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The way the porch floorboards were squeaking announced to Cas that his neighbor was at the door well before Dean actually knocked.
...Though Dean didn't knock, and didn't knock.
It was odd enough that he might knock. He had a key, the same way Cas had one for Dean's cabin next door. Keys were usually moot anyway. They were the only two people living on this end of an indifferently developed street bordered by and dotted with copses of trees that had been allowed to stretch and grow as much as they wanted. Plus, it was the rare evening that Cas wasn't already at Dean's cabin, but the faculty meeting had run later than expected.
Cas peeked out the front window.
Dean was bouncing on the balls of his feet and rubbing his hands together. The wind must have turned chilly if his cheeks were chapped a bit pink. He kept reaching for the doorknob but also pulling back his hand. He was muttering something and shaking his head, a stern expression on his face.
Cas opened the door slowly, so as not to spook him.
Dean flinched, recovered, and waved.
"Hello, Dean," Cas said. He held the door open. "Would you like to come in?"
The temperature on the porch was not as cold as he'd been expecting. The evening would be cooler soon with the sun setting in less than an hour.
"Ah, no," Dean said. He tried to smile. "Hey, Cas."
The second time, the smile, though small, reached his eyes.
Cas smiled back. It was exceptionally easy to smile at Dean, a fact that sometimes took Cas by surprise. He'd never had a best friend before; actually, he doubted Dean had either, save his brother, Sam, who Castiel had met many times and liked a great deal. Sam had a law career that seemed frustrating and stressful and a hair maintenance routine that just seemed stressful.
Dean had a job that he enjoyed as a mechanic and a hobby as a garbage picker -- "an independent second-hand collectibles reclamation expert in the freecycling community" -- that, as far as Cas could tell, almost exclusively consisted of Dean pinching what Cas had eighty-sixed to his own curb, i.e. a steady supply of random things the previous cottage owner had hoarded and a few things Cas should never have packed up and brought with him in the first place.
This included but was not limited to a square kitchen table, Depression era dishes, linens, paperbacks, an old travel trunk filled with used notebooks and junk mail, a lamp made from an empty whiskey bottle, a wooden ironing board, and three flannel shirts, one of which Dean was wearing at the moment. The dark red plaid made his eyes seem greener than usual.
Complementary colors, Cas thought, and ordered himself to stop thinking about Dean's eyes. Best friend, emphasis on friend.
He'd long ago resigned himself to being in love with his best friend in secret. Didn't mean he had to be a weirdo about it.
He should say something. "How are you today?"
"AreYouDoingAnythingForDinnerTonight?" Dean said, or rather launched at him, without any spaces between the words.
Cas took a chance that his honest answer was going to help solve the mystery of whatever was up with Dean. "I was going to eat a peanut butter sandwich."
Dean visibly took a deep breath and let it out like he was counting to twenty in his head. "Would you like some homemade vegetable soup instead?" he asked at a normal pace.
"That sounds very nice," Cas said, because it did. Dean made excellent soup. "Thank you for the offer." He watched him fidget with the door latch. "Your house or mine?"
"Mine," Dean said, a little too fast. He cleared his throat. "It's ready now if you wanna come on over."
"Yes," Cas said. He stepped out and closed the door behind him.
They'd worn a path between the shared side yard from his front door to Dean's after their first six months as neighbors. Dean hiked along like he was struggling to keep from moving at the speed of light, and Cas hustled to meet his stride.
Cas wasn't exactly worried; he wasn't exactly not worried either. The big space that served as kitchen and den seemed the same at a cursory glance: well-worn and comfortable, with many of the objects Cas had discarded turned into admirable treasures on display. Dean had painted the square table a rich, glossy emerald green. The paler green glass dishes sat on a shelf above the sink. Some of the books served as a plant stand for a small pot of pothos that trailed its vines across a windowsill in one direction and down to the floor in another.
Cas's castoffs constituted a mere fraction of the things he liked about this space. Photos pinned to a fabric-covered corkboard: teenaged Dean (sarcastic) and Sam (gawky); friends like Charlie, who was upside down on a swingset, hair blazing; their father faraway by a blue-streaked lake; their mother in her perpetual youth holding a swaddled infant Sam while Dean hid his face in her shoulder.
(Cas couldn't quite look directly at four-year-old Dean. It made his heart hurt.)
One window was was lined with a collection of small Batmans alternating with a collection of small Supermans. The brown couch contained the right amount of squish and blankets, to best facilitate movie marathons and naps. Cas had given Dean the two Led Zeppelin pillows in the pleather recliner as Christmas gifts. Dean had taught Cas how to make s'mores in the brick fireplace. Sam had taken the photo on the mantle of Cas and Dean sitting on the rock wall that ran along the yards in front of their respective houses; they were both holding freshly carved jack o'lanterns -- trick o' treaters to arrive within an hour -- and all four faces were grinning.
None of the stuff was even one-one hundredth as interesting or important as its owner. Dean was good, bone deep good. Disastrous before caffeine and argumentative about muscle cars. Willing to die for his brother, or let him play Celine Dion in his house once a year, for three minutes. Unrepentant about cranking Sabbath to decibels that would rival jet engines. Knew way too much about knives to not have a police record somewhere.
Had once sat beside Cas on the squishy couch and listened to Cas talk, and cry, for four or five hours without as much as getting up for a second bottle of beer. At the end, when Cas was worn down half numb with grief, Dean had said, with more gentleness than Cas could hardly bear at the time, "You deserve to be loved so much better than your family was capable of, man," and it had saved Cas's life.
This room was Cas's favorite room in the whole world because it usually contained his favorite person in the whole world.
Aside from Dean acting a little off, the cabin didn't seem any different than it always did.
The angel wings appeared at the corner of his eye, as if materializing from nothing.
He couldn't prevent his own loud gasp; the splashing and clanging noises made when Dean subsequently dropped the soup ladle into the dutch oven on the stove were so distinct and perfect they seemed to Cas like sound effects in a movie.
As Cas crept closer to the large framed sketch on the wall opposite the stove, Dean stood backed against the counter and wrung his hands. "I should explain the artwork, huh."
"Where," Cas said, his voice suddenly raw as steel wool. "Where did you find it?"
"You remember tossing out a suitcase a couple of months ago?" Dean sounded hesitant.
Cas turned to him. "Vaguely. My old Samsonite with the crack in its case."
Dean nodded. "I grabbed it to see if there was anything that could be scrapped."
"And it was rolled up inside," Cas guessed.
"Yeah. Listen."
"Dean--"
"No, listen, I didn't think--"
"Dean, it's okay--"
"I should've just brought it back to you," Dean said.
Cas saw that Dean was mad at himself, or maybe embarrassed, or both, or something else Cas couldn't quite suss out.
"You had it framed?" Cas asked.
Dean glanced up. "I made the frame."
Cas went back to the sketch. This time, he noticed the delicate leaves carved into the frame, the acorns at the corners like little bells. The angel wings, voluminous and vulturous, that he'd sketched in charcoal nearly twenty years before stretched out almost to the edges of the frame. Dean didn't even know Cas had sat for three hours sketching those wings in a towering oak so far at the back of his family's property no-one could see him, or hurt him.
Cas would never be a famous artist, and he’d made peace with that. He was still glad the angel wings hadn’t been lost forever.
"Dean," Cas said, walking back to touch his hand, "the frame is beautiful. I would've never thought-- Well, I'd forgotten I even still had the sketch."
"I really should've-- You should take it back."
Cas paused. "I will if you don't want it."
Dean quickly said, "I want it. I mean. If you don't mind. I can pay you for--"
"Not necessary." Cas captured Dean's hand and squeezed hard. "You filched it from the curb fair and square."
Dean let out a shaky laugh. "I thought. The drawing is, the wings, they're wonderful."
Warmth thick as sorghum molasses poured into Cas's stomach.
"And you made them," Dean said. "And. I have all these things in my house that were yours in one way or another, yet nothing you'd drawn and as soon as I put it on the wall, I realized-- I don't know." He stared as if Cas were too important to look away from. "All of it, all the stuff, it's still yours. 'Cause you're here all the time. 'Cause I want you here all the time."
He threaded his fingers through Cas's.
Cas couldn't speak. He absolutely could not speak. He knew Dean could tell: Dean gathered him up and held him, and let Cas hold him too.
They stood like that in the kitchen of their home for several minutes, and then they led each other to bed.