Title: Language Barriers
Author: vaderina
Rating: PG
Genre and/or Pairing: Pre-Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Word Count: 1046
Summary: Castiel tries to tell Dean just how much Dean means to him. Unfortunately language gets in the way.

***

It all started off simply with a text from Cas. Dean got it while snoozing in the back of the Impala on the way to another hunt.


 

Je t'aime. That's all it said. Dean smiled at it. He may only have a GED but he knew enough French to be able to get that. He and Cas may not have ever actively acted on such feelings, nor Heaven forbid, talked about it, but Dean was pretty sure he and Cas were pretty much on the same page on this side of things. Lazily, he texted back.


 

<3 u2


 

His phone beeped after a full minute.


 

Anywhere between 2.001 and 2.999. But I don't understand the relevance Dean.


 

Frowning, Dean ignored the text. Maybe he didn't know enough French after all. The hunt goes by, as simple as Dean's life ever really gets. Which isn't very if he is being perfectly honest. But then again, he rarely it. The errant text message lies forgotten on the memory card of his phone. Its memory is joined by one of a napkin from a diner. Cas slid it across the table they were sitting at while Sam had left to pay. Scribbled hastily in elegant rounded letters, the blank ink running slightly on the paper was;


 

Szeretlek


 

Dean looked at Cas with a cocked eyebrow while Cas started soulfully back at him, eyes set in a serious and begging slant. Before Dean could query what the angel was on about, Sam returned. The napkin stayed on the table as the Winchesters left. Cas cast one final sad look at the napkin before he too took his leave.


 

The next time Dean saw Cas was from the other side of a Devil's Trap containing a blood thirsty demon.


 

"Te amo." Cas announced, staring Dean in the eyes. Dean blinked at the confused angel.


 

"That's not an exorcism Cas. I don't know what it was, but let's try again with a more conventional try." Dean said and began rattling off the exorcism he'd memorised to perfection since the age of 9. It most definitely didn't contain the words te amo. Crazy angel and his crazy words.


 

After that, Dean was out getting food. For once Sam had managed to bad first shower and Dean had to go and procure the goods that would pass as dinner. He was listening to some crappy local radio station when Cas beamed in. It showed a lot that Dean didn't even flinch, just cast a curious gaze at the angel and quietly anticipated what weirdness the angel would come out with instead. However, Cas just sat quietly as the DJ prattled on.


 

"...and now, we have a message for My Hunter. My Hunter, you have an angel out there looking out for you who just wants to let you know that ich liebe dich...."


 

Dean reached for the radio and clicked it off. He grinned at Cas.


 

"If I didn't know you any better, I'd say you were slowly getting the nuances of humanity and the art of pranking. But really? I don't think you even get the concept of radio."


 

His comment was greeted by disappointed stony silence and the fluttering of wings as Cas disappeared.


 

"What the fuck did I say this time?" Dean asked the empty car.


 

In his dreams Dean often saw Cas. Sometimes just glimpses of him, walking behind a tree only not to appear the other side. Sometimes he'd be at the side of a pond, staring at the ducks mournfully. Other times he'd be next to Dean, sitting of standing as the situation required. The only thing that stayed constant is that Cas never spoke. That all changed when they were sat in a park, gently pushing themselves into a rocking motion on swings side by side in amicable silence. Cas scuffed his shoes on the ground, bringing himself to a halt. Dean followed suit and looked at the angel.


 

"Aishiteru."


 

"Bless you." Dean's smile melted from his face as the other swing rose high and over the bar, its chains clanking in the storm Cas' departure made. Dean didn't see Cas in his dreams again for a week.


 

Dean was sprawled on the floor of a dusty dank old house. The angry spirit had thrown him there and he could only watch with sick fascination as a piece of pipe was travelling at high speed in the direction of his head. That, he mused, was going to hurt. A lot. The blow never came. Instead, Cas did. And Dean be damned once more if he didn't think that that specific phrasing was hilarious. He watched as Cas easily deflected the spirit's onslaught and then as it went up in flames. Sam appeared in the doorway with a lighter in hand and a particularly panicked look on his face. Cas turned to look at Dean then lightly dropped to his knees. He cradled Dean's face in his palms, warm and dry against Dean's sweaty cheeks. Sam backed out of the room slowly, but he could still hear the other two in the room.


 

"Dean." Cas' gruff voice floated through the air. "I tried telling you with words, but you never listen."


 

"What?" Dean's voice was cut off suddenly. The silence stretched until Sam could take no more. He stuck his head round the door frame only to beat a hasty retreated. It looked like Cas was trying to lick his message into Dean's brain through his mouth. And Dean was letting him. The sound of wet lips parting alerted Sam to the end of the kiss.


 

"What have you been trying to tell me Cas?" Dean asked, breathless.


 

"I love you." Cas said.


 

"Huh?"


 

"I texted you first a few weeks back. Sam told me French was the language of love. In response you sent me a mathematical equation."


 

Dean huffed out a laugh.


 

"You speak all the languages in the world yet you don't get text speak? You goon."


 

"I didn't see how love has to be mathematics." Cas said in all seriousness.


 

"It doesn't Cas." Dean said, the sound of more kissing reaching Sam's ear. "It really doesn't."

***