FIC: Life in Monochrome
Title: Life in Monochrome
Author: Anj
Character(s): Dean-centric, mostly gen
Raiting: PG
Summary: This is for kaalee on Kaalee Appreciation Day. I know she said she's been really into Dean lately, and this was sort of what came to mind whenever I thought about him. So, Kaalee my dear, I hope you enjoy this. ♥
Dean keeps a notebook.
He has since he was very small, since his mum walked into the room to see him scribbling on the wall with a fat purple crayon, and instead of punishing him, scolding him, spanking him, she didn't say a word, and the next day she gave him a notebook with fire trucks on, bright and colourful and beautifully blank inside. The walls were so tempting, but the notebook could go with him wherever he did, and it didn't take long before drawing on the wall was only a distant memory.
Dean doesn't talk much, never has, and people have always assumed it's because he has nothing to say, but that's not true. He has plenty to say, insightful things, brilliant things, but he doesn't know how to say them. He's not so good with words, really, and the connection between thoughts and lips has never solidified properly. Instead, his thoughts flow out through his fingers, long, slender, playing over first the waxy colours in the flimsy cardboard box, then the smooth sharp pencils with exotic descriptive words stamped on them in gold, and eventually the cool glass bottles with parchment labels pasted on, embossed in silver script that warms beneath his fingertips as he selects the right one. Feelings have words, sometimes, but they always have colours, and Dean can see those as vibrantly as if they were real, tangible, slipping between his fingers before he can bring them to his lips and swallow them down.
He has piles of notebooks; he carries them around in his rucksack first, then his trunk that sits at the foot of his four-poster crimson-draped bed, then on a long wooden shelf in his library, meticulously labelled and catalogued, a collection of his life condensed into so few books, so unobtrusive, so easily overlooked. Sometimes he'll pull one of his books down, flip it open. 1987, age seven years, indiscernible crayon-scribbles in ultramarine blue, bright and deep at first, lines fading away to nothingness: his first day at his new school, the feeling of being alone, gradually fading as he realised these new kids were just as enjoyable as the ones he'd left behind. 1991, age eleven years, bold jagged-edged lines in bright crimson pencil: the day he received his Hogwarts letter, his excitement, his shock, his fear mixed in, tangled amidst the confusion of lines and spirals. 1995, age fourteen years, a wash of grey ink like tears across the page, slashed through with angry strokes of black: death and sadness, fury at the monster who could kill a boy - a young man - just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Every page, one colour, one feeling, one burst of memory and sensation, and his fingers will trace the stone-set lines as he remembers the swell and quell of the tides inside him, bursting free only for those few moments it took to pour out onto the page in monochrome.
There are a number of books he won't look at anymore, their pages marred with blood-red and acid green and tombstone grey, the black of hatred, the red of angry revenge, the bright flickering orange of fire, the murky brown of destruction. He tried looking, once, years ago now, and his dreams for the next month were abstract and horrible, hyper-coloured faces contorted in agony as the colour leeched from them like ink-blood to spill across the blank pages of his subconscious, until he woke up gasping, fists clenched in the sheets and fingers always, always stained red. He has not bought red ink since that month; the memory of it is thick and hot on his fingers, and he retches any time he thinks of it.
Today, he skips past those books without a second glance and pulls the newest book down: 2007, age twenty-seven. This notebook is different, hardcover, bound in heather-grey with red and gold trim: a piece of his old Hogwarts jumper. His place is marked with a strip of his old tie, the striped silk a cheery reminder of carefree days. But today is not the time for that.
He sits down at his desk, flips the book open to a blank page, reaches for the quill at the edge of his desk. There is only one pot of ink, but it's the only one he's needed these past months. Dipping the nib, he brings the quill shining and ready to the crisp newness of the page, bites down on the tip of his tongue as he sets the angled point against the parchment and begins to draw it fluidly across the blankness. Curves and twists, smooth simple lines in varying thicknesses, organic, free, eyes falling shut as he works. Sometimes he spirals off the page, sometimes his nib sticks in the fold of pages, but he does not open his eyes again until he has poured himself out onto the page. Only then does he look, and his lips curl into a small, secret smile.
The page is green, almost solidly so, and only varying weight of strokes and size of lines allow any indication of what it is meant to be. Bright green, kelly green, vibrant and calming, life and growth and nature and new beginnings sprawled across the pages like hope and happiness, tangled together like the loops and spirals of the repeated letter S.
Long fingers set the quill back in its holder, cap the almost-empty bottle of ink, and move their green-stained tips to the page, tracing one long curve, fingerprints stamped into the ink and the ink settling indelibly into the ridges and whorls of skin. This green is him now, and he is it; this is who he's become, and his eyes glisten with it as he leans close to blow a cooling breath across the ink as it soaks slowly into the page, a permanent reminder of who he is, a copy of him sketched out on paper for all eternity.
'Dean?'
He lifts his head, the green of that familiar brogue cutting through his blanket of thoughts and warming him from the inside, and smiles, fingertips skating across the page as he looks at it one last time. This is today, he tells himself, caressing the kitten-soft cover as he wraps long fingers around the book and presses it shut. Today, tomorrow, and always.
'Just a moment, Seamus,' he calls back, voice rusty and ragged, but clear, and strong, and certain, and it rings out in a gentle, joyful chuckle as he slips the book back into its place on the shelf and walks away without looking back.
Author: Anj
Character(s): Dean-centric, mostly gen
Raiting: PG
Summary: This is for kaalee on Kaalee Appreciation Day. I know she said she's been really into Dean lately, and this was sort of what came to mind whenever I thought about him. So, Kaalee my dear, I hope you enjoy this. ♥
Dean keeps a notebook.
He has since he was very small, since his mum walked into the room to see him scribbling on the wall with a fat purple crayon, and instead of punishing him, scolding him, spanking him, she didn't say a word, and the next day she gave him a notebook with fire trucks on, bright and colourful and beautifully blank inside. The walls were so tempting, but the notebook could go with him wherever he did, and it didn't take long before drawing on the wall was only a distant memory.
Dean doesn't talk much, never has, and people have always assumed it's because he has nothing to say, but that's not true. He has plenty to say, insightful things, brilliant things, but he doesn't know how to say them. He's not so good with words, really, and the connection between thoughts and lips has never solidified properly. Instead, his thoughts flow out through his fingers, long, slender, playing over first the waxy colours in the flimsy cardboard box, then the smooth sharp pencils with exotic descriptive words stamped on them in gold, and eventually the cool glass bottles with parchment labels pasted on, embossed in silver script that warms beneath his fingertips as he selects the right one. Feelings have words, sometimes, but they always have colours, and Dean can see those as vibrantly as if they were real, tangible, slipping between his fingers before he can bring them to his lips and swallow them down.
He has piles of notebooks; he carries them around in his rucksack first, then his trunk that sits at the foot of his four-poster crimson-draped bed, then on a long wooden shelf in his library, meticulously labelled and catalogued, a collection of his life condensed into so few books, so unobtrusive, so easily overlooked. Sometimes he'll pull one of his books down, flip it open. 1987, age seven years, indiscernible crayon-scribbles in ultramarine blue, bright and deep at first, lines fading away to nothingness: his first day at his new school, the feeling of being alone, gradually fading as he realised these new kids were just as enjoyable as the ones he'd left behind. 1991, age eleven years, bold jagged-edged lines in bright crimson pencil: the day he received his Hogwarts letter, his excitement, his shock, his fear mixed in, tangled amidst the confusion of lines and spirals. 1995, age fourteen years, a wash of grey ink like tears across the page, slashed through with angry strokes of black: death and sadness, fury at the monster who could kill a boy - a young man - just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Every page, one colour, one feeling, one burst of memory and sensation, and his fingers will trace the stone-set lines as he remembers the swell and quell of the tides inside him, bursting free only for those few moments it took to pour out onto the page in monochrome.
There are a number of books he won't look at anymore, their pages marred with blood-red and acid green and tombstone grey, the black of hatred, the red of angry revenge, the bright flickering orange of fire, the murky brown of destruction. He tried looking, once, years ago now, and his dreams for the next month were abstract and horrible, hyper-coloured faces contorted in agony as the colour leeched from them like ink-blood to spill across the blank pages of his subconscious, until he woke up gasping, fists clenched in the sheets and fingers always, always stained red. He has not bought red ink since that month; the memory of it is thick and hot on his fingers, and he retches any time he thinks of it.
Today, he skips past those books without a second glance and pulls the newest book down: 2007, age twenty-seven. This notebook is different, hardcover, bound in heather-grey with red and gold trim: a piece of his old Hogwarts jumper. His place is marked with a strip of his old tie, the striped silk a cheery reminder of carefree days. But today is not the time for that.
He sits down at his desk, flips the book open to a blank page, reaches for the quill at the edge of his desk. There is only one pot of ink, but it's the only one he's needed these past months. Dipping the nib, he brings the quill shining and ready to the crisp newness of the page, bites down on the tip of his tongue as he sets the angled point against the parchment and begins to draw it fluidly across the blankness. Curves and twists, smooth simple lines in varying thicknesses, organic, free, eyes falling shut as he works. Sometimes he spirals off the page, sometimes his nib sticks in the fold of pages, but he does not open his eyes again until he has poured himself out onto the page. Only then does he look, and his lips curl into a small, secret smile.
The page is green, almost solidly so, and only varying weight of strokes and size of lines allow any indication of what it is meant to be. Bright green, kelly green, vibrant and calming, life and growth and nature and new beginnings sprawled across the pages like hope and happiness, tangled together like the loops and spirals of the repeated letter S.
Long fingers set the quill back in its holder, cap the almost-empty bottle of ink, and move their green-stained tips to the page, tracing one long curve, fingerprints stamped into the ink and the ink settling indelibly into the ridges and whorls of skin. This green is him now, and he is it; this is who he's become, and his eyes glisten with it as he leans close to blow a cooling breath across the ink as it soaks slowly into the page, a permanent reminder of who he is, a copy of him sketched out on paper for all eternity.
'Dean?'
He lifts his head, the green of that familiar brogue cutting through his blanket of thoughts and warming him from the inside, and smiles, fingertips skating across the page as he looks at it one last time. This is today, he tells himself, caressing the kitten-soft cover as he wraps long fingers around the book and presses it shut. Today, tomorrow, and always.
'Just a moment, Seamus,' he calls back, voice rusty and ragged, but clear, and strong, and certain, and it rings out in a gentle, joyful chuckle as he slips the book back into its place on the shelf and walks away without looking back.