HERE, have some fic. Courtesy of the 8 hour bus ride to Barcelona
Title: The Language of Hell
Disclaimer: If anyone owns anything in this relationship, Supernatural owns my heart. And won't give it back. And won't pay me for it.
Characters: Dean
Warnings: mild mentions of torture in Hell
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 316
Spoilers: takes place in S4
Summary: Dean always enjoyed his pop-culture, but he picked up different reference points in Hell.
Author notes:
lavinialavender read it, but didn't beta exactly...
It took Dean months to learn how to speak again. Not in a damage-to-the-vocal-cords kind of way, or like that half-decade when Alastair cut out his tongue every morning. No, this problem is as essential as thought and terrified him every time he looked at Sam-oh God, Sam, really Sam, baby brother, thank God and angels he’s still alive.
Dean has always been a man who enjoys his pop culture. Old movies, in-jokes, with a little ancient Sumerian and Biblical in there just to make Sam roll his eyes.
But he picked up different reference points in Hell.
He learned the name of every angel that hypothetically fell with Lucifer. He memorized a dirty drinking song that used to be a missionary hymn. He picked up Spanish Inquisition jokes that had nothing to do with Monty Python and everything to do with the long-dead priest and demon who taught him how to peel flesh back from bone.
He remembered Scooby-Doo and Paris Hilton, but forty years is a long time and there weren’t as many people below who understood the references. He learned what would intimidate, what people would understand, and he used these until they were second nature, like a new language.
These new analogies for sex, for joy, for victory were Hell-thoughts trapped inside him, not as easy to leave behind as the injuries that Castiel wiped away when he pulled Dean up from the pit. Those words were like a little piece of Hell that Dean couldn’t shed because they were as much a part of him as his guts, his guilt, and his love for Sam.
So he didn’t open his mouth if he didn’t have to and he watched reruns of old TV when he couldn’t sleep because of the nightmares-or his fear of the nightmares-and he gradually did his best to forget the language of Hell.
It was hard to unlearn.