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The first word he learned to make out was ‘Dean.’ It was easy, watching that familiar stretch of the lips, before teeth closed around the ‘n’. Not that he couldn’t necessarily hear it, what with the way John’s voice rose in volume, a deep, guttural roar that shook through Dean’s bones and made his heart race. Only the words came to him as a brief whoosh of “Ea”, followed by muffled consonants.
The second word was ‘Sam’ of course.
The third word was ‘idiot.’ That one was a bit harder than ‘Dean’ even though, by Dean’s count, it was probably used more. That extra syllable was a bit tricky, which explains why ‘goddammit’ took a while to figure out too.
It kind of snowballed from there, with Dean learning more and more over the course of ever agonizing months until about half a year later, he could make out half the words in John’s rant.
“Goddamit, Dean, can’t you…do one goddamn thing?…fuck…Why…say something?!…Idiot…Watch (your) brother.”
It was easier to make out the words when John was close, clutching him by the shoulders and staring earnestly in his face, just trying to get him to say something.
It took a while before Dean actually managed to speak. He hadn’t mastered a lot of vocabulary before Mary’s death, but he’d gotten some and he tested those first, sitting in his room and trying to form his mouth around the familiar syllables of ‘Dad’ and ‘Sam’ and ‘Crayon’ and whatever else he could manage (though he avoided ‘mom’.)
The words sounded muffled to him, and he wasn’t sure he was getting them right, but when he finally called John ‘Dad’ after two years of silence, his father rejoiced, gripping him in a tight tug. He figured he must have done good then.
It got better from there, mostly. School was still rough and learning to hunt was a nightmare, particularly when Dean had to look away from his weapon just to read John’s lips. John would berate him, because Dean’s stance would mess up every time, and then they’d start all over again, with John getting him into proper stance and then trying to direct him from there. This would happen for hours on end before John would give up and they’d get back in the impala.
John would put a tape in, blasting classic rock and singing along, and Dean would sit in the passenger seat, reading John’s lips and listening to whatever he could make out from the radio. Dean likes singing now, and though he’s never sure if he’s on or off key, he knows the words and the rhythm well enough that he can rock out with the best of them. Said rocking out is, admittedly, limited to whatever tapes they have in the car, but Dean’s fine with it. There are a lot of good memories attached to those tapes.
Then, of course, there’s Sam.
Sam was probably the best and worst part of all this. The worst because Dean rarely ever heard him cry, particularly if they were staying in one of those ancient trailers and Dean was on a different side of the house. The best because he was Sam and his first word was ‘Dean’ and he was happy and healthy and he could hear.
He was always adventurous, little Sammy. He’d get into things and he wanted to explore, which usually ended in Dean getting into trouble. Dean learned after Sam managed to get locked in one of the trailer closets and spend a good hour crying out for an older brother who couldn’t hear him, while Dean searched frantically for a wayward toddler, that it was best to keep Sam at his sides at all times. John had reinforced that lesson later.
Dean was never sure if John had ever started to put the pieces together. He figured there were enough clues if John ever cared to look, and, being John, it wouldn’t have been that hard to see them even if he didn’t care. Dean never had the courage to bring it up though, so he supposes that one will remain a mystery.
Cassie had known. He’d felt nervous telling her – more nervous, in fact, than he’d felt telling her about ‘the family business.’ She’d taken it well enough though, showing up a few days later with brochures for sign language classes, asking if he wanted to take some together. It was probably that, more than anything, that drove him to tell her about the hunting. To this day he’s still not sure if he’d been trying to push her away or hold her closer. He still has those brochures tucked away somewhere, though.
Bobby doesn’t know. Or, if he does, he knows better than to bring it up.
Cas…well, Dean’s not sure Castiel even understands what hard of hearing means. Not that Dean hasn’t thought about asking Cas to fix it. Dean’s still not sure why he hasn’t.
Sam definitely doesn’t know. Dean can say this one with the utmost confidence, because if Sam did know, Dean would never hear (or, rather, not hear) the end of it.
And it’s not like Dean doesn’t manage alright. He can read lips just fine and sometimes his right ear works pretty good, which, now that he thinks about it, is probably why he likes the driver’s side so much – he has Sam to his right and, if he concentrates just enough, it’s almost like he doesn’t have trouble hearing at all. And if his hearing’s not that great, he knows Sam well enough that he can fill in whatever he can’t make out from Sam’s lips.
All in all, Dean would say he’s doing just fine.
And yeah, he might listen to his music too loud, and he might have some trouble keeping track of conversations, and maybe he’d be better off taking the easy option and having Cas mojo him some working eardrums, but somehow, sitting in the impala with Led Zeppelin thrumming through his body and Sam asleep in the passenger seat, he just doesn’t think he needs fixing. And if he does, his ears are hardly the worst of his problems.
Dean taps his hands on the steering wheel as the familiar beat of ‘When the Levee Breaks’ comes from the radio, the instrumentals quiet and faint, even as he feels the bass reverberate in his chest. The miles slip by and Dean starts to sing along, the familiar words rolling off his tongue.