “I admit that the old lady I nearly ran over is smiling. Which is peculiar, although, given her advanced years, senility is very possibly a consideration in her particular case. But not everyone is smiling. You are not smiling. I am definitely not smiling.”
He glowered deliberately in his brother’s direction. Admittedly, the expression was not significantly different from his usual demeanor.
“Jackass,” Gabriel snorted. “You never smile. You have fewer facial expressions than a muppet.”
“It’s called blunted affect and is not indicative of my emotional state,” Castiel replied, with the bored tone of someone tired of endlessly repeating the phrase.
“I call bullshit, bro. Because your typical Smitey McSmite bitchface is masterful.”
“My what?” Castiel demanded, his frown deepening significantly as though in denial of his claim of blunted affect.
“That one,” Gabriel crowed. “Your default glowery ‘I will put you down, you dog, at a hundred paces, simply with the power of my disdain’ expression.”
“I diligently practice this one in the mirror,” Castiel replied, honestly and slightly proudly. “It tends to repel the approach of the majority of strangers and thus avoids uncomfortable situations developing. I am, of course, always smiling on the inside,” he added dryly.
Gabriel snorted with genuine amusement. “You’ve got more anxiety disorders than I’ve got clean socks. So why am I the one panicking here? How come you’re all Prozac-boy about this weird as fuck place? Huh. Are you on Prozac again?”
“I changed to Anafranil months ago,” Castiel replied coolly.
Gabriel looked horrified. “Fuck, bro. I’m sorry. I was only joking about the Prozac thing. I had no idea you were back on the meds again.”
Castiel merely shrugged one shoulder. “I have a medical problem. I take medicine and the problem goes away. Why should that be a source of embarrassment? The only reason mental illnesses carry stigma at all is people’s tendencies to consider them a taboo subject.”
Gabriel pursed his lips thoughtfully. “You’re back on meds because of the Amelia thing, huh?”
Castiel shrugged lightly, dismissing his brother’s concern. “Several ‘things’ came to a head. I dealt with them. I moved on. This relocation is also part of me ‘moving on’. A fresh start. My therapist approved it as an act of positivity.”
“Only because he didn’t know you were moving to Stepford,” Gabriel suggested darkly.
“It’s not ‘Stepford’. It’s perfectly charming,” Castiel said firmly. “Even more so than the realtor described it. A perfect coastal tourist trap, just as she said. Hopefully the house itself will also exceed my expectations.”
“Oh sure. The town looks pretty. It’s deliberate camouflage. That’s how they get you to drop your guard. But it’s in Maine,” Gabriel pointed out. “Which should have been clue number one. Everything bad happens in Maine, doesn’t it?”
“It’s called Heron’s Cove, not Castle Rock,” Castiel said tiredly. “You do realize King writes fiction rather than documentaries?”
”Aha,” Gabriel declared triumphantly. “That’s what you’re supposed to think. It’s all smoke and mirrors, bro. We just passed a sign directing us to a place called R.I.P. Harbor. You telling me that isn’t spooky as fuck?”
“It wasn’t an acronym. It said ‘Rip’, as in current or tide,” Castiel sighed, rolling his eyes impatiently once more.
“Yeah?” Gabriel challenged. “So it’s also just a coincidence that every single shop and street here is named after an actual serial killer?”
“WHAT?” Castiel demanded, slamming on the brakes so hard that the trailer bucked and the driver of a car behind them had to swerve wildly before overtaking with a disgusted blast of their horn.
Gabriel started ticking them off on his fingers. “We’re driving down Gacy Street, past Ted’s Pie Palace, Jack’s Bakery, Aileen’s Hair Salon, Jeffrey's Second Hand Books, Herman’s Bar, David’s Delicious Desserts, and Dexter’s Really Useful Shop.” He paused and frowned as the last one completely derailed his own thoughts. “What the hell is a ‘really useful shop’?”
Castiel cocked his head, peered sideways down the street and squinted as he said, “It appears to be some kind of hardware store with extras like racks of plants and houseware and postcards and… um... pet products I think. Anything useful, I suppose. And you’re really grasping with the names. There are over 70,000 people named ‘Ted’ in America alone. Now if it said ‘Bundy’s pies’ I might think you have a point. Or ‘Todd’s’ pies, perhaps.”
“Todd’s Barbershop would be more worrying,” Gabriel chuckled. “Particularly if it was located next door to a ‘Pie Palace’. I’d definitely suggest you embrace the idea of becoming a wild-haired, unshaven hermit in that scenario.”
“I know you’re worried about me,” Castiel said, his tone more conciliatory. “But I thought your issue was with the fact I was ‘running away’, not with where I am running away to.”
“Fine,” Gabriel sighed. “I give in. The place looks nice. I admit it. But it’s tiny. I can’t even see how it has the audacity to call itself a ‘Town’. It’s more like a… a… hiccup. Yeah. A hiccup of houses. Did you see that sign we passed on the outskirts? Population 411. That’s not a town. It’s a burp. More to the point, the statistical odds of there even being more than half a dozen single guys here in your age group, let alone any of them also being gay, is a gadzillion to one. I mean I get that you had a bad break-up with Amelia but, if you really intend to spend the rest of your life as a reclusive celibate hermit, you might as well have just joined a monastery.”
“Small suggests homely. Neighborly,” Castiel argued.
“Because you’re such a neighborly person yourself,” Gabriel mocked disparagingly. “Mr. Congeniality. The life and soul of the party.”
Castiel sniffed. “Perhaps I will be here.”
“Only if this really is Stepford and all new residents receive a complete personality transplant,” Gabriel said.
Had anyone else said it, Castiel probably would have protested the point. But his brother knew him too well for any prevarication to be worthwhile, so Castiel decided to save his breath.“You may have a point,” he admitted, “but I highly doubt I will be spending the ‘rest of my life’ here anyway. I just want some peace and quiet for a while. I have three more books under contract and if I don’t get at least one of them finished this summer, I’ll be in breach of that contract. Crowley’s already threatened to string me up on a rack and beat the words out of me.”
“The sad thing is you think that’s hyperbole,” Gabriel muttered. “Your agent is a seriously disturbing man.”
“He’s right though,” Castiel sighed. “A seven-book series deal for a new writer was almost unheard of. I do owe it to him to get the final three books out on schedule. So a couple of years here, without distractions, is exactly what I need. I’ll worry about my celibate monk status afterwards.”
“And it’s a tourist town,” Gabriel allowed. “Even if the locals are probably a bunch of interbred hicks, you might get a bit of hunky summer-loving,” he suggested, with a waggle of his eyebrows. “Perhaps if you diligently practiced a ‘smile’ rather than a frown, you might actually get lucky for a change.”
“Would you just give up on the relationship advice?” Castiel groaned. “You endlessly return every conversation to a discussion of my non-existent love life.”
“I’m being ‘sensitive’ and ‘supportive’,” Gabriel argued. “I read a PFLAG leaflet once.”
“Of course you did.”
“Okay, so I just hate the thought you came out and got booted out of the family for nothing. You might as well have kept the reason you left Amelia to yourself if you were just going to put your dick into cold storage anyway. You know our mother will never speak to you again.”
“Such a heartbreak. I really don’t know how I’ll bear it,” Castiel drawled.
“I know mom sucks, but I bet you’ll miss those Christmas Hampers she sends out to make sure none of us actually turn up for the celebration and embarrass her in front of her neighbors.”
“Actually, I bet I’ll still get them,” Castiel chuckled.
“What? How the hell do you figure that?”
“Because she’s now doubly invested in making sure I don’t ever visit the house again,” Castiel said wryly. “Despite my soul apparently being consigned to hell eternally, I’d wager I’ll still receive the Novak Hamper. If only because she’ll be so determined to pretend I don’t exist that she’ll totally forget to remove me off her P.A.’s gift list.”
“Point. I’ll make sure to update Hannah’s address book with your new place, in case you’re right. Speaking of which, where the hell is it? We’re running out of road.”
“Maybe I missed a turn,” Castiel suggested, as the windscreen filled with a rapidly approaching view of the ocean.
“No, there,” Gabriel suddenly said, pointing to where a couple of slightly battered mail boxes marked the corner of a tiny road running parallel to the cliff edge. “You’re gonna need a four-wheel-drive for the winter, Bro. This is a dirt track.”
“I can trade this car in for something more suitable,” Castiel agreed, as they bounced squeakily down the dusty track filled with puddles and potholes. “Maybe I’ll look at the dealerships when I drop you off at the airport tomorrow.”
“Do that. Get yourself a decent trade-in off this thing while it still has shocks,” he said, just before they hit a particularly deep pothole with bone-jolting force. “OW. Too late. You sure you want to be this remote?”
“I like my privacy,” Castiel said mildly, beginning to slalom the car around a series of further holes.
“Too much,” Gabriel complained. “That’s my point. You have a habit of locking your front door and literally disappearing for weeks at a time. It’s not healthy. Most kids aspire to be firemen or astronauts. You clearly decided you wanted to grow up to be Richard Neville.”
“Enjoying my privacy does not equate to a desire to be the sole survivor of an apocalypse. Besides, I have a neighbor,” Castiel countered. “This private road serves both houses. So even if I get cut off in winter, which I agree is a possibility, I won’t be totally alone.”
“He might be a serial killer,” Gabriel intoned darkly.
“She might be a brain surgeon.”
“It’s a woman?
“I have no idea. I’m just telling you to stop assuming the worst. Oh…”
“Oh, indeed,” Gabriel agreed, as the dirt track branched into a short V-shape and two houses came into view, one on each branch of the vee.
“It is even prettier than the realtors’s brochure suggested,” Cas said, with a sigh of relief as he looked at the left-hand property.
“Roof looks okay,” Gabriel admitted. “Yard’s a bit overgrown.”
“It’s apparently been empty since early Spring.”
“You’d think your neighbor would at least have kept on top of your lawn. Would have been the neighborly thing to do,” Gabriel grumbled.
Both properties should have been carbon copies of each other, two cute cookie cutter houses sitting either side of the V but while the one on the right was freshly painted and well-maintained, even its sash windows replaced by modern double-glazing, the one on the left, Castiel’s, was in need of some serious TLC. Nothing structural, thank goodness. Castiel was in possession of a thorough independent survey confirming the house was sound and free of defects. But it definitely needed some modernization, a lick of exterior paint and a lot of time spent in the garden. The garden was more of a happy anticipation than a chore though.
“I made a point of stressing to the realtor how excited I was to be buying a property with such a large yard. I even mentioned my intention to encourage a wildflower meadow to encourage bees and butterflies. Maybe she told the neighbor to leave well enough alone.”
Gabriel just sniffed, unconvinced, and glared balefully at the neighboring property with its neatly-cut lawn, new windows and freshly painted front door. There was no dividing fence between the houses, just an almost surgical marking of the exact delineation of the property line by the contrast between neat lawn and wild tangled growth. It struck him as unfriendly rather than a considerate acknowledgement of Castiel’s love of wildflowers. A passive aggressive statement that Castiel was unwelcome. There was something just too precise about the way the land between the houses had been divided in two by the neighbor’s mowing.
He shrugged, shook himself, and followed Castiel into his new house.
“Good god,” he sighed, half an hour later. “I knew this place was going to be haunted. This place screams it was previously owned by some ancient cat lady.”
On hold to the electric company, who should have already turned on the services before their arrival but somehow hadn’t done so, Castiel blinked at him slowly. “How on earth have you concluded it’s haunted? It’s actually even better inside than I had imagined. Just get rid of the chintz curtains, strip the wallpaper, swap the carpets for hardwood and it’s going to be perfect.”
“You think getting rid of the drapes will remove the lingering stench of lavender and old lady piss? I bet her ghost is hovering right now, ready to stab you in the eye with a knitting needle the minute you try removing any of her shit.”
Castiel wondered, not for the first time, why he had ever thought bringing Gabriel along to help him move in would be a ‘good’ idea. “Except for the totally normal mustiness to be expected inside any property that has been shut up and empty for a couple of months, there are no unpleasant smells here whatsoever. And as for ghosts, the owner isn’t even dead. She’s apparently just moved to some assisted-living condominium in the suburbs,” he said, proud he managed to keep his tone even and reasonable.
“Oh, that’s disappointing. Shoots my vengeful ghost theory in the foot, I guess.” Gabriel said, before looking out of the kitchen window towards the neighboring property. “And at least it’s easy to see how it will look like. Your best bet is to find out who did the work on your neighbor’s house, then hire them to do the same for you.”
“I most certainly will not,” Castiel said firmly. “Why on earth would I deliberately purchase a house with history and character, only to attempt to make it look like a new build? Those modern windows are obscenely out of place.” He sniffed derisively towards the other property.
“You won’t be saying that in winter when you need to wear three sweaters in here just to avoid freezing to death,” Gabriel muttered.
“This house has character and charm,” Castiel insisted, “and the window of the study has a clear view over the back yard towards the ocean. I’m planning to put my writing desk there so that I can soak up the atmosphere as I work.”
“You mean stare broodingly at the approaching storm clouds,” Gabriel countered. “Though, I admit, I can see why the sea might inspire you. I just don’t see why you couldn’t have done a Hemmingway and moved somewhere warmer. I can see the charm of sitting on a beach in a sun lounger, with a Pina Colada, as you tap out your great American novel on your iPad. Not so sure huddling here over a typewriter with a hot chocolate is going to have the same effect. Especially if you starve to death. Didn’t you say the whole town shuts down completely between November and March?”
“Most of the shops and stores here close on October 31st and don’t reopen until Spring,” Castiel admitted. “But that’s because they do all their trade during the tourist season. The realtor assured me at least one local store stays open all year and will sell everything I might require.”
“Probably Dexters,” Gabriel said decisively. “That’s obviously the true definition of a ‘really useful shop’. One that’s actually open,” he added with a cackle.
Castiel shrugged. “I doubt I’ll shop in town that much anyway. Bangor’s only an hour’s drive away and I’ll stock up on provisions there tomorrow after I drop you off.”
“I could change my flight,” Gabriel offered, his expression uncharacteristically serious. “Yeah, yeah, you’re an adult. The house seems fine. The town is nice enough if you ignore it’s filled with serial killers, possibly also moonlighting as witches who apparently go into hibernation after Halloween—because that’s not suspicious at all. Why don’t I at least stay until after the weekend to help you settle in?”
Castiel knew Gabriel was serious. Hell, he’d probably jack in his career altogether and stay indefinitely if Castiel asked him to. And it was tempting in a way. Unlike other people who tip-toed around Castiel’s issues, Gabriel handled his anxieties by outlining a series of more and more outrageous theories of danger and conspiracies until Castiel was the one forced to take the role of responsible adult.
To an outsider, Gabriel’s attitude and behavior was irresponsible and insensitive. For Castiel, it was like a security blanket. As long as he could play the adulting role in their relationship he could believe that his own behavior was relatively ‘normal’. Certainly, during his teenage years Gabriel had successfully diverted almost all negative attention from Castiel’s ’quirks’ by deliberately behaving in a way that drew most people’s attention to himself instead.
But using his older brother as a buffer and a crutch was not a healthy long-term solution for either of them.
“Because you have a job and a life,” Castiel pointed out. “Both of which you’ve already put pretty much on hold for the last few weeks. It’s time for me to stand on my own two feet again.”
Gabriel looked unhappy but resigned. “In that case, let’s get you unpacked, then we can go back into town, check out those shops and you can at least introduce yourself to the locals before you inevitably bury yourself away completely. At least prove to them you don’t get immolated by sunlight before you disappear, or you’ll wake up one morning with a stake in your heart.”
Castiel snorted and agreed, but by the time they had emptied the trailer and made the main bedroom habitable, they were both too exhausted to do anything except share a family-sized bag of chips and a couple of lukewarm beers before crashing together still fully clothed on top of Castiel’s bed. Something they both regretted the next morning, when they woke stiff, crumpled and cold.
Fortunately, the electricity was finally up and running by then, so they were able to shower in deliciously hot water and knock up a half decent breakfast out of the perishables they had brought with them. The freezer would have hit temperature by the time Castiel returned from Bangor, so he decided he’d do a substantial shop to fill it before returning to Heron’s Cove.
“By the way, I heard your neighbor’s truck doing the drive of shame home at around five am.”
“That’s unnecessarily judgmental,” Castiel chided. “Maybe they work nights.”
“Nope, ‘cos he left again about an hour later with wet hair and a change of clothes. Definitely looked like he was going to work when he left again.”
“So it’s a man?”
“Or a very tall, butch woman. Was a bit far away to see for sure, but I’d put odds on it being a guy. Has a cowboy strut.”
“I know I’m going to regret asking this, but define a cowboy strut.”
“One of those cocky, man-spreading, ‘my balls are too big to walk without bowing my legs’ strides.”
“Or he or she simply has bowed legs?”
“You suck the fun out of everything Cassie. You are a fun vampire. Hmmm. Maybe you’ll fit in around here after all. Point is, though, that I’m sure it’s a guy.”
“I don’t suppose it matters either way.”
Gabriel subsided. As the one who had pointed out the total improbability of Castiel meeting someone gay and single at all in a population of 411, he wasn’t in a strong position to make a big deal about the existence of a possibly single male neighbor.
And, anyway, the passive aggressiveness of the precisely anal lawn mowing was still bothering him.
###
Castiel had intended to look at the car dealerships in Bangor after leaving Gabriel at the airport but, since he didn’t have much interest in—or knowledge of—cars, he allowed himself to become distracted with stocking up on groceries instead until it was too late to look at cars too if he was going to get home before dark. He wanted to be far more familiar with the dirt track to his house before he attempted to traverse its potholes at night.
He wondered whether his neighbor might be open to the idea of getting the road paved, or at least smoothed and filled. It wasn’t that long a track. If they shared the cost, it might not be prohibitive and it would probably add value to both houses anyway. Raising the query would at least give him an excuse to say hello.”
Castiel was painfully inept at ‘small talk’, so he thought it would be beneficial to have an actual excuse to start a conversation when the two of them inevitably met.
He made good time back to Heron’s Cove, fortunately for the frozen goods he had in a cooler in the rear of his car, and judging he still had a good hour or so before the sun started to set, he pulled up outside of the store signposted ‘Jack’s Bakery’. He’d already purchased bread but only a few generic sliced loaves to throw in the freezer and toast a couple of slices at a time, so the idea of buying a fresh artisan loaf was appealing.
It was late enough in the evening for the shop to be nearly deserted, except for a browsing middle aged couple wearing what Castiel assumed was tourist attire, since the only other time he’d ever seen someone pair a Hawaiian shirt with daisy dukes was Gabriel’s last memorable visit home before their mother had pointedly stopped inviting either of them to Christmas lunch.
The counter was almost bare, only crumbs remaining to evidence the earlier existence of freshly baked bounty, but he spied a plump pumpkin-seed loaf amongst the detritus of the day and pointed to it eagerly.
“You vacationing nearby or just passing through?” the young, red-haired server asked him brightly, as she wrapped the bread in paper - something that cheered him up inordinately since he was on a personal campaign to avoid plastic waste.
“Neither,” he told her, hoping his short reply and religiously practiced glower would shut her down. He wasn’t being unfriendly. He was just useless at pointless ‘small talk’, so preferred to avoid it whoever possible. Over the years he’d come to the conclusion it was always better to say less, rather than more, if he wished to avoid inadvertently saying the ‘wrong’ thing. After several embarrassing incidents in his childhood, his mother had always stressed that endeavoring to be seen but not heard should be his maxim in life.
Since he’d consequently discovered that framing what he wanted to say in the form of the written, rather than the spoken, word was financially beneficial, he no longer even stressed overmuch about his social awkwardness.
There were only two people Castiel conversed with comfortably. His brother, because Gabriel was irrepressible and chivied at him mercilessly unless he reciprocated; and his agent, Crowley, who was too bombastic to allow himself to be shut down by Castiel’s one-word answers. Most people found Castiel’s initial awkwardness (and fixed frown) to be so off putting that they gave up on him immediately. They just dismissed him as ‘rude’ and that, whilst unfortunate, at least saved him the embarrassment of trying, and failing, to appear personable.
The server, however, failed to react appropriately. She arched a brow in query and waited, deliberately holding the bread just slightly out of reach until he capitulated.
“I purchased a house here and moved in yesterday” he muttered, feeling a little resentful over being ‘bullied’ into conversation but not enough to risk the loss of the loaf.
If she noticed his annoyance, she ignored it utterly. “Ooh,” she said, rewarding him with the bread, then staring at him with increased interest. “You’re the guy who bought the chocolate box house then?”
“I beg your pardon?”
She chuckled at his blank expression. “It’s what my friend, Dean, calls it. So cottagey and old-fashioned-looking it looks like an illustration on a cutesy box of chocolates. ‘Course, he’s also totally pissed that Missouri listed it for sale with a City realtor and closed the deal without letting any of us even know she was selling up. He and Missouri always had a verbal understanding when he bought the first house that she’d always give him first-refusal on the second. It’s a bit of a sore point with him, so don’t worry if he’s a bit stand-offish with you at first. He’ll get over it eventually. It’s not really your fault, is it? I mean, you didn’t know you were buying a house that had been promised to someone else.”
Castiel flinched slightly as the complete stranger assailed him with the huge information dump, then he winced as he joined the dots. “I presume this ‘Dean’ is the owner of the neighboring property?”
“Yup,” she agreed. “Missouri originally owned both houses. Sold one to Dean about five years ago. He only bought it on the assumption he’d eventually end up owing both. He used to do her shopping and look after her yard for her and everything, and then she just up and sold it out from under him. I guess she decided she needed big city money for the house, and he’s more hurt than mad with her but… still. Kinda awkward situation.”
Castiel frowned. The situation did seem a little unfair on this ‘Dean’ but, “Why would he need two houses anyway?”
“Oh, he doesn’t, really,” she shrugged. “I think he planned to gift it to his brother—not that Sam can’t afford his own place anyway, but that’s big brothers for you, isn’t it? Always crossing the line between looking out for you and sticking their nose far too deep into your business. It’s a fine line between care and control.”
Contemplating Gabriel’s well-meant but frequently irritating interference in his own life, Castiel could only nod in dumb agreement. The idea of permanently living next-door to Gabriel was vaguely horrifying. Gabriel’s constant demand for attention, for Castiel’s active participation in conversation, was exhausting. Although he’d be lost without his brother’s support, he had also felt inordinately relieved to drop him off at the airport.
So, hopefully, perhaps this ‘Sam’ felt equally relieved that Missouri’s house had been sold to a stranger.
“But, honestly,” the girl continued. “I think Dean just didn’t like the idea of someone like you buying it as a second-home or, even worse, as a Holiday Let. That’s what happens around here a lot. The permanent population of Heron’s Cove used to be twice as large, but most properties sell for more than the locals can afford these days and they end up as vacation homes. It’s killing the town. No offence.”
“None taken,” Castiel replied, which was a lie because he did find her comment ‘someone like you’ unnecessarily rude. “Because I have purchased it as my primary residence. I am not ‘vacationing’,” he said, using air quotes for emphasis.
“Oh,” she said, and then surprised him with a far more friendly smile. “That’s even better then. New blood. We definitely need more of that around here.”
Castiel was glad Gabriel had already left, or he would have probably jumped on that comment and made a series of Salem’s Lot vampire quips. “Tell your friend, Dean, that I will make a point of listing the property locally when I sell it on,” he said, feeling a display of magnanimity at this point would be politically wise. He suspected in a town of 411 residents, news traveled swiftly. Despite his intention to keep to himself as much as possible, it would be impossible to be an island here. A certain amount of polite, if distant, interaction would be necessary. Whilst he had no illusions of ever being perceived as anything other than the glowery, unfriendly man living in a remote property on the outskirts of the town, he wished to avoid conflict at all costs. Best not to have the natives storming the castle with pitchforks and torches. Better, he felt, to make it clear his stay would be finite so they might as well at least tolerate his presence in the meantime.
Surprisingly, the server seemed disappointed rather than relieved. “So you aren’t planning to stay?”
“I anticipate living here for perhaps two years. I doubt I will remain longer,” he advised her carefully.
“Two years? Oh, if you’re staying that long, I can’t see you’ll ever leave. We’ll grow on you,” she said, with a wink. “We’ll find the right tin opener to prise open your armor eventually. My name’s Charlie. We’ll end up being friends sooner or later. Trust me.”
“Thank you,” he said stiffly. “But I have no wish to acquire ‘friends’.”
Charlie grinned unrepentantly. “You’ll find Heron’s Cove is a place where you’ll acquire what you need, rather than what you think you want. It’s a thing. We don’t question it. Stay here long enough and I guarantee we’ll peel you like an overripe banana.”
Castiel felt slightly flustered, wondering whether he should make it clear he was gay—just in the highly improbable case this was her attempt to flirt with him—but then decided it was highly unlikely to be the case and, anyway, he might end up tarred and feathered if the locals had strong opinions on the subject of homosexuality. After the fiasco of coming out to his mother, he really didn’t feel up to facing any more overt bigotry yet, and Heron’s Cove didn’t exactly strike him as the type of place that held Pride parades.
So he just reached for his wallet, deciding to move the whole unwanted and unexpected conversation back to one of simple commerce.
“Oh, put that away,” Charlie demanded firmly. “Call it a house-warming gift. It’s a tradition around here.”
“Your employer, Jack, may not appreciate the gesture,” he pointed out carefully. Becoming a party to ‘shoplifting’ would not be a good start to his life in Heron’s Cove.
She smirked. “It’s my shop.” Then, as he frowned in confusion, she added, “There’s been a Jack’s Bakery in Heron’s Cove since the town was founded. Folks round here don’t do well with change and it saved me the cost of replacing the sign. So it’s win/win really.”
“I see,” he said, grateful he hadn’t mentioned his sexuality. If the townsfolk were so set in their ways they couldn’t handle a new sign on the Bakers, he doubted they were progressive in any more meaningful respects either.
“Thank you for the bread,” he said, as she moved to serve the tourists who had finally chosen what they wanted to buy. He used the distraction to slip out of the door. As he returned to his car he glanced at the only other store still open so late, ‘Dexter’s Really Useful Shop’, and decided to take a closer look at the plants racked outside its front door. Although he fully intended to find a proper nursery within driving distance so he could make a start on his garden, he was also conscious of the need to get at least a full outline of his next book emailed to his agent before Crowley made good on his threat to come visit and tie him to his desk. So a few of Dexter’s plants in pots would at least give him something to inspire him until he had a chance to act upon the urge to tackle the garden properly.
His desire to have a garden far exceeded his knowledge about the subject. Although he’d grown up in a house with a yard worthy of gracing a magazine, his mother had hired a landscaping company to produce and maintain the effect she required. Castiel’s primary childhood memories were of being forbidden to even walk on the grass. After college, finances and convenience had dictated he rented an apartment rather than a house and, despite his moderate publishing success having nicely padded his bank balance, he was still living in that same apartment when Amelia’s eventual ultimatum that he committed to marrying her had led to his current situation.
But Castiel had an innocent faith that planting a garden couldn’t be that difficult. After all, considering the riot of wild flowers in his new front yard despite the house having been empty for three months it was self-evident that plants clearly wanted to grow and it was only early June. Still plenty of time to get summer bedding planted.
Dexter’s had a riot of brightly coloured dahlias in pots and he could imagine their cheerful heads bobbing happily outside the study window. Maybe he’d just start with a few of those. But then it occurred to him he didn’t even have tools yet. He’d need a spade and a fork and a trowel and… well, probably more than that but those were the only tools that immediately came to mind. Although, since this was a hardware store, he imagined Dexter would be able to sell him whatever basics he needed until he could go to a proper plant nursery.
Maybe he should start by just going inside and asking for some advice. He’d hate to start his gardening adventure by murdering some innocent flowers with either neglect or over abundant enthusiasm
That decided, he entered the store… and froze.
One, one thousand; two, one thousand; three, one thousand; inhale, exhale.
Later he would say it was simply that he hadn’t known where to look first. If he had considered the plants outside to be a riot, he could only describe the inside of the store as being full-on tactical warfare. Dexter’s sold everything. Row upon row of shelves were stacked wall to ceiling. What didn’t fit on a shelf actually dangled from the ceiling. Things like dog beds, inflatable boats, plush toys, drying racks, saucepans, buckets and lampshades were all suspended from the beams overhead like insane party balloons for a Mad Hatter.
Good god, speaking of hats, there was a full selection—including sombreros, stetsons and even a deer-stalker—hanging in one shadowy corner. So, his fuddled brain told him, even Sherlock Holmes would be okay if he stumbled into Heron’s Cove in desperate need of new headwear.
Even the serving counter was stacked high with boxes full of items ranging from nails, nuts and washers to stationery items and candy bars. Behind the counter there were further shelves piled high with boxes full of a completely disordered mish-mash of items, the contents of which were marked with hand written notices in black sharpie pen, and a doorway that appeared to lead to a stockroom further crammed with miscellaneous everythings.
Sink plugs sat next to dog chews, batteries sat next to candles. Knitting wool was stacked next to rolls of tar paper. A box marked padlocks was next to a box stating ‘worming tablets’. There was an old coffee tin with a label on it marked Roof Tacks sitting alongside stacked tins of actual coffee. Beside them, there was a plastic crate marked Tennis Balls. There was a whole shelf filled with what looked like cold remedies, headache tablets and antacids, although in the middle of those items there was a cardboard box labelled Shotgun Cartridges.
The entire store looked like a bizarre combination of a Hoarder’s Den and Aladdin’s Cave. Although the items were all stacked relatively neatly and all clearly labelled, the disorganization made Castiel’s head throb at the assault on his near OCD-level need for precise order yet the writer in him marvelled at the visible truth that the store was crammed full of absolutely everything a customer might possibly consider ‘useful’ at some point or other.
Sure, he personally couldn’t imagine ever having a need for ‘Doll-house furniture’ or ‘Elbow-bends’ or ‘copper hose fixings’, let alone ‘birthday candles’ or ‘crochet hooks’, and did anyone still have a Betamax, let alone require a head-cleaning tape for it? But he could imagine that no matter what vague, weird, need someone might have, no one ever entered Dexter’s Really Useful Shop saying “I don’t suppose you have…” and left disappointed and empty handed.
None of the above, however, is why he froze.
He had a bizarre urge to say out loud “I don’t suppose you have a muscular male model type, with eyes the color of peridots and freckled skin and hair the color of toasted oats, who just happens to be interested in a boring, bespectacled also-male writer who rarely even remembers the day of the week let alone special days but desperately wants someone to find said writer’s inability to string two words together conversationally to be cute rather than mortifying.”
Instead, his inability to string more than two words together conversationally saved him that particular embarrassment and instead resulted in him just gaping like a beached fish at the Adonis behind the counter.
One, one thousand; two, one thousand; three, one thousand; inhale, exhale.
“Lookin’ for anything specific?” the green-eyed godlet asked, his voice husky, his teeth white and straight and as disgustingly perfect as the rest of him.
“You?” Castiel thought.
One, one thousand; two, one thousand; three, one thousand; inhale, exhale.
Don’t faint. Don’t pass out. You can do this,
One, one thousand; two, one thousand; three, one thousand; inhale, exhale.
He swallowed a couple of times, cleared his throat, then managed to mumble “Just looking.”
“Feel free to look around all you like. Just holler if you see anything you want.”
“You. I want you,” Castiel thought but, fortunately all that actually came out of his mouth was a grunt of acknowledgement.
One, one thousand; two, one thousand; three, one thousand; inhale, exhale.
“And if you don’t see what you want, just ask. Chances are we have it somewhere,” the man continued. “Never failed a customer yet.”
“I just bet you haven’t,” Castiel’s brain agreed.
His mouth finally managed to string its designated two words together. Unfortunately ‘Hello there’, ‘Thank you’, ‘Good Evening’, all good suitable candidates failed to make the grade. Neither, more fortunately, did ‘You're gorgeous’ or the even more mortifying ‘Marry me’.
It was probably Gabriel’s influence that the two words he did manage to blurt out were “Needful Things.”
The green-eyed man startled for a moment, but then laughed out loud, the skin around his eyes crinkling in a way that showed he was somewhat older than Castiel had originally assumed.
Which was just as well since he didn’t really want to be having these kinds of thoughts over an underaged twink.
“I actually wanted to rename the store to that,” green-eyes admitted. “But my brother talked me out of it. He said it would scare the tourists.”
“This is your shop?”
“Yup. I’m De—”
The door burst open and the tallest man Castiel had ever seen walked in, all hair and teeth, saying, “Eileen says she loves you but if you don’t close up right now she’s giving your dinner to the dog.”
Then he saw Castiel, stopped, blushed and said, “Sorry, didn’t realize you still had a customer.”
“I’m just leaving,” Castiel said, glad for the excuse to escape before he made a total fool of himself.
He backed out of the still open front door then turned and almost ran for his car, telling himself his hurry was due to remembering he had a cooler full of groceries that needed to be deposited in his freezer. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that ‘Dexter’ was not only the living personification of everything Castiel hadn’t previously realized he needed but was also apparently in a relationship with someone named Eileen.
Of course he was.
No-one who looked like Dexter could possibly have been left on the shelf.
Eileen had obviously used her own two words more appropriately than insulting the guy’s business by suggesting it was the inspiration for a Stephen King horror story.
Thank god he had no actual need to return to the town at all.
###