Life is like a Hallmark movie

House call

Castiel had found three community bulletin boards to place the flyers on at various places on the main street of the town, as well as in his brother's shop. He was disappointed that the people he asked in the few stores open this early, knew nothing. Suffice to say one was new to this town, one was an extremely surly teenager who was doing community service picking up garbage for some legal infraction and the third was either very hard of hearing or possibly had a comprehension issue, because they just mumbled, nodded, took a handful of flyers and placed them on the counter. Gabriel said he liked the quaint informality of the small town. Castiel thought it was a bit more quirky and less quaint.

He tossed the extra flyers on the passenger seat as he squeezed into the driver's seat with the two boxes of pastries from Gabriel, which he then set down on the console. He took out his phone to pull up the directions to the Winchester place. He had not ventured that far away from the town since his arrival, but it was down the road from his place, so it shouldn't be difficult to find.

Castiel shoved the two boxes of pastries and donuts over to the passenger seat and headed back towards the road that led to his new home. As he came near the driveway to his place, he sat forward and craned his neck to see if the children were outside playing with the dog. All he caught a glimpse of as he drove past was a ball sailing across the yard and the dog in hot pursuit.

He continued around the long curve of the road until it straightened out. He drove a short distance until another curve began arcing in the opposite direction. After several minutes he saw the reflective gate markers on his right and slowly turned in, checking the name on the mailbox.

"D. Winchester. Yep," he sighed. He really hoped Mr. Winchester was feeling less hostile and sullen now that he was home.

Castiel saw the good-sized farmhouse come into view as his car got to the crest of a very small hill. The multi-gabled, very traditional farmhouse had an overall T-shape. Castiel guessed that the smaller section at the top of the "T" was the house that had formerly occupied the land by his barn home. The larger section of what was likely the original two story house on this land, had an, at least, metal roofed, two-sided wrap around porch from what he could see, and a large chimney sticking up at one end of the roof. The smaller section had a chimney of the same brickwork which led him to surmise that the chimneys were new or newly rebuilt.

He pulled up and stopped the car at the curved driveway section in front of the large porch. Getting out, he took in the rest of the property in his view. There was a wide swath of concrete drive leading to the barn-like garage to one side of the house and then a gravel road leading away off the side of the garage. Much further back he could see the peak of the roof of an actual barn and a few outbuildings. Looking back toward the gate entrance, he really couldn't see anything because of the low hill, but he remembered the fence was lined with small trees and just mostly a large dirt and gravel-covered, bare spot to one side.

Closing his door, he walked around to the passenger side and retrieved a box of pastries and donuts. He closed the door, then turned back to grab a few of the invitation announcements for Gabriel's Sweet Spot. He was not on official hospital clinic business, and Mr. Winchester had expressed a keen interest in going to the shop, so Castiel did not feel it was too inappropriate for him to pass some of them to his patient. He closed the car door again, and then stood thinking about it for a few seconds. It did make him a bit anxious, he opened the car door again. He almost second thought it and put them back in the car, but mustered his courage and slammed the door again.

Standing upright, shoulders back, he took a deep breath, steeling himself against his doubt as well as the possible inhospitable mood he might encounter from Mr. Winchester. He shoved the invitations into his jacket pocket, turned around, and began to ascend the steps.