Work Text:
For Castiel, art was not a hobby. To call it such would be to degrade it, to make it seem less raw, less meant, less personal. It would imply that it was something he did for fun, not something that needed to be released, needed to find a way out of his mortal body.
It was the only way to process some of his thoughts- when he was an angel, when he was whole, everything made such sense, but now he was just lost, adrift, unanchored, his thoughts would float through his mind and when he tried to grasp them they would vanish, leaving him confused and lost with no idea what had happened, a sense of longing for something out of reach.
The pen sketches in the corners of notebooks, vague shapes, harsh lines, helped for a while. They were more tangible than his head was, easier to reach, easier to understand. It was even simpler with colour- a set of pencils, picked up in some off-the-map service station using whatever change he found in the depths of his pockets. A new notebook, with no lines in, a gift from Sam for no discernible reason.
He could present his thoughts on the page. There were no concrete images, only enigmas, lines representing concepts that he could not put into mortal words. There was no logic to his creations, almost no thought as he absentmindedly tried to understand his own head.
It used to be so much easier.
Sam liked to think he was observant. It was rather necessary, in his line of work, and though admittedly he didn’t always see everything, he still knew he was rather good at seeing the little things that oftentimes others would miss.
He could tell that there was something wrong with Cas. The way that his case research notes would oftentimes be unintelligible lines and swirls, in no known language, and how, once he had made these notes, he would stare at them for long stretches of time as if they held the answer to the entirety of the mass of problems in the world. But then, having looked at these scribbles for some time, he would glance away, looking so confused Sam was often surprised he still remembered where he was.
There were other times he was concerned. Cas would move to say something, looking like the information he wished to share was vital, before aborting his plans to speak and frowning into the middle distance instead, almost fully spaced out of the world around him.
He bought him a notebook, to go with the coloured pencils that Cas had bought almost secretly a few hunts ago.
He didn’t know why he hadn’t just asked for one.
It was on a dull and hazy spring evening that Castiel made a discovery. He was cleaning out one of the lower level storage rooms- a few of them had been checked for curses by Rowena a few weeks ago, and now only required organising. He had taken a few out-of-date texts to search through for any useful information and moved a few weapons over to the weapons room- it seemed that the Men of Letters had so many weapons that they just ended up everywhere.
In one of the drawers was a set of paints. Somehow, they weren’t solid- probably some form of stasis charm, by the look of the box. There were only a few colours: the generic primaries, a bright white and an inky black, an almost shiny, luminescent purple and a thin, clear looking tube with no obvious labelling.
An obvious manoeuvre would have been to research the stasis spell on the box and file the paints away along with many of the other miscellaneous items that did not seem to have a useful purpose.
Castiel brushed his hand along the paints and felt the same ringing connection as he did with his pencils. The paints called to him- they wanted him to use them, to create a bridge between his fractured thoughts and the malleable world.
He gave up on his organising task and cradled the box under his arm, making his way back towards his room. He had his notebook in the drawer next to his bed- but it did not seem like enough. The pages were almost full, and he didn’t have a paintbrush, all he had were the paints and his mind, in a room that was so much more empty than his head even though it was so much bigger how could so many thoughts be in his head where were they going why could they not stay still for just a moment so he could try and understand them!
Letting out an almost silent huff of frustration, Cas fell back against his bed, lying on the too-soft and too-warm blankets and staring up at the blank expanse of ceiling. Closing his eyes, he tried to gather his thoughts once again, but when he opened his eyes, they escaped his concentration, evading his simple and mortal mind, leaving his head almost as blank as the walls.
Cas sat up quickly, and idea forming in his head that he could grasp very easily. Oh. That would work…
Sam had not seen Cas at all since he had cleared out the lower-level storage. He had taken a coffee to his door and left it outside when a knock only got him a vague noise as a response. Not taking it too personally, he assumed that Cas was tired and simply could not be bothered to converse with him at the current time. Unfortunately, it was lunchtime the day after, and he was not too happy with his friend missing lunch as well as breakfast- it would not do for his health. Regular meals were rather important.
When he knocked on his door this time, he heard a rather frenzied scrambling instead of any more formal ‘go away’ or ‘come in’. That was unusual- Cas seemed to have a freaky awareness of when people were in the hallway outside his room- maybe some sort of super-hearing left over from when he was an angel?
When the door opened, only a small few inches of the room were in view. Cas peeked around the corner of the door almost sheepishly, making a very strange expression that Sam was almost certain he had not seen before.
His face was also covered in paint.
“Hello, Sam.”
It was such an inane comment to such an absurd sight that he had to burst out in a bark of laughter. Cas scowled from the doorway, but the corner of his mouth was curled up in a hint of a smile.
“Hello to you too, Cas.” Sam grinned. “So… been up to much?” He followed up his statement with a point to the marks on his friends’ face, which were mostly a deep, metallic purple and an almost clear paint that shined almost blindingly when Cas leant down to rub at his cheek.
It was at this moment that Sam realised that Castiel had almost as much paint on his hands as he imagined you would find in an art gallery. He was absolutely coated in the stuff.
Cas seemed to decide that Sam was going to be allowed in his room, and opened the door fully, gesturing Sam to step inside. Almost as soon as he entered, he let out a gasp of shock. Cas closed the door behind him, and stood wringing his hands, almost leaning against the door. He looked a little nervous, a bit like he did when he thought a hunt was slightly too dangerous for one of them to handle.
“So… do you like it? I can clean it all up if it makes the room too dirty, I’m sorry that I did not ask in advance, but it was just… calling to me.”
The room was absolutely covered in paint. The walls, the ceiling, even the corners and edges of the furniture at the edges of the room. It reminded Sam of the little scribbles in Castiel’s notebook, but more connected. The closet comparison he could think of in the moment was a constellation, but he also can see the makings of a map in the strokes of paint, the lines and swirls overlapping and stopping abruptly yet never seeming to end, making an abstract image that makes no sense while at the same time seeming like a simple piece of existence, unexplainable and uncontainable.
“Cas, this is… beautiful.” He leans up to look at the ceiling, and as he changes his viewing angle, he can see a silvery, sparkling lining on top of some of the paints, connecting some of the seemingly distant areas of paint. “I’ve… Cas, of course you can paint your room. You can do what you want with it- it is your room. Oh, we have not taken you out to buy new furniture yet! I cannot believe we forgot Cas I am so sorry it just completely slipped my mind we should pick a da- “
“Sam. Calm down, it isn’t a problem. I like my furniture. This was not even to decorate my room- it looked fine before. It is just… trying to see things is different, as a human. Less, abstract? If that makes sense. It is much more… methodical. I just needed to control my thoughts. They were unreachable to me.” He sighs, a content noise. “I’ve done it, though.”
Sam reaches over to Cas and puts his arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. “Cas, this is lovely. But next time you have a problem, please come to me or Dean? We might not be able to help, but we will always at least be able to listen. Don’t think you have to deal with everything on your own.”
As Cas smiled up at him, eyes brimming with undisclosed emotion, Sam was quite sure that he would listen to his advice.