here have a deaf!dean au
also the banshee in this one shot is a little different than the one in the show. in here, their scream doesn't drive the person crazy if they hear it. instead, it just shatters their ear drums and makes them deaf
another also: i know the ending is similar to another one shot i wrote but just go with it okay
and idk when this takes place but it has eileen in it a little bit so i guess s12???
~~~~~
Being a hunter and being deaf probably wasn't the greatest combo. You couldn't hear enemies or monsters sneaking up on you, you couldn't tell if there were cops coming, and you couldn't hear if someone was screaming for your help.
Dean had lost his hearing after a hunt went wrong. They had been hunting a banshee, and the damned thing had knocked his earmuffs off. Right before he could put them back on, the banshee let out a high-pitched scream, causing Dean's ear drums to shatter and break, rendering him deaf.
He hated it. He could no longer listen to his classic rock, he could no longer listen to his favorite movies, and he couldn't really have a conversation anymore. Not if the person wrote it down first, anyway. Sure, he could still watch movies if captions were on, but that ruined the experience for him.
He could hardly even do cases anymore. He couldn't pretend to be a fed anymore, since they didn't hire deaf people. He couldn't even really hunt on cases anymore, either. He might get snuck up on, or wouldn't be able to hear someone screaming for help.
He couldn't get the hang of sign language at first. It was confusing, and he often mixed up the different hand gestures with other similar ones.
Sam had learned sign language pretty quickly. He had been talking with Eileen for a while now, so he already knew a decent amount of sign language. But after Dean became deaf, she helped Sam learn a lot more gestures.
She helped Dean learn, too. It had taken him much longer than Sam. Around several months, whereas Sam was fluent within a month. Even after four months of learning, Dean still didn't know how to say some things in sign language.
Castiel, being the angel he was, already knew the language. Plus twenty-three other variations of sign language spoken throughout the world. He often would stay up late with Eileen and just talk about things. Whatever came to mind, really. Sam would occasionally join in.
Dean was the only one left out. It had been the hardest on him. He had never been very good at learning languages and such, but sign language was even harder than the normal spoken languages. Sometimes he'd wake up in the middle of the night to find Cas, Eileen, and Sam in the library of the bunker signing to each other. They were doing it so quickly that Dean didn't even have time to process the symbols and figure out what the sentence was. It made him feel left out, and he hated that.
In the months after losing his hearing, Dean became more reserved. He obviously didn't talk much anymore. He would sometimes say an occasional word here and there, but most of the time he would just keep to himself. If someone tried asking him a question, it was usually a nod, shake of the head, or a shrug.
He had started holing himself up in his room too. He didn't even really have anything to do in there anyway, but it was an escape from feeling left out all the time.
