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Dean Winchester is an expert on the topic of Castiel, angel of the Lord.
He was never the kind of person to wax poetry about anybody (and probably never will be). But if there was someone who could convince him to do it, even if it was completely unintentional, it was Castiel.
Dean realized he could probably write an entire essay solely about his friend. He laughed to himself, that perhaps in some faraway universe, where he was still in school and Sammy just a couple of grades behind him, he might have aced his English assignment with that essay.
It was the night he had been officially ‘cured’ from the demonic disease that came with Crowley’s magical words and the Mark of Cain. He rubbed his arm, tracing the symbol of damnation over his skin. The fury had subsided greatly after his last injection of human blood, but nonetheless the guilt of what he had done over the past year weighed heavily on his shoulders. And somehow, the different shades of red seemed to be a constant vignette in his mind.
A quick glance at the alarm clock on his desk showed that it was two in the morning. There was no way he could sleep now. The older Winchester rubbed at his eyes, feeling far from tired. He glanced down at the blank notepad on his desk, exactly where he had left it when he wrote his farewell note to Sam the previous year. He grimaced a little before a thought occurred to him – maybe he could write that essay.
It was the most absurd thought that had ever crossed Dean Winchester’s mind – with the exception of volunteering to get the Mark of Cain, of course – and he was more surprised when he did not hesitate to pick up the pen, instantly tapping into the nostalgic feeling he had in his gut from viewing old photos earlier that evening.
So, there he sat, at his desk, thinking about the angel of the Lord.
The vignette of red in his mind was replaced by a calm and soothing shade of blue.
It wasn’t exactly Castiel’s badass entrance in the barn the night they summoned him that caught his attention, but more of the way the angel squinted at him in confusion. It was strange, he would admit, that such a simple and frankly, quite unattractive action caught his eye. But it was the most human trait he had displayed despite his rather inhuman entrance of blowing up light bulbs. And thanks to his lack of understanding of personal space, Dean got a pretty fantastic view of Castiel’s eyes for the first time that night.
(Dean would fight adamantly that this was in no way at all poetic.)
The angel’s eyes – or rather, his vessel’s (but either way he would come to associate that face with the name ‘Castiel’ and not ‘Jimmy’) – were blue in a way that Dean would never have dreamt of being able to see. It was the kind of blue that was caught between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space – that thin layer of separation between familiarity and the utter wilderness of the whole damn universe. It was the kind of blue that, if you stared too long (which Dean probably did), you would have lost your bearings, and not in a good way. That shade of blue would have wrapped you up and cocooned tiny, puny, and fairly insignificant you and suffocated you. It was the kind of blue that belonged to something much, much bigger and maybe even beyond your understanding – which was too true when associated with Castiel.
Over the course of ‘the year that everything went to shit with the apocalypse’, Castiel’s understanding of personal space had increased very little, so yet again, Dean was granted several views of his eyes. What surprised him as time passed was that Castiel’s eyes seemed to have changed color.
The shade of blue that subsequently followed their first encounter was the kind of deep, rich blue that strongly resembled the color of the ocean. Whenever he blinked (although it was very rarely in Castiel’s case, because he just loved to stare up close), it was as if the entire ocean in his eyes would shift dramatically, changing in depth. Dean found himself beginning to realize that the angel harbored knowledge beyond his comprehension and imagination. It was also in the same instant where he realized Castiel had his own thoughts, opinions and emotions, even though he rarely voices them out or wears them on his sleeve. There was still so much about this person – celestial being, to be precise – that he did not know about.
Then again, the very fact that his eyes seemed to have gone from weird ‘atmospheric-blue’ to ‘ocean-blue’ established a conclusion Dean had been having a bit of a dilemma over – that Castiel was slowly, but surely, becoming more human and his presence was becoming more familiar. And Dean himself was slowly, but surely, beginning to accept him.
When approaching the topic of the supposed ‘end of days’, Dean could only remember two things extremely vividly – his own willingness to die, say ‘yes’ to Michael, get the whole circus over and done with to stop Satan; and Castiel’s determination to ensure that Dean did not do whatever aforementioned. He remembered being slammed against the damp brick walls of the alleyway by the angel, whom was practically oozing all kinds of celestial power and fury that night. He remembered the way Castiel’s eye color changed again underneath the terrible lighting in the alleyway.
They had gone from the color of the deep blue sea to that of the core of a non-luminous flame, the hottest flame existing that could practically have scorched Dean’s entire face by the way Castiel was standing so close to him, growling threats and finally – finally – releasing all his pent up frustration and anger at the Winchester. Two blazing blue discs replaced what was once an endless blue pit of curiosity and fascination. Dean marveled at the fact that the person currently strangling him was the same person who had been all for the apocalypse that night he stepped into the barn, and how he was now, officially, part of their pathetic Team Free Will. So even when he was being badly beaten up, tasting copper in his mouth with darkness clouding his vision, he still noted the way Castiel’s eyes remained impossibly blue.
Fast forward to the time when Castiel had – as Crowley so delightfully put it – ‘lost his marbles’, Dean also saw the change in his eyes. They were twinkling with something that had never ever been there before. Tsunamis were packed into those two blue orbs. It was chaotic, disorganized, and haphazard – everything that Castiel was at that time. His smile never seemed to reach his eyes, as if he always found his jokes amusing, but they never actually made him laugh. (But why would Dean even notice this?)
And then they had gone to purgatory. When Dean finally saw him again, the tsunamis in his eyes were gone, replaced by the colors of the stormy seas – somewhat familiar and yet hostile all at once. Purgatory had changed him, and not entirely for the better. His guard was up. He was on edge. His muscles were tense in the way he was about to sprint at any given time. But the beard he had grown in his time down there made Dean snort. He instantly saw the stormy seas calm a little, just for a split second.
Before things had gone even further to shit in the year of ‘Naomi screwed up Castiel’s factory settings’, everything seemed alright. Team Free Will was whole, and the world was still quiet (at least, as quiet as it could get out on the Heaven front and Hell front). Castiel had wanted to become a hunter. The grin that followed that announcement made Dean’s heart clench despite the rather baffled look he wore on his face. His eyes then resembled a sunny, cloudless sky. There was no extra depth behind it, nor any hidden agenda or any extra marbles sorted into ‘Castiel’s Lost and Found box’. They were just blue and calm. Oddly, they reminded Dean of home – the calmness of it all, the comfort despite their lack of an actual house to call home – and he decided that this was his favorite shade of blue. He believed it suited Castiel best.
The following year was hazy. With the Mark of Cain on his arm (still is now, too), he could barely put together pieces of his memories. He barely remembered Castiel at one point, let alone the color of his eyes. But he remembered them the moment he seemed to have been cured that morning. The stormy seas had returned, but in a split second when the vignette of red and black began to ebb away from his vision, the storm clouds in the angel’s eyes cleared and once again, Dean was met with his favorite sky caught in the eyes of his best friend. They were beautiful.
Dean put down his pen, eyeing his messy handwriting and scrambled thoughts. It was hard to form sentences when you had so much going on in your mind. Dean stared at the paper, reading it over and over again. He wasn’t sure why he was doing this, but it was pretty therapeutic. With every single memory of Castiel’s blue eyes surfacing, the vignette of red seemed to ebb away, and he barely even remembered the dark power swirling beneath his arm.
Blue battled red in his mind – and blue won. Blue always won.
It was Dean Winchester’s favorite color, after all. And maybe someday – no, there will be a day, there has to be a day – Dean will be able to muster enough courage to tell the person who was responsible for making blue his favorite color exactly how he feels.