Chapter Text
Prologue
Funny how you can live in a neighborhood and not know your neighbors, the people who share the same roads, the same airspace, the same sewers and trees and hornet problems because of too many pools in the area. Hell, sometimes you don't even know the names of the streets you walk or drive by every day, never mind the people living in the houses that dot them. All of the little details, the minutiae of life, get lost in the day to day hubbub of this thing called living. But Castiel knows a few things. Just enough.
There's the White Hairs Club two streets down, at the green house on the corner. In nice weather, three women and a man sit outside in folding lawn chairs and speak Canadian French, which apparently is different than Parisian French. There used to be two men, but not anymore.
On that same street, there's a guy he's never seen who watches the Red Sox loudly with his windows open. He whoops with joy when they’re winning and calls them assholes when they're losing. He displays a “Boston Red Sox - 2013 World Series Champions” frame around the license plate of his Dodge Ram, even though the win was several years ago. The truck advertises his business on its doors and tailgate. There’s a van next to it that advertises the same, and a sedan that has no advertisement.
On his street, three houses away, there's the couple he calls Captain Jerkface and Mrs. Prissy. They both drive luxury cars and look like they can afford to live elsewhere but don't. He looks pretentious and condescending. She looks haughty and aloof and isn’t around much. She probably doesn't know that he's busy boning some blond that looks like a newer model of her while she’s away. Or maybe she does.
Across the street live an elderly, mostly homebound couple he rarely sees. Next to them is a woman he knows as Charlie Bradbury. He assumes she is Charlie, anyway. He's received her mail in his mailbox before and he returned it to hers. She seems to be the only person who lives there. There is only one vehicle, anyway, although there are visitors from morning to evening.
Next door to him there's a man who complains constantly about leaves falling on his driveway from the only tree on the property that Castiel calls home. Last winter, the man pushed snow into his yard on purpose.
On the other side of him, there's a woman and a man who drive sensible cars and seem reasonable and pleasant. They once introduced themselves as Jess and Sam and he has no reason yet to doubt them. They have a dog named Sully. They wave at him when they're out at the same time as him, and he waves back. Once in a while there's an old black car in their driveway. For the past week, it's been there every day.
He lives his life at the same time as these people, who live their lives with as much (or probably less) notice of him as he has of them. His life isn't perfect, but he is alive. He is reasonably content, he thinks.
Until he meets the man with the old black car.