A/N: Wishing everyone a Happy Halloween. :D
This didn't come out quite as macabre as I'd hope, I guess its just not my genre, but I had to write it. It came to me during my lunch break while listening to (and don't judge me for this.) Chris De Burgh's The Painter. I did actually use a few of the lyrics at the beginning and end of the story. It's a great dark song that I recommend. :)
Anyway, as usual this as not been beta read sorry for the mistakes. :) But I really hope that you enjoy it even if its just a little bit.
Dean sat in his large black chair staring at the portrait hanging above the fireplace as three men entered. Wind and rain blasting against the widows, giving the evening an eerie feel that the newly arrive guests felt unnecessary.
Dean turned his head a fraction. His eyes red and bloodshot, his usually tanned features drawn and pale. He sent the men a tight smile before turning back to the painting.
"Gentleman…" he spoke softly to them. "…I'd like you to meet my angel. Over there large as life. He's been hanging there for almost a week. – What do you think of the colour of his skin? It's has a bloom of his own. – You see he begged me to bring a certain painter in and for that picture in his bedroom he would pose… but after a while he was driving me mad…" Dean smirked at the gentlemen, though it did not reach his eyes. "…as you can well understand. Sitting in there, day after day with my angel in the palm of his hand."
The gentleman stared nervously from the wall to Dean and back again. Dean simply continued to look at the portraits, as he told them his story.
Three Weeks earlier.
"Dean, please. - It would make such a wonderful birthday gift for you."
Dean Winchester had never been able to deny his angel anything, though the idea of having some stanger with his angel for days on end made his gut tighten. But Castiel was right, a painting of his angel would be a wonderful gift, he knew just where he would hang it. "Very well. I will see to it."
Two days later the man arrived. Sam Campbell was a handsome tall man with longish light brown hair and hazel eyes that were similar to his own. His features speaking of his youth. He had to be no more than three or four years Dean's junior and he also held a familiarity that Dean could not place. But what made his heart ache was the way this handsome stranger smiled at his angel.
Three days after that first meeting Dean began to notice the strange behaviour in his angel and the painter. They would speak in low voices when they believed themselves alone and would cease speaking when he entered a room. Dean heard snatches of conversation.
"What if he find out?"
"I do not believe he will except us."
"We will be together always, as soon as I am free."
What added to Dean's suspicions was that Castiel refused to answers his question or meet his gaze. It would always turn towards the painter when the three were in a room together. When they began sneaking off with the excuse that the painter wanted to paint the angel in the morning light, only to return home well after dark, it was Dean's last straw. He made up his mind. He would be rid of the man.
He vanished after that, no word from him and Dean breathed a sigh of relief. But almost immediately his angel started questioning where the painter had gone? Insisting that someone be sent to check on the man. Dean's fury grew. His angel would never look at him with those brilliant blue loving eyes again. He only had them for the painter now. He wondered as the days passed and the angel continued to worry about the painter, what lies the man had told his angel. What he had said to rip Castiel's love away from Dean's.
Days passed and still his angel pleaded for someone to be sent to check on the painter.
"If you are so worried, you go!" Dean yelled furiously.
"Dean?" Castiel tilted his dark head to the side in confusing. "Why do you shout?"
"All you care about is that painter…. I brought him here because yo…." Dean paused as if a revelation had suddenly struck him. "You planned it. Having me bring him here!" Dean yelled grabbing at his angels arms. "How long! – How long have you been with him!"
"Dean, you're hurting me. – I have not 'been' with Sam. - Ever."
Blinded with jealous and anger he shook his angel furiously. "Don't lie to me. I've seen the way you looked at him. The way you both cease speaking when I enter a room." His grip tightened till Castiel winced in pain.
"Dean I swear to you, there is nothing between me and Sam but friendship…"Panicked Castiel broke the confidence Sam had sworn him to. "…he'd your brother Dean."
It was all lies. Dean knew it was all lies. The angel, no longer his angel, was lying to him.
"Dean?"
The man looked up from his place at the breakfast table. His face pale with worry. "Have you found him?"
"Yes Dean…." Bobby looked at his feet. "But…. I'm afraid…. He's dead."
Dean's face grew dark, his eyes filling with tears. "Wh-ere is h-h-he?"
"He's being brought in."
As if on cue four men's footsteps echoed in the hall.
"In here." Dean yelled, jumping up from his seat. He swiped at the table with his arm, sending plates, mugs and food cluttering to the floor. "Put him there." He ordered.
They laid Castiel's body peacefully on the table. His once bright blue eyes close and his face white. Dean fell to his knees beside the body and cried. Heart-breaking wails filled the house.
"It's that painter! It's him, he's to blame!"
Returning to the present, Dean stared at the unfinished portrait hanging about the fireplace. The canvas holding little more that the outline of Castiel's features. There was nothing to show the gleam of his pale white flesh, no shining blue eyes, just faintly drawn lines that barely showed on the pale canvas.
The three men looked nervously at each other, their hands shaking at the sight and smell before them.
"Sir?" one of the men finally said, stepping forward. "Sir, we would like you to come with us."
Dean's gaze did not move from the portrait. "I hope it's the rope for that painter." He snarled, his hazel eyes narrowing as they fixed on the indistinct image of his angel. "When he's found, its hell bound for that painter."
"Sir, come with us." Another man said more firmly, stepping forward.
Dean looked up at them, not noticing before how they were clothed. Their white jackets turning orange in the firelight. "I'll get that painter." He told them.
The two of the men stepped to Dean's side and took hold of his arms, lifting him from his seat and pulling him away from the almost blank canvas.
The last man out of the room was the doctor. At the door he turned back to the wall that sat opposite the fireplace and unfinished portrait. There nailed to the stone was the angel, his head hanging low as if in pray, his arms spread wide as if offering comfort and his black wings open across the wall ready to take flight back to heaven.
THE END