A/N: Yet another thing that I wrote to get past writer's block. Once again, all credit goes to tumblr; the prompt was 'one is deaf and the other learns sign language for them AU'. This is set somewhere in season five, when Cas is losing his 'mojo'.

Damn witches. Dean hated witches with a burning passion. They were always throwing curses left and right, and as if that wasn't enough, they were hunting a possessed witch. Which meant that not only did she know everything that a witch should know, she also had all of the powers of a demon.

Fan-freakin'-tastic.

Dean heard Sam grunt from somewhere off to his right as he was thrown against one of the old cabin walls, crashing through it to land outside somewhere.

Ouch. That had to hurt.

Dean quickly finished mixing together the ingredients for the spell they needed to weaken the witch's part of the power, dodging objects being thrown around the small room by the witch. Cas and Sam had been put in charge of distracting her while Dean worked on the exorcism and spell, but it didn't look like it was going too well.

Still ducking under the curses the witch was flinging everywhere, Dean ran over to the witch and dumped the contents of the bowl he was holding on her head.

He watched, fascinated, as black smoke also began to pour out of her mouth. Guess the demon was more of a coward than he had thought. Her body slumped to the floor, burnt out. Sam crawled back in through the hole in the wall, ready to continue the fight, but found that his work was already done for him.

Dean laughed, somewhat shakily, and congratulated Sam and Cas for a job well done. However, when only Sam answered, Dean spun around, worried for Cas. Had he been hit and Dean hadn't noticed it?

Cas was sitting on the floor, looking slightly stunned, while a small trail of blood dripped from his ear.

Dean rushed over to him, kneeling down in front of him to catch his attention. "Cas! You okay man?" he asked, holding Cas' head so he had to look at him.

Cas blinked heavily, looking up at Dean with confusion. "Dean?"

Dean sighed in relief. "Don't scare me like that, man. I thought you got hit by one of her spells."

Cas didn't reply, just furrowed his eyebrows. "Dean, I can't hear you."

Dean's smile froze on his face. His eyes flicked over to the blood that was still dripping out of Cas' ear. "Sam!" he called out, and immediately Sam was right there with him, ready to take on the new problem. Then he saw the blood, and Cas' apparent lack of response to anything they said.

"What happened?" he demanded, relaxing his defensive stance, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

"It's Cas, man, I think he got hit by one of the witch's spells. Can you hear anything?" This last part was directed at Cas, who remained silent, glancing between the two brothers. There was a tense, somewhat awkward pause, before Dean cleared his throat and said, "Okaaay. Apparently not."

Cas interrupted, "Dean, the witch's spell seems to be affecting my hearing." Though he sounded calm, his wide eyes and quickened breathing gave away his anxiety.

You sorry son of a bitch, he thought, can anything go right lately? Heck, all of their plans to stop the apocalypse had failed, Cas was slowly falling, Dean was on the brink of saying yes to Michael, and now this? The whole damn universe seemed determined to make life as shitty as possible for the Winchester brothers and company.

Whining about it wouldn't get anything done, though. No, right now they had to focus on Cas' apparent deafness. "Cas," Dean said, making sure to speak slowly, "can you walk?" He waited for Cas' hesitant nod, and hovered over him while he slowly got to his feet.

The three of them were able to make it back to the Impala without any major difficulties, though there were a few alarming sways on Cas' part and a few stray tree roots tripped over.

They piled into the car, Dean taking off as soon as all the doors were closed. After a brief stop at the motel to get their bags and check out, they roared down the highway, heading to Bobby's.

A few hours later, they pulled into the gravel driveway, all injuries bandaged during the trip. At least Cas had managed to catch a few hours of sleep on the road. Later Dean would swear up and down that no, Sammy, I was not 'gazing at him fondly'. What, did you suddenly turn into a girl when I wasn't looking?

Dean, to avoid the chick-flick moment that was close to happening, roughly shook Cas awake. He sat up, groggy and disoriented. "I don't think I like sleeping, Dean," he said plainly and far too loud. Of course, the guy probably couldn't hear himself.

Dean just nodded, gesturing for him to head inside the house. Sam knocked on the door, but Dean didn't wait, brushing past a shocked Bobby to deposit Cas on the couch. Bobby stared for another second, clearly taken aback, before he turned to Sam and furiously demanded, "What did you two idjits do this time?"

"Cas got hit by a curse and it took away his hearing. We didn't know what to do, Bobby."

At hearing Sam sound so shaken, all of Bobby's anger evaporated. "It'll be okay, son. We can fix this." He directed him towards a towering pile of books by the window and started to sort them.

Dean was left standing awkwardly with Cas, unsure of what to do. Bobby only had so many books on witches' spells, and he would just be getting in the way if he tried to help. He was about to go over there anyways, before he heard Cas speak up.

"Dean, you wouldn't happen to know sign language, would you?"

With the hopeful tone in Cas' voice, Dean didn't have the heart to say no. Holding up one finger for Cas to hold on, he rushed to start up the laptop.

It didn't take long to find a website with the basics, and it was with slightly shaky hands that Dean carefully signed, C-A-S?

Cas' smile was bright enough to light up the entire room.

Two months later

Cas, do you ever miss being able to hear? Dean signed as they lay in the salvage yard. He had become fully fluent in sign language by now. Though they had tried everything they could think of to reverse the spell, Cas' hearing hadn't returned. He'd finally told them to stop, saying that he was okay with it. They could make it through, like they always did.

So it was with great reluctance that Dean had put away the search for answers, for good. Instead, he had tackled sign language with a vengeance, something which Cas was extremely grateful for.

"I guess… I'm adjusting to it, like everything else. Just another part of being human." He laughed, but it sounded empty. "I'm dealing with it."

Cas, you know we'd never… we'll always be here for you, alright? I'll always be here for you.

"Thank you, Dean."

And as they settled back in to watch the starry night sky, Dean knew they'd be okay.