How to Work a Paint Brush

It was another Thursday, and he was in the art room again, just like always. Every day, he had near sovereignty of the art room from the hours of two to four. Castiel walked from the library to his locker before proceeding to the art room. He greeted the teacher and attached his iPod into the stereo system, then began to work.

Two hours of music and art. This was how Castiel liked to end his stressful school days. He couldn’t get any work or sleep in study hall, so he arranged to come to the art room instead. The teachers obliged, of course. Castiel’s grades and reputation were impeccable, even if he did keep some…unsavory company.

Castiel was ever so carefully sprinkling some salt on a blue patch of his watercolor piece when he was rather rudely interrupted. “Hey, Cas?”

Castiel gasped at the sound of Dean’s voice and the salt shaker tipped a bit more than it should have. He swore softly when salt caked onto the paper in large clumps. He was going for a different effect. “Dean Winchester, come between me and my art once more, and I will end you,” Cas growled, but it was more out of irritancy than actual malice.

“Very funny, Cas,” said Dean cheerfully as he tossed his backpack down next to Castiel’s and sat down on the very table that Cas was working on. “So, about the sets…”

“The sets are not of import, Dean.”

“Um, yes they are, Cas,” Dean huffed.

Their school’s musical this year was Beauty and the Beast. The sets were actually of great import.

Dean and Cas met their freshman year. They were thrown into a drama class together because of conflicts with their schedule. They hated the class, but they survived because they had each other. (Cas simply glanced back at Dean as he passed some papers down their row of desks, complimented Dean’s ACDC shirt, and the rest is history.)

Dean wasn’t fond of acting, but he joined the scenic design and theater production classes later on in high school. He helped with the lights and tried working the sound booth a couple times, but that wasn’t his calling. Dean was interested in architecture, and was usually responsible for building most of the sets for the school plays.

Castiel, on the other hand, loved the arts in general, and just because he didn’t express his emotions didn’t mean they weren’t there. Castiel took up classes such as creative writing, band, and art. He had scenic design with Dean, too, but art took precedence over everything, even academics. Castiel had signed up for AP Studio Art, and he would be damned if he got anything less than a 5 on his portfolio.

“Dean, don’t you understand? This is AP Studio Art. I have to-“

“Submit an electronic portfolio consisting of twenty four pieces – twelve under breadth, twelve under your concentration, and then submit a physical portfolio consisting of five pieces from either your breadth or your concentration,” Dean rattled off in a rather poor impression of Castiel’s voice, rolling his eyes.

“Exactly,” Castiel said with a slight smile, somewhat pleased that Dean knew all the work he had to do.

“Cas, your portfolio’s not due for another few months! You’re an amazing artist! What are you worrying about?”

Castiel swallowed hard and rubbed the back of his neck, flushing imperceptibly at the indirect compliment. “My concentration…I can’t quite…work it out.”

Dean arched an eyebrow. “Well, what is it? Do you have some pieces for it?”

Castiel nodded and walked into the supply room, heading straight for his personal shelf within the room. He grabbed his portfolio and walked back to the table Dean was perched upon, handing the hefty portfolio to him rather reluctantly.

“With our concentration, we have to have a…statement, of sorts,” Castiel began to explain as Dean opened the portfolio and emptied its contents onto the table. Castiel sighed and quickly removed his watercolor and his other art materials from the table before they could ruin his concentration pieces.

“My concentration…I’m trying to focus on…I guess, body parts? And these are, uh, just, you know, r-rough…I’ll be recreating the best ones in different mediums,” Castiel stammered, shrugging as Dean leafed through the pieces. Rough sketches of ears. Simple doodles of eyes. Intense studies of hands and arms in various mediums. Intricate drawings of noses. But, Castiel noticed as Dean laid out all the works on the table, mostly works containing lips.

And Castiel hoped Dean wouldn’t notice that all these body parts were Dean’s own.

“Why body parts?” Dean asked, lingering on a piece that Castiel actually hated – a graphite sketch of Dean’s right hand, poised in a rather complex position to draw, but Castiel captured it perfectly. The contrast and varying values created just the right depth – darker in the creases of the knuckles and palm and lighter on the surfaces of the long fingers to show that light was coming from somewhere above and behind the hand and pen. Everything was perfectly scaled and proportioned. The foreshortening on the pen and the curled fingers implicated that the hand was twirling the pen.

In all honesty, Dean could make a career out of pen twirling. He practiced much and often in most of his classes – sometimes all. Castiel was tempted to continue with the bracelets on Dean’s wrist when he initially drew the piece, but now that it was in Dean’s hands, he was glad that he decided against it. Dean would have recognized it for sure.

“I…don’t really know, I just – it’s something I’m good at, and can draw a lot of,” Castiel mumbled, taking the drawing from Dean and placing it down with the rest. “What do you think?”

Dean wrinkled his nose. “I think they stink.” Castiel’s heart absolutely dropped. “Did you already spray them with a fixative?” he asked, relieving Castiel immensely. He nodded, and Dean coughed slightly. “Cas, you could get high off that shit.”

“I could say the same for you and your rubber cement,” Castiel said with a smile, sitting next to Dean to look at his works from the same perspective. “So, really, Dean, what do you think?”

“I think you should focus on the lips,” Dean said slowly after a few minutes intensely studying the drawings. “They seem to be the ones you work the hardest on…” He picked up one that Castiel really liked, smirking at it a bit.

Castiel had seen Dean bite his lip once in their entire high school career. Sometime during their sophomore year Dean decided to ask out senior Lisa Braeden, much to Castiel’s dismay. Lisa had stared at Dean incredulously for a few minutes after he asked her out, as if she couldn’t believe her ears. Dean bit his lip hopefully, only for a split second, but Castiel found it to be most attractive. He’d made several attempts at recreating the sight, and the picture Dean had in his hands was the closest he got.

Of course Castiel worked hardest on the drawings of Dean’s lips. Of course.

“Even then, I don’t…I don’t know what my statement would be, what exactly I would , uh, say, if I just submitted a bunch of drawings of mouths,” Castiel laughed nervously as Dean scrutinized another drawing – bare collarbones and shoulders in graphite. Castiel’s fingers were callused and perpetually dirty from all his drawing, but Dean’s fingers were callused and perpetually dirty and somewhat scarred from set construction and working on cars. Dean fixed up Castiel’s car once…

Castiel remembered the day with perfect clarity. Dean had borrowed a v-neck from Sam in his haste to get to school on time. Since the v-neck was Sam’s, it was rather large on Dean, and thus exposed more of Dean’s chest as he leaned over the engine of Castiel’s car. Dean’s perfectly proportioned collarbones and the curve of his Adam’s apple made Castiel weak in the knees. Castiel drew the bare shoulders from his imagination, though.

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” Dean said encouragingly, gently laying down the paper as he nudged Castiel’s leg with his knee. “Now, about the sets…” Castiel sighed heavily. “Please, Cas, please. I want this year’s musical to be halfway decent…for Sam.”

Sam, Dean's younger and only brother, was graced with the role of the Beast. Dean claimed it was Sam’s physique, not his singing, that landed him the role. Regardless, Sam was the Beast, and Dean wanted a spectacular set for his younger brother. “Dean, when is the play?”

“In three weeks. Sammy’s been working his ass off at practice, which is why I’m still here,” Dean sighed, sliding off the table. Castiel was displeased with the sudden decrease in their proximity. “He practices until five every damn day. I’ve got most of the castle built – the stairs, the balconies, the second floor… I just need the painting done, and I especially need you, Castiel.”

Castiel cracked his knuckles, always eager to help out the Winchesters, but he still sighed. “You’ve not gotten anything painted yet, have you?” Dean smiled sheepishly, so Castiel rolled his eyes. “Dean… what do you want the castle to look like?” he asked as he pulled out his worn sketchbook and flipped it open, pencil at the ready. Castiel had already seen the woodwork on the stage, so he had a vague idea of where everything was positioned.

Dean positively beamed at Castiel. “Alright! Well, the stone walls on the inside of the castle are here,” Dean began to explain as he pointed out the lines on Castiel’s rough sketch. “And then these are the castle’s outer stone walls. They need to look distinctly different, you know? I feel like we should paint amorphous, kinda blob-like shaped stones for the outside, and have the inside be brick-like. The dungeon is here, and Belle’s house is this giant thing on wheels, you know? Oh, and the fountain! The fountain, in the town that Belle lives in? We need…”

Castiel listened patiently and attentively to his best friend…or, at least, tried to. “How do you keep up with all this?” Castiel asked as he slumped onto the table rather wearily. Dean just smiled and tapped his temple with his index finger. “Sure, Dean. Sure. Now, let me get back to my watercolor, please?”

“You’ll help me with the set, though, right? Especially the stained glass windows.”

Castiel perked up at that. “Stained glass windows?”

“Well, they’re not real glass, but, you know, we have to paint the wood to look like stained glass. See, up here, on the second floor?” Dean pointed to another line on Castiel’s diagram which indicated the inside castle wall. “We’re gonna have three windows. Two will be small and rectangular, but the middle one has to be fucking amazing because it will have the rose in it.”

Castiel nodded and flipped to a new page, beginning to sketch the windows. He left the two rectangular windows with a simple harlequin pattern and drew the middle window as a larger rectangle with a semi-circle on top. He was trying to draw everything to scale. The stained glass would be a border to the middle window, with a plain, pale yellow insert so the single, simple, detailed, delicate rose would really stand out. It was difficult for Castiel to work with Dean standing behind him and resting his chin on his shoulder, but he managed to finish drawing, no matter how hard his hands were shaking.

“Cas, why are your hands shaking?” Dean asked worriedly, rubbing Castiel’s free shoulder.

“I must be tired,” Castiel laughed nervously, simultaneously disappointed and relieved when Dean straightened to his full height and stopped touching him.

“Cas, I think what you need is some burgers and pie. Do you want some burgers and pie? I could totally go for some burgers and pie right now, Cas,” Dean rambled on, simply pulling Castiel to his feet without waiting for his friend’s consent. Dean helped Castiel clean up the art room first, and then the two boys were off campus.


When Castiel couldn’t think of what to write during his creative writing class, he would take Dean’s name and try to make words out of it.

Weed. Reed. Dent. Dear. Near. Steer. Cheer. Chest. Chin. Inch. Chide. Ride. Wired.

That was about as far as Castiel got before the bell rang, signaling that it was time for him to go to the art room.

How exactly this crush on his best friend developed, Castiel had no idea. But Castiel did know exactly when he realized he was attracted to Dean…


It was a Monday in late September of their junior year and the weather was glorious. They were building some props for the musical that year, Les Miserables. Dean and Castiel were working on something together, of course. Dean was hammering in the nails while Castiel held the planks of wood steady, but Dean hammered too hard. The wood slipped out from under Cas’ hand and flipped up to hit Dean in the face. Dean fell to the ground, out cold. Castiel rushed to his friend’s side, apologizing profusely and begging him to wake up. Dean was even bleeding a bit, just above his brow. Castiel was on the verge of tears when Dean opened his eyes and grinned, laughing out, “I got you good” before hopping back up on his feet and resuming work. Castiel had never been angrier with his friend. He even ignored Dean for the rest of the week, but Thursday changed everything.

Dean didn’t once try to apologize. He gave Castiel his space because he knew better than to approach his friend whilst he was angry, but he certainly knew how to fix things between them. Castiel opened his locker on Thursday morning to find a small brown bag in it. Castiel opened up the bag to reveal a blueberry muffin and a can of Arizona Green Tea inside. There was a green ribbon tied around the tea, and on one end of the ribbon in white puffy paint was the word “Sorry” with a frowny face while the other had “Forgive me?” with a smiley face.

Dean appeared ever so conveniently at that moment, just a few feet away from Castiel’s locker. Dean waved and smiled hesitantly. Castiel stared at the muffin and drink as Dean hesitantly approached him. “Hey, Cas,” Dean said softly, his dark green eyes repentant.

“Just…Don’t scare me like that again, ass butt,” Castiel muttered, punching Dean in the arm a little harder than usual.

That day, Dean walked Castiel to class, pestering Castiel about why his little stunt scared him. Castiel never admitted he was angry that Dean worried him for no reason. Why else would he worry that Dean was hurt, except that he…? Well, If their roles were reversed, Dean would have laughed at Castiel, telling him to take it like a man and walk it off... Later at lunch that day, Dean and Castiel had one of their deeper conversations – about death and dying in general.

“What would you do if I did die, Cas?” Dean asked after a mouthful of his sandwich.

“I…Dean,” Castiel laughed nervously, trying not to tear up. If Dean died, Castiel wouldn’t know what to do with himself.

“Would you come to my funeral? My wake? Would you give me a nice eulogy?” Dean asked, almost…excitedly, for some reason. “You know what songs I’d be playing at my funeral? Highway to Hell. Or, or! Wanted Dead or Alive. You know what, I think I’ll make myself a funeral playlist.”

“I don’t know if I could come to your funeral, Dean,” Castiel admitted quietly. “I might be crying too much to see where I’m driving.” Dean smiled so widely at that for some reason. “But… I’d go visit your grave. Later, by myself. And I’d talk to you. And I’d… I’d look out for Sam, for you.”

Dean put his sandwich down and grasped Castiel’s knee. The contact made Castiel flinch, but neither boy moved for a few minutes. Dean nodded to himself momentarily before flashing Castiel a blinding smile, his forest green eyes somewhat watery. “Thanks, Cas.” Castiel could only nod numbly. Dean sighed and rubbed his face tiredly. “You know what I’d say at your funeral, Cas?” Castiel waited patiently for Dean to continue. “I wouldn’t say anything, because I’d be crying too hard, too,” Dean laughed.

And it was sometime during this conversation that Castiel realized he loved his best friend.


“Hey, Cas!” Dean kindly interrupted Castiel’s art time once again.

“Don’t you have class?” Castiel asked with an irritated sigh, focusing on keeping his paint brush hand steady. As free and flowing watercolors were, they did in fact require a certain precision to attain the effect Castiel was pursuing.

“I’ve got more important work,” Dean muttered, lifting up his shirt to wipe sweat off his face and gracing Castiel with a lovely view of his abs. He may have also inadvertently given Castiel a seizure, but he couldn’t tell. “We’ve started painting the sets! Will you come and see?”

Dean looked so excited that Castiel couldn’t help but follow Dean to the auditorium. A few other kids were helping paint the castle walls. Others were down painting the dungeon, and yet others were painting Belle’s house. “What do you think?” Dean asked with a wide grin, turning to Castiel.

“It’s really coming together, Dean…” Castiel trailed off, smiling at his friend. In all honesty, it was nothing like Castiel had envisioned it, but he wouldn’t tell Dean that. Of course the set wouldn’t be as elegant as he imagined – the scenic design kids weren’t art students, like he was. It was barely adequate in Castiel’s eyes, but if it made Dean happy, that was fine, too.

“See the white spots up there? Those are where the windows will go. Can you come paint them after school?” Dean asked hopefully. “I’ll help you…”

“Of course, Dean,” Castiel said, withholding his sigh. “Only if you help me with my concentration some more, alright?”

“You got it, Cas,” Dean promised as he followed Castiel back to the art room. “So, got anymore pieces for me to look at?” Dean asked, sitting on the table again. It had been two weeks since the boys were last alone in the art room together. Castiel had actually taken Dean’s advice on this one – he’d focused on drawing lips.

Wax. Oil pastel. Chalk. Pen and ink. Gouache. Acrylic. Oil. Watercolor. Castiel tried various mediums to illustrate Dean’s lips. Pouting. Frowning. Scowling. Snarling. Smiling. Screaming. Castiel tried to show various emotions with the actions portrayed by the lips. Dean was looking at them so intensely, it made Castiel nervous. “Wow, Cas.”

“What?”

“These are… just really amazing. I kind of like the way they’re not, you know, anchored to a face or anything. I like how they’re just suspended on the white expanse of the paper. Or, or canvas, I mean. They’re really cool, Cas.”

“So…what can I possibly say about them…?”

“I think your concentration is…” Dean leaned back, putting his hands on the back of his head. “I think your concentration is, well, emotion. Wait, that’s vague, really vague. Sorry. Let me try and rephrase that… I think your concentration is about, uh, how people can say one thing and mean another. How people’s actions and expressions are more truthful than their words, because actions and expressions carry more emotion than words and their connotations…yeah,” Dean said as he paid extra attention to Castiel’s lone oil painting.

Oil was such a difficult medium to work with, but Castiel loved the intensity of the colors. Castiel had painted Dean’s lips in a fashion that it appeared he was yelling, but he’d also written, in a large speech bubble with pen and ink, the words “I ain’t even mad” in small print. One of Dean’s catch phrases.

Dean grinned at the piece in approval. “Cas, I fucking love this painting, though! It’s hilarious. I wish I could art half as well as you do.”

Castiel looked at his works for a long time, silently mulling over the things Dean had said. That was probably what his art was communicating – how frustrated he was by Dean’s contrasting actions and words, or more specifically, all the mixed signals Dean would give him. There were times when Castiel thought Dean returned his feelings. There were also times when Castiel thought Dean was the most heterosexual guy on the planet… Well, what Dean had said would suit his concentration better. Castiel quickly scribbled Dean’s words into his notebook, shutting it with a relieved sigh.

“Thanks for helping me with my concentration, Dean…now, the back to the sets, right?” Castiel asked, packing his portfolio back up, when he froze. Dean had a painting in his hands that he shouldn’t have had.

“…Cas…?” Dean had in his hands a rather large and extremely detailed painting of himself. The painting consisted of Dean looking at himself in the mirror, yet the real Dean and the Dean in the mirror were dressed differently. The real Dean in the painting wore a black suit, his back to the viewer of the painting. The Dean in the mirror was wearing Dean’s usual clothes – boots, jeans, a shirt under a button up under a leather jacket and, of course, the amulet Sam had given him one Christmas. He also looked so very irritated, like he wasn’t really approving of the Dean outside the mirror…

Castiel’s ears burned with embarrassment. “Let’s go paint the sets, yeah?” he laughed nervously, taking the painting away from Dean and rushing out of the art room.

Castiel made his way up the wooden stairs, quickly beginning work on the stained glass windows, since all the paints and brushes were already there. “Hey, Castiel,” Gabriel, Castiel’s cousin, greeted him with a smile as he bounded up the steps. “Where’s Dean-o?”

“He’ll be arriving shortly,” Castiel murmured, painting a shard of glass in the window a deep green. The green looked a bit off, though, so he added some yellow to lighten it up. “How does this look, Gabriel?”

“It looks kind of…weird, but I think it’s just from the rose tinted lights. Just a touch more yellow, maybe. The gray walls and stairs look purple because of the lights, too,” Gabriel told him as he looked down.

Castiel nodded, focusing intensely on his work and trying to forget that Dean had seen that painting. How did that painting even get here? Castiel only ever kept paintings featuring Dean in his entirety at his house, in his very room…

“So, how did it go?” came Anna’s voice. She was Castiel’s sister and was playing the role of Babette, but currently she wasn’t needed in the rehearsal. Everyone in the auditorium could hear the cast practicing the scene with Gaston and LeFou at the bar in the bandroom. She was speaking to Gabriel, though.

“I can’t tell,” Castiel heard Gabriel say to his sister. “Hey, Castiel, what did Dean-o think of your painting?” Gabriel asked rather loudly.

Castiel turned to his cousin with a murderous look in his eye only to turn around just as quickly. Dean had finally appeared at the entrance to the auditorium. “His paintings are always amazing,” Dean answered Gabriel just as loudly as he made his way to the stage, the all-important rose in the glass case prop in his hands.

A grin broke out on Castiel’s face when he heard Dean’s compliment, but he was still angry at Anna and Gabriel for smuggling one of his precious paintings of Dean into the school. He returned his attention to the stained glass window, ignoring Dean when he walked up the stairs and towards the west wing to place the prop down and work on it. Castiel continued to paint, but a few minutes later, he found the silence of the auditorium unsettling. He looked around to see Anna and Gabriel pushing everyone out of the auditorium to leave him alone with Dean.

Dean was sitting down and fixing the lighting in the rose prop, humming a song to himself. Castiel swallowed hard and tried not to stare at him…rather unsuccessfully. “That was a really good painting of me, though, Cas,” Dean said aloud, making Castiel nearly drop his paintbrush. “When did you paint it?”

“Soph…uh, sophomore year,” Castiel said, trying to be loud enough for Dean to hear him, too. “You remember? Lisa made you go to prom with her and wear a tuxedo and everything…”

Dean laughed. “Oh, god, yeah, I remember. I hated wearing it! She was bitchin’ hardcore, like, ‘Dean, the least you could do is wear a tux since we’re almost the same height when I put my heels on!’” Dean’s voice shot up an octave in his impression of Lisa, which made Castiel laugh as well. “Hey, Cas? … Why did you paint me, of all people?” Dean asked as he carefully placed the rose and its case on top of the prop table.

Castiel refused to answer that one.

Dean slowly walked over until he was right beside Castiel. “All those body parts…all those lips… were they mine?” Castiel couldn’t hear Dean very well because his heart was beating so hard and the sound of blood pumping through his body kind of muffled everything else, but he did manage a slight nod. Dean actually grinned broadly at Castiel’s confession. “So are you gonna tell me why?”

Castiel leaned forward to paint more carefully. He decided to paint the colorful window panes first, then paint in black lines after everything had dried so it would look more defined and distinguished. “If I could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint,” was all Castiel would say to Dean on the matter.

“So, all the drawings of me… it means ‘I love you’ in emotionally repressed?” Dean teased, bumping his hip into Castiel’s. It took everything he had not to look at Dean and continue to paint.

Dean chuckled before he wrapped his arm around Castiel’s neck and pulled him close for a kiss.