Work Text:
Castiel wasn’t sure why Dean wanted to learn Enochian in the first place. It wasn’t as if much of anyone spoke it anymore, except for him, and if Dean needed some old spell translated, he could do it. But Dean insisted, and Castiel had to admit that it was nice to hear his native tongue from time to time, even if Dean continually butchered it.
There must have been something uniquely difficult about Enochian, because it wasn’t as if Dean was incapable of learning foreign languages. He’d shown himself quite adept at Latin. Here, though, he seemed to have met his match. No matter how hard he worked, he never improved.
Over time, Castiel picked up the habit of agreeing with whatever Dean said in Enochian, and then restating it correctly, in the forlorn hope that Dean would hear the difference and learn something from it. Dean would point to the side of the road and say, “Look, is flock of milk beasts,” and Castiel would respond, “Yes, that’s a herd of cows.” Dean would observe that Sam “go big circle of words, for to seek wisdom,” and Castiel would respond, “Yes, Sam went to the library to do research.” It didn’t really help.
Castiel liked to follow Dean on shopping trips. Grocery stores, in particular, were endlessly fascinating. They were like living museums dedicated to twenty-first century America. Castiel discovered something new every time, and Dean seemed to enjoy explaining how the human world worked.
On this particular day, though, Dean had decided to practice his Enochian by pointing at everything he saw, and describing it enthusiastically:
“Birds of the infant,” said Dean. “Yes, those are eggs,” Castiel replied.
“Happy burned water.” “Yes, that’s coffee.”
“The word of God.” That one took Castiel a moment, but then he said, “Yes, that’s bread.”
When Dean gestured at a stack of pastel cardboard boxes toward the front of the store and said, “Them’s little idols of the resurrection rabbit,” it didn’t even strike Castiel as odd. He’d already said, “Yes, those are . . .,” before he realized that he had no idea what he was looking at. The boxes really did contain little rabbit-shaped idols.
He turned to Dean and said in English, “The resurrection rabbit?”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “Well, the Easter Bunny.” Castiel just looked at him blankly. “You know, he visits little kids on, like, Easter-Eve, or whatever, and brings them baskets of candy, and chocolate bunnies, and crap.” Castiel continued to look at him blankly. “I mean, not for real. Their parents do it.”
“I didn’t think there was an ‘Easter Bunny,’” Castiel said, shortly. “But I don’t understand why you would tell your children that a large supernatural animal is going to break into their homes by night and give them effigies of itself to eat.” He felt little sympathy with the human impulse to deliberately terrorize their young with strange fables.
“I never thought about it like that.” Dean was grinning in a way that Castiel didn’t entirely like. He didn’t think that he’d said anything funny. “It’s a bunny. It’s supposed to be cute. I think parents use it to explain who hid the Easter eggs.”
“Easter . . . eggs?” Castiel observed that there were drawings of eggs on some of the boxes of rabbit idols. “The rabbit lays eggs?”
“No, no,” Dean said. “At least, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure the Easter Bunny is a dude. They’re chicken eggs, and the parents dye them colors and then the kids go hunt for them in the yard.”
Human mythology was often eccentric, but this was just ridiculous. “What do pretend chocolate rabbits and hidden eggs have to do with the resurrection of Jesus?”
It was an obvious question, as far as Castiel was concerned, but it stumped Dean. “I don’t know, man. I’m not exactly the Jesus-y type, and it’s not like I ever did this stuff as a kid. I just know about it from TV.”
“I see,” said Castiel. He strongly suspected that this was one of Dean’s jokes. Dean sometimes took advantage of his inability to distinguish between weird things that were made up and weird things that humans actually did. Like when they were in Washington, D.C., and Dean told him that the busloads of children wearing orange belts were “tributes,” and had been recruited to fight to the death for a reality television show. Given what Castiel had seen of reality television, that seemed plausible, but Sam had reassured him that the children were, in fact, part of a paramilitary organization called the “safety patrols,” and were not in any danger.
Castiel decided that he’d have to ask Sam about this supposed “resurrection rabbit.”
Castiel manifested, and Dean greeted him cheerfully with the news, “Sam go big room of sin, for to hunt talking stones.”
Castiel considered that, and then looked around the room for any hint that would allow him to make sense of it. Finally he said in English, “Sam went to a ‘big room of sin’?” He was baffled, and mildly concerned for Sam’s safety.
“What? No!” Dean laughed. “Is that what I said? I was trying to say that Sam went to the Apple Store to shop for an iPhone.”
In Enochian, the word for “sin” was the same as the word for “apple,” but the possibility that Sam had gone hunting in a “big room of apples” had been so remote that Castiel hadn’t considered it.
“That’s a difficult sentence,” Castiel assured him. Dean liked to tease him about his trouble adjusting to American culture, but he was easily embarrassed when he thought that he might look weak or incapable himself. Castiel worried that if Dean knew what he sounded like in Enochian, he’d stop trying to speak it. “There are no words in Enochian for ‘store,’ ‘telephone,’ or ‘to shop,’” he said.
“There’s no word for ‘store’?” Dean asked incredulously. “And there’s no word for ‘car,’ or ‘rock n’ roll,’ or ‘pie,’ either. Seriously, what did you talk about up there?”
“The glory of God,” Castiel said. It was only partly true. He’d talked about many things, with many people, but if he told Dean that he and his garrison had lived happily for eons without stores, cars, rock n’ roll, or pie, he doubted that Dean would believe him.
“Okay, so how would you say ‘Sam went to the Apple Store to shop for an iPhone’ in Enochian?” Dean asked.
Castiel felt certain that he wouldn’t say that, in Enochian or any other language. “Sam went to get supplies,” he suggested.
The kitchenette of Dean’s current pay-by-week efficiency was full of smoke when Castiel arrived. He sized up the situation and determined that Dean was unhurt, and that whatever had been smoldering was extinguished, doing no damage to the building other than a large stretch of blackened wall above the oven.
“Why was there a fire?” he asked in Enochian.
Dean ignored the prompt to practice his conversational skills. “Because I burned the fucking lasagna, that’s why.” He gestured toward a glass pan filled with a dark, hardened mass of what looked like charcoal.
“Why were you making lasagna?” Castiel couldn’t remember ever seeing Dean cook before, even when he’d stayed somewhere with a kitchen.
“Because it’s the only thing I know how to make, other than hot dog-aroni.” That didn’t really answer Castiel’s question, but Dean seemed angry--far angrier than burned lasagna warranted--and Castiel didn’t want to provoke him further.
Dean looked up at the wall. “Well, that’s the security deposit,” he said bitterly.
“Where’s Sam?” Castiel asked. Dean’s bad moods were often prompted by an argument with his brother.
“They only had singles left, so we had to get separate rooms. It’s cool, because we’ve still got that extra money from the poker tournament in Atlantic City.” Dean’s answer didn’t make it sound like Sam was the source of the problem, but the only other person who regularly got Dean this upset was Castiel himself, and he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. He’d only just gotten here.
“The lasagna freaking caught on fire–I didn’t even know pasta could do that–and then I knocked over the bottle of wine trying to put it out,” Dean said, and gestured toward a mess of broken glass and clotted red wine in the corner. “So I hope you’re okay with pie and whiskey for dinner.”
“I don’t eat,” Castiel said, unsure why Dean was suddenly so concerned with feeding him.
Dean scrubbed his face with his hand. “No, you don’t, do you? This was stupid,” he said, mostly to himself. “Fine, I’m going to eat pie and drink whiskey, and you can watch me.”
“Okay,” Castiel said. It was rare that they got to spend an entire night together. He would gladly do anything that Dean wanted.
Dean smiled a little at that, head bowed as if it were a secret. He pulled himself up onto the counter, and grabbed a white box that proved to contain a whole pie. Dean didn’t bother to slice it. He just took the plastic fork taped to the inside of the lid and started working his way toward the center.
Castiel sat next to him, his right arm bumping against Dean’s left. Dean’s face was smudged with soot, and he smelled of smoke and distress. After a few minutes though, Castiel could feel Dean start to relax, whatever sacred power he found in pie gradually working its magic.
“Come on,” Dean said, and held out a forkful. “I know you don’t usually eat, but this will totally change your mind.”
Castiel leaned forward and let Dean press the reddish bit of pastry into his mouth. There was something intimate about the gesture that made him want to draw Dean closer. When he bit down, though, he found the gummy, over-sugared mass of cooked cherries intolerably sweet, and so thick that he could barely swallow it. He’d far rather have eaten fresh fruit.
“It’s . . . interesting,” he said, aware of the importance that Dean attached to this particular food. His disgust must have shown on his face, though, because Dean shook his head, amazed.
“You’re literally the only person on the planet who doesn’t like cherry pie, you know that?” He didn’t sound offended. More like amused.
Castiel took a drink from Dean’s glass of whiskey to wash away the pie. He liked the whiskey just fine. It was sharp and bright, and tasted like Dean.
When he looked up, Dean was watching him through lowered lashes, a half-smile on his face. Castiel kissed him. His mouth was sticky and too sweet, but Castiel didn’t care.
When Dean finally pulled away to draw breath, he said, “I’m sorry about tonight. I suck at this, even under normal circumstances, and with an angel who’s also kind of a guy, I just . . . .” He threw up his hands. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I don’t know what you’re doing, either,” Castiel said, earnestly. He hoped that Dean might finally explain why he’d been so upset.
Instead, Dean laughed. “You don’t, do you? Everything I’ve said since you got here has been total static, hasn’t it?”
“Not everything,” Castiel said, trying to be generous.
Dean sighed. “They didn’t really only have single rooms. That’s just what I told Sam. I figured, as long as I had some extra money, it would be nice to be able to spend a couple of nights alone with you, you know?”
Dean said it like it explained everything, but Castiel shook his head. He knew why Dean wanted to be alone with him, but not what lasagna, wine, and pie had to do with it.
“Okay, fine,” Dean said. "How about this?" He switched to Enochian. “Why fire? Me try make pretty happy kissing time to you.” He gestured toward the smoke damage on the wall. “No go. That why fire.”
For once, Castiel knew exactly what Dean meant to say:
“Yes,” he said, “I love you, too.”