Book Four

Of Art Supplies and Ungodly Obsessions

Chapter Two

By the time class was over, Sam was exhausted. He was also smeared with more paint than he had ever seen in his life and he had once helped Jess paint her parents' entire house. He hadn't bothered removing the apron he had been given, fairly sure he would end up wearing the entire can of blue paint it was drenched in if he even tried. His brushes - so many brushes - as well as the myriad of other tools he had no idea the purpose of, were wrapped in a clear plastic sleeve and tucked in his bag. He also had a stack of blank canvases that he was to pick up later that day, when he was "less likely to smear them with a colorful description of your crotch, Winchester." He fully intended to have a shower first, however, and perhaps sleep for the next three days. Painting in the dark had been weird , but also surprisingly cathartic.

His stomach growled loudly and he remembered that his apartment had a single package of saltine crackers and a can of cream of mushroom soup.

I take it back. Give me the apocalypse. It was easier.

"I see you've met The Dragon."

Sam stopped walking and turned at the familiar voice. She looked different without the purple apron and beret, but her smile was the same teasing grin and it was hard to forget hair that long.

"I didn't take you for an art major, Sweets."

"I'm…" He shook his head. "I'm not. Parapsychology."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh yeah? Not just Psychology by Para, too? You've got goals." He huffed a laugh and she grinned at him. "So what're you doing in my art class other than facing your demons ?" She dropped her voice low in mimicry of their professor and he laughed.

"Um, trying to hit all the requirements for my Gen Eds. Art class seemed like it would be… easy."

"Wow, did you pick wrong."

"That bad, huh?"

"She's called The Dragon , Sweets. You don't get that name from being cute and cuddly." She adjusted the bag she was carrying and Sam realized it held a collapsible easel he had seen some of the other students using. It was different from the one Professor Drake was having him pick up later, which was a large wooden contraption hat didn't seem very maneuverable.

"Did you get your supplies already?" He nodded toward her bag at her confused look.

"Ah, no. This one's mine. 'Fraid I don't get to take on The Dragon just once and dash. I'm an art major. I'll have to fight her for my diploma, I bet, right there on the stage graduation day."

Sam found himself laughing loudly and was surprised by how good it felt. He shook his head. "I'm gonna keep calling you The Barista in my head unless you give me your name."

"Not The Feckin' Barista ? Not doing my job selling the name if I'm just a boring ol' barista." She winked at him. "Names' Kathy, but you can call me whatever ya like."

"I'm Sam."

"Nah," she said with a grin. "Ya Sweets. Already picked a name for ya, darling. No take-backs."

He huffed a laugh and his stomach growled again. "Ugh. I need a shower and food, sadly in that order."

She grinned at him. "I've got to get to work. Come see me again, Sweets." She sent a wink his way and headed off toward the direction of the coffee shop. Sam watched her go for a moment, then shook his head. He headed off toward his apartment, thinking about what he would do for dinner. He could call Giovanni's Pizza before he climbed in the shower and have them deliver something. That would probably be easiest.

What would make it even easier was if he would actually get his dorm assignment. A week into classes and he hadn't yet been told where he would be staying. So much for getting money back on his apartment rental. At this rate, he'd be using up all he won from Dougherty paying for another week or so.

His email hadn't been working when he tried to log on so he wasn't getting any information that way, but when he'd called administration, he'd been told there was a plumbing issue with the building he was due to be assigned, so for the moment, he would need to just stay where he was. He wondered how other students were handling not having a place to live.

I'm really lucky, he thought, as he trotted up the stairs to his apartment. I could be sleeping in one of the lecture halls, instead. He hoped the other students were doing all right and decided to check on the status of the dorm when he had a free afternoon.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and called Giovanni's Pizzeria, a little disturbed that he could dial the number without having to think about it, but the human mind was weird. He ordered a vegetarian pizza that would have made Dean cringe and headed for the bathroom.

He didn't even bother stripping, just turned on the water and stepped in, shoes and all. The water washed down the drain in colorful streams and Sam watched it blur together in a prism of chaos that perfectly described this semester already. At least he only had the class once a week. It would take him the next seven days to recover before he had to face his demons again.

Face the dragon , he thought and grinned ruefully. If nothing else, the class promised to be... interesting.

"No, no!" Professor Drake cried, appearing out of nowhere and advancing on the young brunette who cringed at her arrival. "What is this... this...travesty ?! Are you painting a puddle, girl? Is it an oil spill? Come on now, speak up!"

"It's... it's..." The girl's voice quavered and seemed to deflate the more she spoke, so much that Sam almost didn't hear her shamed whisper of, "It's supposed to be a rainbow."

It was the first time Sam had actually heard the girl speak and they were four weeks into the semester. The timidity of her voice explained why, though, and the snort of laughter from one of the boys on the other side of the room didn't help as the girl withered like a dehydrated flower right on the spot.
Professor Drake tsked in clear disapproval and Sam prepared to say something. The girl clearly had self-esteem issues. She didn't need a professor dragging her further down on top of students who should really be adult enough to know better.

He spotted Kathy across the room. The redhead had her long hair braided and then wrapped up in a large bun at the back of her head today but there was still a large streak of blue paint behind one ear. She was glaring at the boy who had laughed and the paintbrush clutched in her hand looked at risk of snapping in two any second. Sam hoped she didn't get herself in trouble by doing something foolish like stabbing the bully in the eye, no matter how tempting it was.

He eyed the idiot again but he appeared to have satisfied himself and was focused on his own painting. Sam listened only peripherally as The Dragon told them that class was over and they were, as usual, to pick up their painting station completely and leave the room. She turned back toward her desk and left everyone to pack their stations away. Unlike some of his other professors, Professor Drake didn't have a class immediately following this one, but she still preferred them to have everything cleaned up and be gone within a few minutes of her saying class was ended. Sam had no desire to stoke her ire, so he began to quietly and efficiently pack up his station, all the while keeping an eye on both Kathy and the idiot.

He carried his canvas to the far wall where there were hooks spaced along it for students to hang their paintings. On a campus as busy as Stanford, carrying a wet painting to and from class was nigh impossible. Not only could all manner of dirt get stuck in the wet paint, but bumping into someone could mean anything from dropping your painting on the sidewalk to getting someone's face artfully stamped across your would-be masterpiece. The wall space designated for his class was a blessing and Sam carefully made sure his painting was balanced and unlikely to topple to the floor at the least provocation. The shine of wet paint gleamed darkly at him and he grimaced at his poor attempt. As much as he could imagine the Impala, sleek and shining and beautiful, he wasn't able to transfer that image through his hands the way he wanted. Instead, a blob of black like an oozing puddle of bad decisions spread like a disaster across the yellow dotted line of a well-intentioned road.

Sam briefly thought planting someone's face in the middle of his painting could only improve it.

When he turned to make his way back to his station, he found that the rainbow-painting girl had made her way over to the professor's desk. The two of them were speaking too quietly for Sam to hear and he hesitated, but the girl didn't appear distraught, nor did The Dragon appear particularly draconic. He was about to move closer so he could hear what was being said when movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He looked over to see Kathy waving at him lightly. When she realized she had caught his attention, she sent him a wink and a headshake. Her meaning was clear. He didn't need to interfere with the other girl and their professor.

He sent her a look that expressed his doubts and she grinned at him, walking over. "Trust me, Sweets. You don't want to stick your head in that cave."

He pursed his lips at the clear pun on their professor's nickname. "You sure? The girl looked like she was about to cry earlier."

"Kennedy's a dick, that's why. And Teryn worries too much about pleasing the professors. Trust me, she'll be all right." She made a shooing motion at him. "Now hurry up before Drake realizes you're dawdling."

He made his way back to his station and wrapped his wet brushes in a paper towel before sliding them into the plastic case in his bag. He picked his easel up by its central column and lifted the bar that normally held his canvas while he was working. The other two legs collapsed inward and Sam locked them down before collapsing the legs until the easel was no more than two feet long. He slid it into the vinyl bag it had come with and slung it over his shoulder.

By the third week into this class, he had been utterly sick of the easel the school provided him. A massive, cheaply-made wooden contraption, its rear leg had been the only one that moved, either extending or dropping down against the main frame. It hadn't collapsed, folded up, or been easy to transport. It had also clearly been used over multiple years and he kept catching his hand on rough spots or snagging a splinter halfway through class when he tried to adjust his canvas for a different angle. After his third class, he'd finally gone to Kathy and asked her where he could find a decent easel that wouldn't break his wallet. Rather than laugh at him (although she had laughed, she seemed to do that quite often), she had sympathized with his plight.

Because of their schedules, they'd had to wait until Friday before both of them had off at the same time for more than a couple hours. Kathy had insisted that one did not simply walk into an art store and buy only the thing they were looking for. Once they arrived at DaVinci's Paradise, he began to understand what she meant. The look on her face was very similar to the way Dean looked when they were in a car parts store. Kathy was definitely an artist at heart.

She'd dragged him to the aisle where they kept the painting easels and he'd nearly run away in terror because Chuck have mercy, there were somany . Easels of every size, some made of wood and others metal, ranging everywhere from $20 to $300. When he spotted the $1500 all-purpose easel with a crank, he turned around and headed for the door.

Kathy laughed at him (definitely at him, this time) and grabbed his hand, dragging him back. "Don't freak out."

"Too late," Sam murmured, making her laugh.

"Okay, unless you're going to paint for your livelihood-"

"Can I sell my work as firewood? I'd make more."

"Then you don't need that fancy of an easel." She rolled right over his commentary as she dragged him back down the aisle. "So wooden easels are all well and good if you're keeping it in the same place, but not so much for transport. Carrying it back and forth between classes is easier if it collapses. There's some where the legs fold up but they're not as sturdy and a wobbly easel's no good for delicate work." She pointed out some metal ones with joints that tightened and loosened to help keep the easel open or collapsed. "These are pretty nice. Can be irritating if the lock fails on ya, but if you're only taking the one class then it would probably do ya."

Sam hesitated. He really just planned to take the class for credits and move on toward his major, but something was niggling at the back of his mind. He couldn't place it beyond doubt, though why he would subject himself to The Dragon for more than one semester was a guess for a saner mind than his.

Still…

"What kind do you use?"

"I didn't get mine here, but they have one that's similar. It's a bit pricier, though." She walked a little further down the aisle and lifted off an easel that had been collapsed. It was about a foot and a half long all tucked together, folded up so tightly that he could have encircled the whole thing with his hand and touched fingertips to thumb.

"I like this style. It's more secure." She began to open it as he watched. There was a large piece of hard rubber on the bottom that looked like a giant bottle cap. She unscrewed it to reveal the legs, which extended in sections. The back leg unfolded from the top and then extended downward, and the rest of the easel opened like a flower, with a ledge that held the canvas and a firm back to keep it steady. There was even a bar at the top that could be adjusted for different sized canvases so it could hold them and prevent movement.

It was compact and light, Sam noted, as he lifted it easily with one hand. But it was also sturdy and neither rocked nor wobbled. He glanced at the price.

"Sixty is probably the lowest you can go for a decent one that'll last you," she admitted apologetically. "Unless you're shooting for short term."

Again that niggling feeling that was like an itch in the back of his mind. It made Sam's lips curve into a frown even as he tried to determine whatexactly it was trying to tell him.

"You can always come back later if you're not sure," Kathy suggested soothingly.

Sam smiled at her and lifted the easel. "No, I like this one." He began to fold it up, making sure he knew how it worked.

"What's the frowny face for, then?"

He thought of demon blood and abominations and endless years of torment and forced his lips into a smile.

"Just thinking of home."