Chapter Text
The realtor is waiting on the front porch when Castiel pulls up in his rental car, her smile as tight as her grip on the folders of paperwork clutched to her chest. The windy spring day tosses the budding branches of a sprawling maple tree in the yard, but Castiel suspects she’s not bracing in the wind. Her tension probably has more to do with the fact that he’d called just yesterday to inform her that he’d be purchasing the property, at the asking price, sight unseen. Not a typical transaction, especially not in this part of the country.
As Castiel steps from the car and his black leather Cole Haans sink into the mud of Kansas soil for the first time, he is very conscious that nothing about him is typical here, and not only because he’s rumpled from twenty hours on the road.
“Mr. Novak!” the realtor chirps, hand extended, as he climbs the porch steps. “I’m Ava Wilson. We spoke on the phone,” she explains unnecessarily.
He greets her with a nod and solemn hello. She shuffles the folders from one arm to the other and digs into her pocket to pull out a house key.
“Would you like to see inside? I could give you a quick tour. You know, just to be sure. The house, it’s, um—it’s a special property, Mr. Novak. You really should see it first. Really.” Her eyes widen and voice drops as she insists, but then seems to remember herself. “Just to know what you’re getting into!” she adds lightly, but her laugh is fluttery.
Castiel cocks his head, appraising her for a moment the way he considers—considered—complex risk scenarios and pushy trading-desk jocks. His coworkers had several jokes about his stare and its unsettling effect. Ava fidgets under it too. She’s omitting something, but Castiel can’t find it in himself to be suspicious. He should be.
Thirty-six hours ago he was a senior risk management analyst at Angelus, one of the largest investment banking firms in the country. He should be wary that this farmhouse and the not-insignificant parcel of land it sits on are selling at a cost below even the average value for the rural Midwest. It’s not a bargain, it’s a steal and Castiel should want to know why; should examine the wiring and plumbing and potential for termites. He should research the previous owners, he should ask questions about the costs of heating in the winter. But asking questions and examining data and weighing consequences—that’s not his job anymore.
He’d tried to warn them—tried to save them—and they punished him for it. They took his office, his company phone, his building access card. They gave him a severance and escorted him out of the building. And on that last elevator ride, falling fast as the floors ticked by, stood between the two security guards that held his elbows while he held the box of his personal belongings, Castiel did the calculation and knew he couldn’t stay in the city. They weren’t just taking his livelihood, they were taking his home. He’d never find another job on Wall Street—the black mark for getting kicked out of Angelus was the permanent kind—and he wouldn’t keep his loft or lifestyle long without one. The only life he knew how to live was effectively over. His only option was to start a new one, preferably somewhere far, far away.
So he’d found a bar. He’d never been a drinker and he never patronized the kind of bars with sticky floors and decor by Budweiser on wood paneled walls, but he found a bar. He plunked his half-full box on the stool beside him and ordered whiskey shots until he started to feel that slow creep of apathy. Then he teetered to the back of the empty establishment, passed the pool tables, picked up a dart from the cabinet, and aimed it at the map of the United States tacked between the restroom doors. When it landed somewhere in middle America, Castiel raised his fists in the air in triumph, laughing at his improbable bullseye. The bartender didn’t think the extra hole in his wall was quite as funny though, and for the second time that day Castiel was escorted from a building, but not before he got a glimpse of where the dart had landed: northeast Kansas.
Ava doesn’t wait for him to answer. She opens the wooden screen storm door and props it with an elbow. When Castiel reaches out to hold it for her, she startles, hand to her heart. “Oh! Oh, it’s you, Mr. Novak. I mean, thank you, Mr. Novak.”
She resumes fitting the key to the lock and gives a quick knock as she opens the door, calling into the house, “Hello, anyone home?” and turning back to Castiel with another tittering laugh. He frowns. She clears her throat and moves further inside the house.
She stations herself on the left side of the entryway, and Castiel bypasses her to examine the living room.
“So, the house was built in the early nineteen-hundreds,” begins Ava’s spiel. Castiel only half listens.
A bay window with a deep ledge is the focal point of the northwest corner of the large room, sure to catch the evening light. At the moment, it barely passes through the panes, gray as they are with years of field dust and spattered storm remnants stuck to the outside. There’s another large window on the north wall, but the room remains dim, as though it’s too tired to wake up.
The realty website had said the house was partially furnished, but he hadn’t expected to find antiques. There’s a freestanding console cabinet with the futuristic lines of ’40s-era design in the opposite corner from the door that he suspects might be hiding a radio and maybe a turntable.
“It has four bedrooms, one full bath upstairs and a half bath downstairs,” Ava continues, glancing at her notes. “The main floor here, as you can see, also consists of a large living room, a dining area, and a really spectacular farm kitchen around the corner there.” All the fixtures appear original—the glass door knobs with brass plates on the beveled doors and the wood moldings throughout are particularly lovely. “Considering it hasn’t been occupied for quite a while, it’s in remarkable condition. Really well cared for. Or, preserved, I mean.” She clears her throat again. “Anyway, the plumbing is serviceable. Electricity is, um, sporadic?”
Castiel runs a hand over the wooden bannister of the staircase, and mounts the first step, peering up. Light filters from the open bathroom door over the dust in the hall. Some of the stairs look damaged. There are a few spindles missing from the railing.
“There’s a clawfoot tub up there!” Ava pipes up, bending to the side in an attempt to follow Castiel with her voice. “Cast iron!” Castiel nods and backs off the stairs.
He continues along the hall created by the stairwell wall, toward a door that leads into the kitchen. “Cast-iron sink in there, too!” Ava calls and, yes, Castiel sees it, a large farmhouse sink with two deep wells.
The kitchen’s cherry woodwork is dusty but thankfully unpainted and the cupboard doors are windowed. They’re dirty but only a few are broken. At the end of the cabinets, there’s a sturdy door with a window that leads outside, to a wide-open backyard that bleeds into neighboring fields and distant horizon. Castiel’s not a great judge of distance, but the nearest dot of white indicating another farmhouse seems miles off.
On the wall opposite the countertop and cabinets, there’s an entryway leading into the dining room, which contains another surprise antique—a massive old china hutch. The dining room walls are covered in faded, peeling wallpaper that will have to go. Another door at the front end of the room, to the right of the windows, leads him back into the main entryway.
Ava is still at her post by the door. “I hope you like it.” Her eyes dart around nervously.
He does like it, actually, but that’s beside the point. “I’ve already agreed to purchase it.”
“Oh, well, yes. But you haven’t changed your mind, right? I mean, not that there’s a reason you might have.”
Castiel narrows his eyes, studying Ava as she fidgets. His former coworkers would have eaten her alive. He reaches into his overcoat’s breast pocket for his checkbook.
“This is the price we agreed on,” he states as he scratches out the check. He rips it from the book and holds it out to Ava. “I assume you have some paperwork for me to sign.”
Ava’s eyes are huge. She gapes a little at the check before accepting it. “That’s— So, the whole sum upfront, then?”
Castiel shuffles his checkbook back into his pocket. He’d like to be done now. It was a very long drive and he has yet to order a mattress and bedstead for delivery. “Unless that’s a problem?”
“No!” Ava shakes her head. “No problem! I— Yes, I have paperwork for you,” she wrestles with her folders for a second then stops. “Um, maybe we could go outside to finish up?”
He gestures at the door and Ava’s face floods with relief.
He signs the forms where Ava’s marked X’s, using the trunk of her car as a desk while she chatters about the charms of rural living. She assures him the county road commission plows his road in the winter, reports that the U.S. mail delivers right up to the porch, and suggests his property would support a great garden. Castiel imagines his hands covered in the same soil that’s on his shoes and suppresses a smile. He’s never played in a sandbox let alone dug in the dirt to grow his own food. “I think there’s plenty of work to be done inside the house first,” he says wryly, but as gently as he can.
She flushes pink. “Oh, you’re right. Of course.”
Castiel skims the last page of the deed of sale before signing each copy. “Bottom copy is mine?” he asks, even as he tugs it out of the stack.
Ava nods absently and accepts her folders and paperwork back, bottom lip pinned in her teeth.
Already thinking about his next moves—mattress delivery, grocery store, purchase more durable shoes—Castiel tucks his folded deed into his breast pocket and puts his best manners back on. “Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Wilson. I’m very happy we could come to an arrangement.” He smiles at her and extends his hand.
She takes it and shakes weakly, still distracted, but when he tries to release her, she squeezes tight, not allowing him to let go.
“Mr. Novak? It’s just—” She looks up at the house. “Good luck. With your work inside, I mean. Just, good luck.”
She hadn’t said everything she wanted to, Castiel senses, but he doesn’t push. It’s clear enough she’s happy to be free of the property, and he knows he has a lot of work ahead. Never mind gardening, he’d never (well, hardly ever) picked up a hammer, let alone refurbished a house. He’ll need all the luck he’s offered.
He thanks her and she releases his hand, eyes bright with unspoken worry. The next moment she’s wiped it away, however, and she dangles the keys from her thumb and forefinger with a smile before dropping them into his palm. He smiles back and gives a cursory half salute as she climbs into her car.
Even the tail lights of Ava’s Honda seem relieved as she pulls away.
Castiel looks at the keys in his hand then up at his new home. He tries to imagine it on a sunnier day, when the windows don’t look so dark and the porch is repainted. It’s a distant vision. For now they’re both the same, he and the house. Starting from the same place together—mostly empty and a little bit broken.