Raw Umber: Artie & Quinn
So, Quinn, she had these eyes. Okay, so everyone has eyes, but Artie swore that her eyes were special. They were hazel, which meant that they seemed to change colors, and he never got tired of guessing what shade they would be on any particular day.
They had been a stormy sea green last Tuesday when he had shown up twenty minutes late to her art opening. She had just started at the museum, so it had been really important to have her boyfriend be there for her big night. He had explained about the traffic and apologized with flowers, and she had reluctantly forgiven him when he had charmed her boss with stories about his latest documentary.
Her eyes had been the lightest hue of crystal blue two nights ago after they had gotten caught in the rain coming back from the movies. It had been so long – too long – since he had seen her dance like that, but she had been so carefree as she twirled his chair around on the middle of the New York sidewalk. That was his favorite Quinn, the one who let her walls down long enough to quit worrying about people watching. She hadn't even complained later when she realized her new heels were ruined.
There were other times when her eyes were distinctly gray. It mostly happened when she talked to her parents or around Beth's birthday. Gray meant sad, and Artie had grown to hate the color. Their apartment was always really quiet when her eyes were gray, so he did his best to cheer her up with silly cartoons from when they were kids and by playing old glee songs on his guitar while they lounged around in bed. He'd even been known to break out one of Puck's dirty jokes just to make her smile in spite of herself. But yeah, gray was bad.
But of all the colors her eyes were, his favorite was always raw umber. Whenever he saw that warm honey gaze staring back at him, Quinn just seemed to radiate love. She wore it so well. The first time he'd ever seen it was about two weeks after they'd started dating right after he graduated from film school. He had broken out his old "robot" legs for about two minutes so that he could accompany her down the aisle at Santana and Brittany's wedding. He'd seen it again the first time they'd slept together and then on the perfect summer afternoon in Central Park when he told her that he loved her.
And the night before, the one that came after their spontaneous waltz in the rain, she had turned those gorgeous brown eyes on him again when she agreed to marry him.