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“I freakin’ hate witches,” Dean panted as he was thrown against a wall. What he also really hated was being bait for witches while his brother needed for-fucking-ever to get the sigils around the house in place that would render the witch powerless for a small amount of time so they could try Bobby’s witch killing recipe and if that wouldn’t work, had still enough time to hightail the hell outta Dodge before the witch put hex bags on them.
“What a sweet mouth you’ve got on you,” the witch smiled as she ripped Dean up by his hair and squeezed her hand into his cheeks with an iron grip so that Dean’s mouth was forced open in the shape of a painful ‘O’ even as he uselessly grabbed her wrist to keep her off.
He had to keep her distracted, he reminded himself, garbling out nonsense words to keep her attention on him, but it was too late.
The witch’s head turned, it seemed like she sensed Sam’s power lessening sigils starting to work.
“What is this?” she slapped him across the face and Dean shook himself, the marks of her fingers burning on his face even after she had pulled them off.
“What’s what, bitch?” he cursed at her and she struck him again.
“Don’t play me for a fool. I know what you’re trying to do. It’s not gonna work, sunshine. And while I’m at it,” she mumbled an incantation that he couldn’t understand for the life of him, and then gripped his face once more, levering open his jaw again.
Dean grunted and tried to hold her off with all his might, but he felt her incantation in his oral captivity, filling his mouth and trying to choke him. The need to swallow became almighty, but he didn’t want to, struggling with his boots drumming on the floor, but it was too late. He swallowed against the burning reflexively and if felt like fire running down into his stomach.
“That will teach you,” the witch purred with a wicked grin and then she let him go, running away before her power was completely contained.
“Dean?” he heard Sam shout, probably having seen the witch run from the house.
“Yeah, here. I’m here, Sam,” he coughed, toppling over as he tried to get up.
When Sam stormed into the room, he immediately started talking at Dean, trying to get him up.
“I must have gotten a bigger blow to the head than I first thought. I can’t understand you, Sammy.”
Sam’s eyes looked panicky, so that Dean started to turn his head into every direction to see if the witch was coming back.
“What? What? What’s the matter? What are you doing with your phone?”
Sam shook his head repeatedly, recording more of Dean’s more and more panicked outbursts.
He snapped the phone out of Sam’s hand and saw that he had recorded him with a translate app.
“What the hell?” he asked, but when he let go of the button and his voice was played back to him, he heard different words than he had thought he said.
“Was zur Hölle?” were the words he heard and the translation app told him that he had spoken German but he didn’t understand the translation on the screen.
He wanted to say: “Help me, Sam. I don’t want to sound like a pretzel eater for the rest of my life,” and laugh over his own lame joke, but Sam just shook his head again, saying something that he really couldn’t understand but what had to be English.
Sam took his phone from him and the only word Dean could understand as he made a call was ‘Bobby’.
“Bobby?” he asked Sam when he had hung up.
Sam shook his head. “No,” oh that word seemed familiar somehow.
“Nein?” he asked back and Sam nodded.
“Cas! Krieg deinen geflügelten Arsch sofort hier runter. Ich brauch dich!” finally Dean heard himself speaking a language he had never learned in his life, and in turn his brain finally acknowledged that it had forgotten every last word of English it had ever known.
“Dean?”
“Oh, Gott sei Dank!” he shouted out and then immediately began telling Cas all about what had happened while Sam just stood by like a sad puppy while Dean explained their whole adventure with the witch and finished with the curse she had thrown on him. “Scheiße, Cas. Ich verlier noch den Verstand. Du musst mir helfen! Kannst du Sammy alles erklären?”
“Natürlich kann ich das,” Cas rumbled, and Dean had to admire the way the consonants grazed Cas’ larynx and came out as an assurance that he would help him explain everything to Sam and assured him that he could all leave it up to him.
“What the hell is happening, Cas? Why can’t Dean understand us anymore?”
“I assume it’s some sort of curse. I get you were hunting a witch? Do you want me to find her and get her to reverse it?”
“Yes- No,” Sam seemed indecisive. “We could definitely need help to break this, and it would be great if you could you know… if us any pointers as to what to do…”
“I don’t understand,” Cas frowned and Sam put on resting bitchface number 7, also known as ‘this angel is going on my every last nerve’.
“You can understand every word Dean is saying, but you refuse to get me?”
“I don’t ‘refuse’,” Cas airquoted Sam. “I simply do not understand the idea you wish to convey.”
Sam’s bitchface was gusting to gale force 8 now. He stepped to the side a bit, his head cocked to the other and his chest started to heave.
“Leute,” Dean got between them, knowing the signs of his brother about to shout, or run his mouth. “Wie wärs wenn wir uns einfach darauf konzentrieren diesen Fluch von mir zu nehmen. Hey, was sagst du, Cas?”
“Of course,” Cas told both of them after the other. “Of course, we’ll do our best to lift the curse. But you may have to find basic means of communication while I observe the witch and see if it’s safe to engage with her.”
“Abgefahren,” Dean grinned and Sam frowned at Cas.
“Is that the German version for ‘awesome’?”
“It roughly translates as that, yes.”
“Great, so I’ll only have to learn five German things, right? I already know what stands for awesome, so what’s German for pie, booze, porn, car and bitch?”
“I don’t-”
“Yeah, I get it. You don’t understand,” Sam rolled his eyes, and then bit his lips in a grin. “Tell him: Jerk.”
Cas looked at Dean: “Trottel.”
“Schlampe,” Dean gave back immediately, turned to his brother.
“At least that’s working,” Sam laughed loudly and after Cas zapped them back to their motel, and then went after the witch, he set up his computer, finding a website for German children to learn the first 50 words of basic English.
Three hours later, Sam had a raging headache because Dean talked loudly at him, pointing at the wikipedia article about how the different languages of the world called the pineapple and everywhere except English it was called: ‘Ananas’.”
“Ananas, Sammy! Nicht pineapple. Das ergibt keinen Sinn. Englisch ist eine schwachsinnige Sprache!”
“Yeah, I hear you. I don’t know if it’s what you said, but English really doesn’t make sense sometimes,” he stretched himself, yawning deeply. If his brother’s scholarly career or lack of one was anything to go by, he’d be totally screwed if this was irreversible.
He didn’t necessarily think that his brother was dumb, far from it. But there was just a certain adaptability to studies that if it wasn’t trained at an early age, was really hard to acquire in later life. Dean hadn’t learned another language. Sometimes when they switched schools, well-meaning counsellors had put him in Spanish classes, but by the time they started, mostly right in the middle of term, both brothers were already way behind their classmates and didn’t manage to catch up at all.
Which was why when Sam had had the chance to take up a more permanent residence at Stanford, he’d properly done the Spanish course he’d always wanted to do. But he had noticed back then that he was rusty, and needed more repetitions than when he had been younger.
Now Dean, who’d never had the chance to study properly, and what’s more was in his 30s by now, was trying to learn his first foreign language? Recipe for disaster, Sam figured.
Never had he been more relieved to see Cas as he was now, when the angel manifested again and Dean nearly fell out of his chair cursing: “Hurensohn!” which Sam was pretty sure was German for ‘son of a bitch.”
“I located the witch and she seemed cooperative enough,” at this point he held up a hand when Dean and Sam in turn wanted to interrupt him about saying ‘enough’, and then he went on uninterrupted.
“The curse will break when he’s learned to be more truthful, because she dare not hope he‘d ever get courteous. When he admits enough lies he’s told throughout the years, the curse will reverse, but he will retain he ability to speak German. I guess the part about the lies refers mostly to you, Sam. Though I do not presume to understand what her purpose is for doing all of this, since you will not be able to understand him.”
“No, but I can record him and translate his confession whenever I need something to hold over him,” Sam grinned and opened the voice recorder.
“Talk,” he grinned and Dean began, rolling his eyes.
He spoke for over 10 minutes, and once he finally stopped, he grinned up expectantly: “Sagt was!”
“So we can see if you understand us yet?” Sam said.
“Ja, genau. Hey, ich hab das verstanden! Aber… warum kann ich nicht…”
“What? What’s he saying?”
“He says his understanding of English has come back, but he can’t speak it yet.”
“And you’re sure you’ve told me everything?”
Dean nodded, despairing slightly.
“Any other people you’ve lied to?” Sam asked, and almost wanted to bite his tongue off when Dean looked at him incredulously, raising his head sassily, and even though he didn’t say anything, his gesture clearly spoke: “Dude, all we do is lie to people!”
“Right,” Sam coughed. “Any big lies, then? To people who’re still alive?”
Dean shifted awkwardly, casting a very quick glance at Cas, but Sam had noticed it immediately.
“Kannst du uns mal kurz allein lassen, Sammy?” Dean sighed, seemingly resolved to come clean about a great many things to Cas.
“Yeah, sure,” Sam nodded, guessing that Dean had asked him for privacy to do the right thing and tell Cas about everything. “About damn time too,” Sam clapped his shoulder on the way out.
“Dean?” Cas asked, apparently not understanding what was going on.
“Verdammt, Cas. Mach das nicht härter als es ist.”
“What’s hard on you?” Cas asked with confusion. “You know I am an angel of the lord and I can read your thoughts. There is nothing you could ever lie to me about. Well, I assume you can lie, but I know what you really mean.”
“Is’ nich’ dasselbe,” Dean mumbled, afraid to look up.
“I agree it’s not the same, but it’s of no consequence. There is very little in the finer differentiations of human behaviour that I can fathom, but I understand you perfectly.”
“Ich-”, Dean began.
“You’re attracted to me,” Cas stated flatly. “But you have never done anything about that fact, and you should not have to now either. It’s alright, this attraction will pass. Humans move on very quickly. If you want we can have intercourse a couple of times and then you’ll be able to move on,” Cas offered as if it was nothing and Dean felt himself getting angry.
“Nein, verdammt!” he shouted, taking a step closer to Cas, wanting to shake him about not understanding him after all. “Das ist keine Sache die mal eben wieder vorbei geht. Ich liebe dich, Cas! Und das hab ich schon immer. Ich hab dich geliebt seit ich dich das erste Mal gesehen hab. Es geht nicht um Sex, ich… just love you.”
“Dean, you switched to English in the end,” Cas told him calmly.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Dean rolled his eyes, blushing and embarrassed because he had just professed his love for Cas in two different languages. “Aren’t you gonna say anything? Say I’m a creep, or a mud monkey. Say you should’ve let me rot in hell and it’s sacrilege or something.”
“It is sacrilege,” Cas agreed and took a step closer of his own, Dean’s breath hitching as Cas went on: “Aber das interessiert mich nicht. Ich liebe dich nämlich auch, Dean Winchester,” and then he kissed him.