Title: The Colour of Sound
Author: vaderina
Rating: R
Genre and/or Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: All seasons to be safe
Warnings: Synesthesia if that requires a warning
Word Count: 1863
Summary: Dean had always been able to see sounds. What if Dean has synesthesia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

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Dean could see sounds. Had been able to since he can remember. His first memory is seeing his mother sings a lullaby to him, all gentle hues of dark greens and browns curling around him as he drifted off to sleep. It is one of his few memories of his mother, but they all had the same colours. Warm soft and comforting.


 

It never really bothered him, he never told anyone as he always thought everyone saw them. Once, when his father was trying to point out a train in the distance rattling past in harsh lines of greys, Dean had said "I see." His father corrected him saying "No you don't, you hear. That train is too far away to see." Dean never mentioned it again, arguing would have been useless.


 

He never told is brother either. First he was too young to really understand, and now it would be just an awkward conversation. "Hey Sammy, guess what. I see sounds." Even in their weird lives this would seem a little too extreme. So he never could tell his brother that when he spoke Dean saw caramel hues dancing through the air, all jolly. How it changed with the years from light caramel and tan to darker more murky colours as his little brother grew up. Although Dean knew it was to do with his tone dropping, he never could shake the feeling that the colours got muddier as their relationship deteriorated.


 

Because he never told Sam, or anyone for that matter about seeing sounds in colour, nobody understood why he loved some things so much. The obsession with pie was simple. Although it tasted great, the golden crust sprinkled with a dusting of caramelised sugar reminded him of the days long gone where Sam was still young and his voice carried a light carefree tone. Dean missed those days even though he never could voice that. His car, whenever he drove her, he saw brilliant flashes of the most startling turquoises and light aquamarine blues. They rushed past him in swoops and loops. When he added his music blaring from the speakers, these whirling lines of colour were shot through with bright orange-y reds and the edges were tinged almost feathery with a darker blue. These bright colours were an excellent contrast to what he saw on an almost daily basis while hunting.


 

Every time they were on a hunt, he preferred silence. He never told Sam it was because he could see better then. Every take of breath from Sam sent shivers of tan running around the edge of his vision. When a ghost or demon moved, he could see sloshes of luminescent yellow appear in the general direction of the monster. He was thankful that he could hear so well, even the smallest of sounds which he may have had a hard time pinpointing brought in a small metallic splash of colour, leading him to their prey.


 

Dean used to love hearing in colour. But then he went to Hell and everything changed. In Hell, the screams turned his world a sickening mix of red and black. Pain and misery mixed to give a permanent hue of blood red over everything he saw. After he got pulled out, it took a long time for the world to not have a reddish tint, the scream echoing in his ear ensuring that the hues tarnished everything he saw and heard. It put him off so many things. Cherry pie had to go, the bright red far too much of a painful reminder. Loud bars, hustling and pool also became a strain. He used to love just sitting in there and listening to the flashes of colours, his own drink enhancing the effects. The laughter of other patrons bubbled through his vision, the sound of the cue ball bouncing off another ball leaving behind sparkling bursts of gold and silver. Now, all he could hear was the cacophony of it all mixing together into an unbearable mix of sickening waves like a brutal rainbow with a red tinged to distort it all. Instead, he drank alone in the silence of his motel room, hoping for the red to ease and the screams to die down.


 

He still listened to his music. The shots of colour a rare comfort, along with the purr of his baby as she ate up the miles. He occasionally remembered his experimenting with music and styles. Anything with pop inclinations induced a neon pink and green mix which he didn't enjoy. The music itself might have been bearable but the accompanying colours made him want to start throwing things. That's why Sam was never allowed near to controls. Too much candy colour shit flying around. The only other candy coloured sound he heard was Gabriel. But that may have been because Gabriel ate so many sweets, they had bled into his voice. Classical music tended to make him feel a little woozy. The soft lines that drifted in lazy waves from left to right in dark colours only to then spike up into more cutting colours at the crescendo left him in an irritated fuzzy way, jolted out of a soothing lull into full alertness in seconds. He couldn't put up with that in the long term. Jazz he found was just too bright. While the colours may not have been offensive as such, they just changed too quickly and jaggedly to be anything but annoying. Blues ironically had a really depressing shade of flat blue that did nothing to lift his mood. So he stuck with good old fashioned rock which shot bursts of colour sporadically and gave him the much needed stimulation to stay awake on long drives.


 

Sex after Hell had also proved to be a huge problem. While before, he found the pinkish giggles and reddy-pink moans of his partners alluring, now they made his hairs stand on end. The pink was no longer endearing, but a painful reminder of what he could never have while the reddish tint just served as reliving Hell. The time he tried to take a screamer back to the motel room had spectacularly backfired and ended in him being red faced and embarrassed. So he had given up on sex, unwilling to risk the painful reminders of all he saw in Hell. His own hand could do just as fine a job as any girl and he'd not have to put up with distressing (not to mention off putting) colours.


 

His own musings on his colourful world often brought him back to Cas. When he met the guy, he thought his voice would be green, perhaps with a bit of orange laced through. He couldn't have been more wrong. His deep voice was a rich navy blue which, when stressed would get flames of lighter blue shooting up. Dean never failed to notice how these lighter blues matched the colour of his Impala. And his eyes. Dean couldn't help himself, but he fell in love a little bit with those eyes. Their colour was one of the few things that brought up pleasant memories. One of his fondest sounds from the angel was his laugh. The colour of a bruising sunset lingering just above the horizon. It was rare and treasured all the more for it.


 

While his voice was a surprise, Dean was rarely wrong about people's colours. When Cas got dragged back to Heaven and Jimmy got left behind, Dean found that he was completely right. Green with a hint of orange when excited or stressed. Ruby though was another matter altogether. Her yellow lilt oscillated between sugary and sulphur. Her laughter whited out Dean's world. Her groan as she died was a satisfactory yellow running into a glassy puss yellow-green. The scariest voice Dean had ever heard though was Lucifer. No matter what form he took, his voice always resonated with the bleakest and darkest black. It ate up everything and never changed, over powering every other noise, the black spread through his vision until all he could see and hear was Lucifer. Dean had never been more terrified in his life.


 

What Dean never expected was for anyone to understand him. His world was so far removed from the normal in terms of sensation that he had long since resigned to not sharing it with anybody else. Castiel however, seemed to understand him. He got his need for quiet when the colours just overwhelmed him. Cas never said anything that would flare brightly. Even when pissed off beyond belief, rather than sharp stabs of colour, his voice just took on the colours of a dangerous torrent, a seething and coiling mass of dark and dirty blues. The only time Dean had seen him any different was when he had kissed Anna. The barely there breath gasp of black-blue jealousy the skittered across his vision in halting stops. In fact, Dean had hardly ever seen Castiel's voice change colour. He kept it at an even blue. Even Bobby who had the most consistent fuzzy edged brown voice Dean knew would change to bitter reds and oranges when things went wrong.


 

The only time Dean could change Castiel's voice was in bed. They had tumbled towards each other and the inevitable had happened. They went from hostility to begrudging respect to acceptance to friendship and finally to lovers. It was a word that Dean still baulked at but when it came in the softest of blues from Castiel's lips, Dean couldn't think it as anything but perfect.


 

Dean gazed at Castiel's face, eyes scrunched up, mouth open as he worked a finger in. He never made a lot of noise, just gasps and sighs building up, adding to the destined finish. Barely there curls of wispy blue trailed from bruised pink lips. A curl of purple fluttered past as Dean pushed in another finger, the welcomed stretching burn manifesting itself. As Dean pumped his fingers, the smoky sounds took on more form, becoming twirls of entwined blues and purples. They never became more brash though. The colours stayed soft and calming, swirling away before they could build up to a mess of shapes. Their soft contours stroked over the plush lips, rolling away into nothingness as Dean continued to pleasure his angel. He always knew when he had hit Castiel's prostate, the thread of wafting colours thickening into a royal blue of such intensity Dean could get lost in them. When Dean pulled his fingers away, a hollow, almost transparent groan of silky baby blue accompanied the move. Dean moved up the angel's bare body, his kisses leaving marks to match the colour of the moans. When he slid home to a midnight purple sigh he smiled and let himself get lost in the warm hues. The colours rapidly changed from then on. They took a more solid form, the colours joining into a marbled column that spread at the top like the crown of a tree. The hues becoming more rich and intense, taking on shades befitting royalty and dispelling into a smoky puff with the final sigh as they both climax.

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