Their house is small, in a terrible location, and it's seen better days. The only way they'd ever be able to buy their own home was to buy a fixer-upper so they spend their evenings after work prying old cupboards off the walls and ripping up old carpets. They pay professionals for the important stuff like the gas and electric but for everything else they do it themselves or rope in their friends.

It takes weeks of them giving over their nights and weekends to the project but they're finally at the decorating stage and that's a task they leave for themselves. They paint the walls in shades of magnolia and white, colours that can match with anything because they have no intention of going through all this again anytime in the next decade.

Iris stands back to admire her work and calls for Castiel. "Can you help me take the masking tape off the window frame? I can't reach the top."

Castiel, with the advantage of height, reaches straight up and tears it right off. "Where would you be without me?" He laughs, leaning against the wall and handing her the tape.

"Cas, the paint isn't dry," she says, pulling him swiftly away only to find streaks and indentations on the freshly painted wall.

Castiel cranes his head back and notes the splotches of cream on the back of his t-shirt. "Don't worry about it, there are plaster stains on the front anyway."

"Forget your shirt, look at my wall," Iris picks up her paintbrush and gestures with it, specks of paint flying towards Castiel.

"Our wall" Castiel begins, bending down towards the paint tray and retrieving a second brush from within the paint can. He flicks it at Iris and a large glob of paint lands on her cheek. "There, we're even."

"Castiel," she shrieks, wiping her face clean with the base of her t-shirt. "I splashed you on accident, yours was on purpose."

"What are you going to do about it?" He says, purely to rile her up.

Iris pauses a second but a retort doesn't come to her. Instead, the paintbrush weighs heavy in her hand.

"This," she says, as she reaches out and paints an entire stroke of white down his shirt. Knowing he'll escalate it, she takes off running but stumbles on the sheet covering the floor and lands in a heap in a fit of laughter.

Lying there she's easy prey for Castiel. He rewets his brush in the tin and makes his way over to her spot on the floor, stoops down, and paints a streak down her nose. "We're even. Call it quits."

"I quit," Still giggling, she tries to get up but Castiel puts a hand on hers, urging her to stay. "I need to fix that streak on the wall before it dries."

"Stay," he says, pulling her into an embrace and laying a kiss on her paint-covered forehead.

She stays, looking up at him with a smile on her lips. "I can't wait to make a home with you."