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Castiel’s goal for today was Blue.
Hydrangea Blue, if he was being specific - and unfortunately, being specific was sort of the whole point of this exercise.
Castiel huffed out a breath as he passed another mile marker on the trail and still had yet to catch a glimpse of the elusive flower that Anna had promised could be seen from somewhere along the path - she just couldn’t remember precisely where.
He glanced down at the empty, black ink on his wrist as he walked and tried to ignore the phantom hunger on its behalf - it, and the other thirteen tattoos on his person. He’d emptied at least most of his Color before starting his hike in anticipation of the sheer volume of Blue that had been promised, but after a couple hours of nothing, he was beginning to regret that decision.
Another mile marker passed, and Castiel stopped to pull out his phone and double-check his texts. No service this far into the mountains, of course, but he could still reread Anna’s ramblings.
He skimmed over the message again, and continued onward.
Castiel was tired of being patient, but it seemed that patience was not tired of Castiel.
“ Definitely not further than the fifth mile marker,” Castiel muttered under his breath, nearly tripping over a tree root. “ Don’t worry - they’re pretty much everywhere you look.”
He glared at the canvas of greens and browns that surrounded him.
No Blue.
Another mile marker came and went, and finally, finally , a cluster of beautiful blue flowers could be seen off the trail.
“Thank god,” Castiel said to a nearby tree and stepped off the path and into the forest towards the hydrangeas, running a hand over the eye on his wrist in anticipation.
If this didn’t work… well. Castiel was pretty much out of ideas at this point.
The flowers were even more beautiful up close; the soft violet-blue on the petals was a Color Castiel had never tried to use before - and if he was being honest, he was a little skeptical that it would even work. It was definitely Blue, but if Anna hadn’t personally vouched that it was the only Blue that worked impeccably well for her, he probably would never have attempted to try and cast with it.
Castiel reached out and gently touched a petal, caressing it lightly as he tilted his head to the side, and began to sap away the Color.
The flower, once a beautiful shade, quickly drained into a pure white as the empty ink on Castiel’s wrist started to fill with Blue.
For the first time that day, Castiel smiled.
He easily made his way through most of the hydrangeas in the immediate vicinity, filling up the all-seeing eye on his right wrist, the star symbol on his left, most of the tree on his ribcage. It felt like he’d sponged away a lot more Color than he was getting a payoff for, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it was due to the natural essence of the pigment he was taking. The acrylic paints he usually drained from seemed to fill up his tattoos a lot faster.
So far, he wasn’t loving Anna’s suggestion.
Castiel reached for the last bundle of petals and cursed as he slipped on a jutting rock he hadn’t seen - and then heard a noise of surprise.
“Hello?”
Castiel froze, craning his neck as he listened to make sure his ears weren’t playing tricks on him in the middle of a forest where all sorts of noises happened.
“... hello?” Castiel called out in response.
“Hey! Help! Help me!”
Castiel’s eyebrows shot up, and he started stumbling his way through the brush in the direction the voice had come from. Maybe it was nothing serious, but the adrenaline that was starting to kick in was convincing him otherwise.
“Hello!” Castiel yelled as he continued to wander forward, scanning his eyes for any sign of someone in distress. “Where are you?”
He pushed aside branches and brush, only stopping when - right in the middle of the greenery overlooking a natural outlook into a valley - he found himself looking at a stark white art easel sprawled on the ground.
“Hello?” he called again, stepping forward cautiously. “Is anyone here?”
“Down here!”
Castiel blinked, and if he hadn’t heard a voice coming from that direction, he might have missed the sudden incline that the terrain shifted into. As soon as he saw it, however, he couldn’t believe he’d almost missed it.
Steep, sheer, and definitely dangerous.
Castiel peered over the edge, and swallowed at the sight of a man sprawled at the bottom of the ravine, leg twisted awkwardly and half-trapped under a large fallen and half-rotted tree.
“Are you alright?” Castiel asked, quickly scanning for any safe way down the ravine, but it looked like the only fast way would be the same way the man had gone - and that wasn’t really an option for him.
“Fucking swell,” the man said, but Castiel could see his painful grimace. “Thinkin’ about breakdancing soon. Wanna join?”
Castiel frowned at the sarcasm, but recognized that maybe it was just how this man reacted to shock.
He glanced down at the Blue that had settled into the ink on his arms, and back to the bottom of the ravine.
It was lucky that he had found the Blue at all - now he just hoped that it would work the way Anna claimed it had for her.
His frown deepened as he glanced back down at the bottom of the steep incline again, took a breath, and opened his palms as he expended the Blue.
And, in an instant, he was at the bottom of the ravine.
“How badly are you hurt?” Castiel amended his previous question as soon as he appeared next to the injured man, already inspecting the size of the log that was pinning him to the ground.
“ Holy fucking shit -”
The man recoiled at Castiel’s sudden appearance, and Castiel regretted that he hadn’t warned him in advance when his face contorted in pain at his own movements.
“Sorry,” Castiel murmured, and crouched to get closer to the man’s level.
The man looked scraped up from the fall, as several cuts and bruises were littered across his face and arms, including a pretty nasty gash along his forehead.
He was going to need some Red for that, and, judging by the size of the log, some Yellow as well.
Castiel gave his arms a quick look over again, and winced when he saw that all of the Blue he’d collected was gone.
He’d traveled maybe thirty feet, and it had taken up all of the Color he’d gathered that day.
So much for the natural pigment idea.
“Alright,” Castiel said, doing his best to remain calm as he tried to think of how to utilize what he had to solve this situation. “How bad is your leg?”
The man was breathing heavily as he stared up at the sky, pausing every few seconds to grit his teeth in pain.
“Broken, probably,” he managed to get out, before resuming his labored breaths. “ Fuck. ”
Castiel licked his lips as he nodded.
He’d probably need an entire charge of Red, then.
“And... how’s your head?” Castiel asked, not wanting to touch the gash, but it would definitely need stitches if he wasn’t able to do something about it.
A few more rapid, stabilizing breaths, then -
“Never had any complaints.”
Castiel paused, then frowned.
“Wh-”
“Ugh, sorry, bad joke,” the man said through a pained sort of half-laugh. “In my defense, I’m only half sure you’re real and the other half thinks you’re a pain gremlin.”
Castiel chewed on his lip as he looked at the large log pinning him down again, then back to the grimace of a man who’d probably been in agony for far too long.
He needed to get this log off him. Now.
“Do you have anything Yellow?” Castiel asked, scanning the area for any glimpse of the color. He’d take anything at this point - he couldn’t afford to be picky.
“Do I what?”
“ Yellow ,” Castiel repeated, trying not to sound impatient, though he could feel himself starting to panic and he wasn’t even the person who needed rescuing. “Do you have anything Yellow? It’s important.”
“Uh, yeah, maybe,” the man lifted a shaking hand and pointed towards something Castiel had missed in his scramble to get to the injured man. “My bag might have something yellow, I guess?”
Castiel scrambled towards the brown shoulder bag and tore it open, blinking in surprise at the one thing in the world that he had been longing for, and yet didn’t at all expect to see.
Oil paint.
About ten tubes of different colors all shoved into the bottom of the bag, with several different kinds of paint brushes sealed together with a pallet sort of thing that Castiel had only ever seen in Bob Ross videos.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Castiel held his breath as he searched through the colors, and exhaled sharply at the sight of a bright Yellow.
Castiel’s hands shook as he unscrewed the cap and squeezed a generous amount of the Yellow pigment into the palm of his hand.
The bright, manufactured Yellow felt out of place in a forest of browns and greens, but it was exactly what Castiel needed.
The Yellow began to vanish - seeping into Castiel’s skin once more and settled into the tattoos on his wrist, arms, shoulders - then stopped when he’d sapped away all of the pigment, leaving a pure white dollop of paint in his hand.
Castiel pulled up a pant leg, but the flock of birds he’d had tattooed on his calf was still blank black, and he’d definitely need to fill up everything if he could. The log looked heavy, and he was well aware that he ran out of Color very quickly.
“Are you having a seance over there or what?” the man called, voice straining. “‘Cause I’m not dead yet!”
“I know, I’m sorry.” Castiel didn’t have time to explain the details of his strange request. “I’ll get this log off you in a moment.”
He emptied the rest of the tube onto his hand and drained it dry of Color until all of the tattoos on his body were glowing the same bright Yellow from the paint.
Throwing the large glob of colorless paint out of his hand and into the dirt, Castiel stood and held out a hand towards the log currently pinning its victim, hoping against hope that he had enough Color to move it.
“Take a deep breath,” Castiel warned.
“Why?”
“Just in case.”
And Castiel clenched his jaw as he began to expend the Yellow.
For a moment, Castiel feared that even the amount of Color he had wasn’t going to be enough, but slowly, ever so slowly, the enormous log began to hover. An inch off the ground, two inches, three inches.
The man under it gasped, maybe in pain, maybe in astonishment, but Castiel couldn’t focus on either. He needed to concentrate, and he could already see the Yellow in his arms fading... which meant that time was almost up.
He willed it backward - just a few inches - and the log floated back before thudding back onto the ground.
Much too close for comfort, but it was officially off the man’s leg.
“Better?” Castiel asked in earnest as he carried the bag over towards the man and knelt back down near his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t do much better than that, I’m not very -”
“You see any sunglasses around?” the man interrupted, still breathing heavily as he squinted up at Castiel.
“Sunglasses?” Castiel repeated, taken aback by the sudden change of topic.
“Yeah. Glasses for the sun. They flew off when I fell.”
“Uh,” Castiel did a quick scan of the area, and sure enough, a pair of darkly tinted sunglasses were haphazardly nestled against a rock. “Hold on.”
He fetched the glasses, and handed them to the man, who immediately put them back on and let out a relieved sigh.
“Much better,” he murmured, despite his very broken leg. “You a color-witch?”
Castiel paused for just a moment before answering.
“Yes.”
The man huffed out a laugh.
“Didn’t actually think you guys were real.”
Castiel’s half-smile in response was forced as he looked over the man’s twisted leg and various cuts and bruises.
“Well, luckily for you, we are.” Castiel opened the flap of the bag again and grabbed the first tube of Red he could find, and began emptying it into his hand. “I’m… I’m not going to be able to completely heal you, but hopefully I can make the journey to the hospital more bearable.”
“You can...heal?”
Castiel hummed in response as he began sapping away at the Red, watching the color crawl up the ink on his arms like a thermometer in the summertime.
Once he felt he had enough, Castiel pressed two fingers to the man’s forehead and began to expend the Red.
Much to his satisfaction, the surface wounds began to close almost immediately - cuts sealing and bruises fading - and there was even a small popping noise and a sharp inhale as the man’s leg shifted.
“Holy shit -” the man said, and for the first time since Castiel had seen him, slowly sat up. “You’re… really something.”
“I’m really not,” Castiel corrected, frowning at the leg that was definitely still broken despite the entire tube’s worth of Red. Anna could have completely healed him with only expending maybe one or two of her tattoos. “You’ll still need a lot of professional care.”
The man let out a breath and held out a hand.
Castiel grasped it with his non-paint covered hand and shook it once.
“No, uh, can you help me up?”
“Oh. Right.”
Castiel flushed as he helped the man up, two hands grasped tightly and Castiel’s other hand grabbing for the man’s shoulder when he stumbled.
A white handprint stained the shoulder when he pulled away.
“Sorry about that,” Castiel murmured, meekly putting his hand behind his back like that would undo the mark.
“Least of my problems, bud,” the man said, leaning on Castiel heavily when he tested out his leg and winced. “ Fuck.”
“I’m Castiel, by the way,” Castiel said, rummaging for a tube of Blue as he eyed the top of the ravine.
“I’m Dean.”
Castiel nodded and pulled unscrewed the lid of the tube.
“Well, Dean. I hope instantaneous dematerialization and rematerialization doesn’t throw you off too much.”
“... you hope what?”
-
The hike to the car went about as well as Castiel had thought it would.
There was cursing, wincing, struggling, stumbling, and sweating, but eventually Castiel managed to get Dean back to where he’d parked his car.
The journey had taken them hours.
Dean, Castiel learned, was an artist.
A pretty popular one, if Dean was to be believed, and Castiel didn’t see any reason to doubt him.
That had been the reason for the oil paints and the easel he’d found on the ground - and the reason for Dean being out in the middle of the forest in the bottom of a ravine. Something about finding the right “inspiration” in the middle of the woods.
But at least he seemed like an alright person.
“You shouldn’t have been out there by yourself, you know,” Castiel chastised as he helped Dean into the car.
“Could say the same for you,” Dean muttered, and winced as he sat down.
“I’d argue that I’m slightly more prepared for survival situations,” Castiel countered and shut the door behind him, continuing once he’d slid into the driver’s seat. “My point still stands.”
“Yeah, well, which of us ended up getting rescued by a handsome stranger, huh?” Dean looked over at Castiel with a grin. “I’m gonna count this as a win.”
Castiel busied himself with starting the car as he felt himself blush, only fumbling with the keys twice.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dean’s smile turn into a knowing smirk.
“Maybe after all this is over, you and I go get a coffee or something,” Dean said, the last few words coming out more as a grunt as he adjusted his leg. “If, uh - if you’re interested, obviously.”
Castiel glanced over at Dean, covered in dirt, echoes of scraps and bruises patterned on his skin, grass stains on his clothing, ridiculous sunglasses still on his face, and yet none of that could hide his inherent charm.
And handsome face.
“I don’t usually go for the damsel in distress type,” Castiel said, then cleared his throat. “But I think I could make an exception this once.”
Dean huffed out a laugh.
“Well, I’m not usually in distress, but I can try and make it a common thing if you find out you’re into it.”
Castiel smiled.
“I’ll be sure to let you know.”
-
The bell above the coffeeshop door rang for the seventh time since Castiel sat down, and in walked Dean Winchester, confident smile on his lips, and sunglasses on his face as he scanned the room, passing over Castiel a couple times before finally settling on him.
Dean was very charming, but those sunglasses may just be a dealbreaker.
“Sorry I’m late,” Dean said, pulling up a chair. “A client called me. I had to fake a coughing fit in order to get them to let me hang up.”
Castiel sipped at the coffee he’d ordered and stared pointedly at the medical boot on Dean’s leg.
“You do have real medical excuses you can use, you know.”
Dean stared down at his boot like he’d forgotten it was there.
“Oh... yeah.” Dean shrugged and let out a long sigh. “So, what colors are you rocking today?”
Castiel glanced down at his arms, Blue filling up the geometric tattoos and the wings on his back while Yellow filled up the birch trees on his other arm. It wasn’t showing, but Red was currently imbued in all of the tattoos on his legs.
“All three,” Castiel said, mentally noting that maybe Dean would be able to tell if he’d just take the sunglasses off. “Mostly taken from some Parisian dye I imported.”
Dean hummed, sounding impressed.
“Sounds fancy. Does that stuff work better than oil paint?”
Castiel shrugged his shoulders and reached into his pocket.
“I’m currently testing that out. But, speaking of which -” he pulled out the three tubes of oil paint that he’d brought with him and set them on the table in front of Dean. “- here.”
Dean frowned.
“What’s this?”
“Replacements. For the colors I took.” Castiel said, thinking it was obvious. “I know that oil paints are expensive and art is your livelihood so I found the colors you had and -”
“Ah man, you didn’t have to do that, Cas,” Dean said, pushing them back across the table. “You can use them if you want.”
“It’s no trouble. They were yours to begin with.” Castiel cleared his throat. “And not to guilt you into taking them but I had to do some research to discover the exact colors they were, and I’d hope you wouldn’t want me to have wasted all that time for nothing.”
Dean blinked, then rested his chin on both hands as he smiled at Castiel.
“You don’t know what kind of artist I am, do you?”
Castiel paused.
He’d thought about googling Dean - but so much had happened, and Castiel was very much focused on figuring out why his Colors weren’t working well - he’d never got around to it.
Aside from what Dean had mentioned, Castiel had no other frame of reference.
Had he missed something?
“Are you… not an oil painter?”
“No, I am.” Dean pulled out his phone and began scrolling, adjusting his sunglasses as he did so. “It’s, uh - here. Swipe right.”
He held out his phone for Castiel to take.
On the screen was a painting of what Castiel was pretty sure was a landscape painting of some sort. What specific landscape, he couldn’t be quite sure. It appeared to be a forest scene featuring a field of flowers with a mountain range in the background, but everything about it was wrong. The trees were navy blue and mustard yellow, the flowers clashed horribly with mismatched colors of all kinds, the sky was green and the birds were pink - but at least the clouds were white.
Overall, it hurt to look at.
Castiel struggled to keep his face impassive as he swiped at the screen revealing painting after awful painting.
The technique was very good, from what Castiel could tell, but he couldn’t fathom why Dean would ruin it with his terrible color choice.
“These are - um -” Castiel cleared his throat. “Wow. They’re, uh -”
Dean smiled and reached for the phone.
“Pretty awful, right?”
Castiel’s mouth fell open as he stared back, trying to get a read on Dean’s general demeanor about that specific appraisal of his skillset.
“It’s alright, dude. I know they’re bad. Supposedly.”
“They’re not - not bad - ” Castiel began to stutter. “They’re, you know -”
“I’m color blind,” Dean said, tucking the phone back into his pocket.
The puzzle pieces Castiel hadn’t realized were missing suddenly fell into place.
“You’re color blind.”
“Sure am. Full-on gray-scale color blind,” Dean explained, leaning back in his chair. “I’m one of the lucky few with Achromatopsia, so it’s only fair that I subject the world to my art. All my pieces look fine to me, but apparently they’re pretty damn atrocious color-theory wise, so of course the art community is nuts over it due to my... speciality.”
Dean gestured as he spoke, like he’d just pulled off the world’s best con.
“You see… no color?” Castiel asked, shifting forward as he looked at Dean in a different, gray-scale light. “Just black, white, and gray?”
Dean shrugged and nodded.
“They do me alright. I’ve gotta wear these around, though,” Dean said, tapping at his sunglasses. “The light sensitivity’s a bitch to deal with sometimes, and so are the douchebag vibes that come with them.”
Castiel rubbed at the back of his neck, thoroughly chagrined for judging.
“They don’t look… too douchebag-y,” Castiel attempted with a wince.
“They do, but that’s okay.” Dean waved a hand dismissively. “So, while I appreciate the dedicated research you spent looking for the right paint, you can keep ‘em. Especially considering… you know. You could actually use them correctly.”
Castiel looked down at the tattoos on his forearm and huffed out a laugh.
“Not very well.”
“Uh, I definitely saw you do the coolest shit I’ve ever seen in my life, so I beg to differ.” Dean reached for Castiel’s cup of coffee and helped himself to a sip. “ Yowza . Very sweet.”
“I prefer not to make my tastebuds suffer.” Castiel rubbed at the all-seeing eye tattooed on his wrist, currently in Yellow. “What I did was… inadequate. It was sloppy and I expended far too much Color on those spells.”
“Seemed alright to me,” Dean said with a shrug.
Castiel smiled grimly.
“I have tattoos covering forty to fifty percent of my body -”
“Hot.”
“ - and that’s about all of the magic my body can handle,” Castiel said, raising his voice slightly as he forged on past Dean’s comment, his face burning. “ All my tattoos were full of Blue - which is a flight spell - and I expended almost all of that Blue to fly maybe thirty feet. A color-witch who has figured out their niche should have been able to travel that distance at a fraction of the Color cost.”
Dean frowned.
“Figured out their niche?” he repeated. “What do you mean?”
Castiel let out a long sigh.
“Most color-witches start out like me; needing lots of color for simple tasks. But then they figure out the best kind of pigment for themselves, and they blossom . My friend Balthazar’s magic only became powerful when he started using extremely expensive pigments. Anna’s magic sparked when she started using colors taken only from natural sources like trees and flowers.”
“The reason for your hike, I take it?”
“Precisely. I’m trying anything.” Castiel pointed a finger at his cup of nearly empty coffee and began to expend Yellow, grimacing as he watched the color quickly drain out of the tattoo on his wrist while the mug began to hover. “This should be child’s play, but look how much Yellow I’m using.”
Even behind his sunglasses, Castiel could see him squinting.
“Well, your tattoo is definitely doing something,” Dean remarked, and in the few minutes since he’d mentioned it, Castiel had already forgotten about his condition. “And that’s the best hovering coffee I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re biased.”
“Maybe so.” Dean plucked the mug from the air and took another sip. “Maybe you’re using the wrong colors?”
Castiel shook his head slowly.
“There’s only the three. Red, Yellow, and Blue. Healing, Telekinesis, and Flight.”
“Why?”
Castiel shrugged again.
“Primary colors.”
Dean didn’t look convinced.
“That’s just how it’s always been, Dean. We color-witches have the three, and then you find what makes your magic shine. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of us - I’ve only found my other color-witch friends because of the internet - so there’s not a lot of information about what works, but I think I might just be overthinking everything.”
Dean sat in silence for a few moments, before he clapped his hands together once and began rubbing them together.
“You know what? I think I know what can help you.”
Castiel blinked.
“You do?”
“I do. There’s no way it won’t work.”
Castiel eyed him suspiciously. His skepticism didn’t really have anything to do with Dean personally . He’d been looking for a miracle cure for so long - had tried just about anything he could think of - and now he was supposed to believe that an attractive man he’d accidentally run into had the answer to all of his problems?
“What is it?”
Dean tapped his fingers on the table.
“If I tell you, you’ll overthink it.” He cleared his throat. “If I, uh, ask you to come home with me, I promise I don’t have a hidden agenda. I just want to try and help you out the way you helped me.”
Castiel smiled wryly and stood up.
“Lead the way.”
-
Turned out, Dean lived within walking distance of the coffeeshop, which was because Dean had never been able to pass the eye test required to get a driver’s license.
Apparently, the monochrome vision gave him questionable depth perception.
“Home sweet home.”
Dean flipped on the lights in his home, and the first thing Castiel noticed was how soft the lighting was. There were no harsh light bulbs - everything was spread out and muted down.
“Aaaand there we go.” Dean finally took off his sunglasses, blinking dramatically as he hung them from the collar of his shirt. “Much better.”
“I’m happy for you,” Castiel said. “Your eyes, um, are a… very nice shade of green.”
Dean winked.
“So I hear.”
Dean didn’t wait for Castiel to respond, which was probably for the best, and beckoned for him to follow down a hallway.
“Studio’s this way. It’s nothing fancy but it gets the job done,” Dean said, and opened a door to a dimly lit room with newspaper covering the floor and several easels set up, half-finished paintings set up with questionable colors mixed together. Tubes of paint were scattered across the floor haphazardly with at least one blue footprint tracked across the newspaper near a single chair and some desks.
Dean coughed.
“In my defense, people aren’t here very often.”
Castiel crooked his finger at the chair and expended the last of his Yellow to dramatically scoot the chair six inches forward, and sat down on it.
“So, what’s your idea?”
Dean plucked the sunglasses off his shirt and held them out expectantly.
“First off, wear these.”
Castiel frowned as he took them, examining them like maybe they weren’t exactly what they looked like.
“Why?”
Dean held out a finger and raised an eyebrow.
“So… this is gonna sound wild… but you gotta trust me.”
Castiel paused, then slowly put them on, squinting when the world went much darker than normal sunglasses were tinted to do.
No wonder Dean fell into that ravine.
“So, I have this friend who is a very experimental pigment creator, and sometimes she hooks me up with some really cool and unique paints.” Dean held out a finger while he began rummaging around in some drawers. “So, you know how mantis shrimp can see colors we can’t?”
Castiel raised an eyebrow, trying to figure out what this had to do with anything.
“I’ve been told that, yes.”
“So, my friend was trying to create pigments that could potentially be an interpretation of what mantis shrimp see, and ended up creating these really awesome shades of yellow. The catch is, you can’t look at it until it’s dried ‘cause it’ll really fuck with your eyes - so you’ve got my glasses.”
Castiel frowned.
“But what about you?”
“Can’t see color.”
“Oh, right.”
Castiel fidgeted nervously in his chair as he waited for Dean to find the paint. He’d done his fair share of research into different kinds of pigment, searching for any information that could potentially give him a leg up on his magic - but he’d never heard of anything quite like this. Whoever Dean’s friend was must be quite something.
And Castiel was itching to try it.
Maybe this incredibly rare and unique pigment was the answer he’d been looking for all along.
He tried not to run numbers of how much of this paint he thought he might be able to afford if it worked - he couldn’t even guess at how much one tube cost.
But he was getting ahead of himself.
“Okay, here it is.” Dean held out what Castiel was pretty sure was a plain white tube of oil paint - but colors were hard to discern in the sunglasses. “I know it doesn’t look fancy, but this is just the first batch of it.”
Castiel nodded and held out a hand, surprised to see it shaking slightly. The possibility of this actually working was getting his adrenaline running and his heart beating.
He was excited.
Dean took the cap off and looked at Castiel expectantly.
“You ready?”
Castiel nodded.
Dean squeezed a generous amount of the bright-looking paint into the palm of Castiel’s hand, the cool weight of it settling in; Castiel took in a breath, and began to draw the Color into himself.
Please , he thought to himself as he could feel the pigment seep into his tattoos, Please work.
The first good sign, was when he felt all of his ink fill with Color, and saw that only half of the paint in his hand had faded colorlessly.
“Huh,” Castiel said, pulling up a pant leg to check on an ankle tattoo, and it seemed to be topped off as well. “Interesting.”
“What?”
Castiel tried to control his excitement.
“I’ve never been able to fill up on so little Color before,” he murmured, and looked around the room for something to lift.
Concentrating, Castiel cast the spell on the chair he was still sitting on - the smile on his face growing wider, the further up he went.
The spell held.
He let out a laugh as he sat, floating, in the middle of the room, the spell keeping him aloft for much longer than it ever had before, and the Color draining more slowly than he’d ever seen.
“It works, ” Castiel said breathlessly, letting himself sink back onto the ground with ease. “I - I don’t - I’ve never -”
“Try this blue one, too,” Dean said, already holding out a similar tube. “Same creator.”
Castiel instantly held out his other hand in anticipation for the Blue, and began sapping away the Color the moment it touched his hand.
Flying was especially difficult for him, so Castiel waited until the Blue had replaced most of the Yellow before attempting anything.
Castiel steadied himself, and expended the Blue.
A single tattoo had been used up and Castiel was halfway across the world, staring up at a lit Eiffel tower against the night sky, and then he was back in the small art studio with Dean.
“Dean -” Castiel said, staring at the two smears of paint in each hand - “Dean, this is - this is life-changing. Your friend is a genius! This is the most powerful my magic has ever been .”
Castiel looked up at Dean, who had a soft smile on his face as he looked back.
“ Thank you,” Castiel said sincerely.
Dean shook his head.
“Thank yourself.”
Dean stepped forward and gently took the sunglasses off of Castiel’s face, and for a moment, Castiel forgot he wasn’t supposed to be looking at the Colors for fear of hurting his eyes - but in that split second of forgetting, he caught a glimpse of the half-used pigments in each hand.
In his right hand, he held a bright pink, and in his left was violet.
The smile fell from his face as he stared at the two colors, clearly half drained. The tattoos on his arms were also mixes of pink and violet, with some black to show that they’d been used to cast spells.
But that was impossible.
Color-witches could only use primary colors.
“I - I don’t understand.”
Dean cleared his throat, and for the first time Castiel saw the shy nervousness he’d been concealing successfully.
“Well, uh, I might not know a lot about how your magic works, but - ironically - I know a lot about color. I’ve had to do a lot of research on it to, um - understand it.”
Castiel only blinked, too stunned to say anything.
“One of my favorite things that I learned is that color… isn’t real.” Dean tossed the tube of paint from one hand to the other. “It’s just a translation of how the cones in your eyes see light. Your eyes see colors differently than mine. Mantis shrimp see things differently than both of us - but it’s all the same. It all exists, just on different spectrums.
“It doesn’t make sense to me that you could only cast with those three colors. I had a theory that maybe your magic was holding back… because you were holding it back. Maybe you just needed an excuse to break that dam and let it out, you know?” Dean smiled hesitantly. “You didn’t need that feather to fly, Dumbo. You had it in you all along.”
Castiel stared down at the pink and violet that covered his hands and arms, and reached out slowly to set a hand on Dean’s cheek - paint and all.
Closing his eyes, he began to expend what should have been Red, pushing everything he could towards Dean until he heard Dean inhale sharply.
Castiel opened his eyes again, watching Dean stomp on the booted leg that had - up to a few seconds ago - still been broken.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Dean said, despite the pleased look on his face.
“It was easy,” Castiel said softly, hand still on Dean’s cheek. “Thank you, Dean.”
Dean’s eyes flicked to Castiel’s lips and another dam broke, releasing everything that had been building between the two of them.
Castiel wasn’t sure who leaned in first, but what mattered was that they were here now, lips pressed together curiously - hopefully - perfectly; paint smearing over everything they touched in blissful ignorance.
And the two of them drowned in color.
