Author's Note: Inspired somewhat but my hospitalstuck fic "Observations" and several oneshots I have read in which one half of the pairing is blind, deaf or mute, regardless of whether they are in canon, I decided to see if I could write something of that nature. My main inspiration was a romantic oneshot in which the pair met young and grew up to be the first thing one of them ever heard. Originally I intended to write something romantic, but decided against it, choosing instead to look at the relationship between siblings, rather than lovers.
This story presented me with a lot of challenges, and, as it is meant to be written from a child's perspective, I attempted to write it in a childlike manner. I hope this is effective, and I hope you enjoy the story itself.
Your house is quiet, just like it's always been, just like you remember it being. It was never troubled by the chaotic rumpus that the home of two young girls should have been. Even when your parents argued it was in soft, gentle tones, like the action of speaking itself was foreign to them, and you suppose that, in a way, it was.
Your name is Nepeta Leijon, the second daughter born to your parents, five years after their first. Your hair is short and red, your eyes are deep and green, but none of this is important because this story isn't about you.
...
You are three when you first realise it's strange that your sister never speaks to you, but it isn't until you're four that you feel you can properly vocalise these feelings. You tug at your mother's leg and you ask why she doesn't say she loves you when you kiss her goodnight. You ask her if it's because your sister doesn't love you. Your mother sighs and kneels, hugging you. She says that your sister loves you very much, she just can't say it.
"She never says anything," you state. "I know," your mother answers. The conversation ends there.
...
You're five and your sister is the prettiest girl you ever seen. Her hair is long and curly and falls down her back in waves. It's soft and you like to run your fingers through it. Her eyes are the same colour as yours, only brighter, and her smile is the same as yours, only bigger. She's your favourite person in the world, but you know you're not her's, because she doesn't speak to you.
She never speaks to anyone.
You ask your mother once again if she doesn't speak to you because she doesn't love you, and your parents sit you down and explain to you that your sister can speak, just not with her voice. How does she speak then? With her hands. But hands don't make noises. No, they don't. Then how come she speaks with them? Because she can't hear. She can't hear? No. She's deaf. Dead? Deaf. Her ears don't work. Oh.
You ask if you can learn to speak with your hands too.
...
Writing is hard, and everything you do comes out messy, but your sister's handwriting is looped and cursive and one day yours will be too. You tell her so with your hands.
Her room is your favourite place in the world; it's bigger than yours and tidier than yours and different to yours, with lots of new places to explore and hide in. Her bed has more pillows, and her favourite thing to do is nest in those pillows and read. Sometimes she let's you snuggle up next to her, and you rest your head on her chest and look at her book with her. The words are longer and smaller than the ones you're used to looking at, but you recognise a few of them. You have no idea what's going on in her book, or what most of the words mean, but you like being with her.
You're getting better at talking with your hands, but your movement is still clumsy. You have to say your words as you sign them. This makes your sister smile.
She likes to talk to you a lot, and about everything. Sometimes she signs too fast for you, other times you don't know what she's said, and you have to get your parents to come translate. She asks you about school and about friends and about everything. Her smile is twice as big when she's talking with you.
You think it's because she's waited six years to talk to you properly.
...
Speaking is harder now you're missing a few teeth, but speaking with your hands is getting a lot easier. It's hard, though, going to school and talking, and then coming home and not. You start to understand that that was why your parents were so quiet.
Your teacher sets you an important homework task over the weekend, and your sister lets you do it in her room. You sit at her big, white desk and write in a fancy green pen that has MEULIN LEIJON written on it in big shiny letters and wonder if it's okay for you to use something so pretty. She signs yes back very enthusiastically when you ask.
After a lot of thinking about superheroes and people from TV, you finally start.
My favourite person is my sister Meulin (you had to check the side of the pen for the spelling). She's very pretty and nice and lets me play in her room and use her pens and read her books. She has a pet cat who I like too. Me and Meulin have our own language because she can't hear. We have to talk with our hands and I like it a lot and it's fun to do even though it's hard and I don't always know what she's saying. She draws the prettiest pictures and has the bestest smile and gives the warmest hugs and I love her.
She stands over your shoulder as you write, and you think it makes her sad, because she cries a little. You say that you're sorry you've upset her, but she tells you she's not crying because she's sad. She says it's because it's so good she smiled too much and hurt her face.
...
Meulin has a new friend. You don't like him very much. It's partly because he's tall and scary, with wild hair and angry-looking eyes. He reminds you of a boy in your class who you think is mean even though everyone else seems to like him.
Your parents think you don't like him because he takes Meulin away from you, but you're not jealous and you tell them that.
"What's wrong with him then?" asks dad. "He makes it not special," you answer. "Makes what not special, darling?" asks mum, and she pulls you onto her lap and strokes your hair which she wishes you would grow out so you could look more like your sister. You don't want to talk about it, but you end up crying. You tell your mother that it's because he can sign too.
Your sister's new friend can't speak. He can hear, but he can't say anything, so he has to speak with his hands. He uses his hands to speak to Meulin.
It's not your special language anymore. It's not a secret between the two of you or a game the whole family plays. Dad says it never was.
Your parents argue that night, because your mother is worried about how she's raised you. She keeps saying she thinks she made a mistake somewhere, but you don't know what mistake that is. It goes on for a long time, and for once you think that maybe not hearing is a good thing.
...
Your best friend has a crush and he doesn't know what to do. You bring him home with you, and say you'll ask your sister.
"She'll know what to do," you promise. "She knows everything."
He watches you and your sister sign with avid fascination. You say what you're signing aloud, like you always have, and tell him what she says in return. He tells you that his dad is a doctor and could fix Meulin's ears, and you tell him about the special ears she has in a box.
"They're green and white and they go inside her ears like headphones," you explain. "She wears them to school but they don't make her hear any better."
"Oh," he says. "Why does she wear them then?"
"Cus," you say. "I talk to her with my mouth a lot too, because one day she might be able to read my words on my lips. Wouldn't that be cool?"
"Yes, but that doesn't have anything to do with her other ears, Nepeta."
"Sure it does Equius! When you read, you hear the words in your head! So if she can read lips then she can hear the words I'm saying which is why she wears those other ears!"
He tells you that he doesn't think that's how it works, but you tell him that he doesn't really know anything about deaf people because he doesn't know any deaf people except your sister.
You play with your toys until his dad pick him up. He is especially fond of the horses.
...
You're eleven and it is the first year you give out a valentine. It isn't the first year you don't get one.
You're heartbroken and you want to cry but you don't want to talk to your parents about it because they'll ask who the boy was but Meulin isn't here and you have no other option.
You wake up the next day to find a cat-shaped hat on your chest of drawers, along with a note written in that loopy handwriting.
"You always liked cats more than me anyway."
You try to thank her for it, but she denies all knowledge of it, even though your mother has already told you your sister had been working on something for you.
...
Your sister is a really good artist and she's agreed to teach you. You watch her hands move across the page and the page go from blank to beautiful and you attempt to recreate the movements but don't quite do as well. She tells you she loves your picture, and it's much better than hers. She sticks it on the wall, and hugs you.
You want to push her away, tell her you're too old, but you can't.
...
She's out with Kurloz most nights; you're old enough to guess what they're doing. It won't be long now until she leaves for university.
She starts mention cochlear implants to your mother, but she is having none of it.
...
Meulin's gone and you're offered her room but you turn it down. Even though your sister never spoke, the house seems quieter without her. Your dad says it's because your brain is aware of her absence.
Even though there is no need, you all find yourself signing to each other every now and again.
Meulin sends you pictures home, and you send her poetry. Because she's never heard words, she doesn't understand rhythm the way you do. She thinks that they're nice, though. She says her roommate thinks they're good too.
A blind girl transfers to your school partway through the year, and due to your experience with disabilities, you think you'd be a perfect candidate for her friend, and start hanging around with her, despite Equius' warnings.
She introduces you to role-playing, and you turn your role-plays into stories, stories your sister adores.
...
That Christmas, Meulin brings up cochlear implants again. Your mother yells so loud you wish you were deaf too.
...
Your sister is determined. She tells you that if your mother won't help she'll sort the implants out herself. You tell her that it's an awful lot of money for an operation that won't actually cure her deafness.
She asks you if you think it's a waste. You can't bring yourself to answer.
...
I want to hear you poetry, she tells you.
It's not any good, you sign back, and you've read most of it.
No. She shakes her head. Nepeta, I want to hear it. I want to hear everything.
"Oh," you say, because it isn't really something that makes sense as a sign.
The look of sorrow in your sister's eyes causes you to begin chipping away at your mother's resistance to the operation after Meulin's back on campus.
...
"You haven't done your research properly, Meulin. Even if you do convince her to let you get this implant, you won't be able to hear her, or me. Only simple sounds. Doorbells, alarm clocks, car horns. Nothing exciting.
But then, I forget, you've never heard anything. Your trapped inside a bubble, and you don't want to be ignorant to the world anymore. You want to process at least one sound, you want there to be one noise to prevent you from drowning in the sea of silence you've spent your entire life stranded in.
The best things in life are the ones we take for granted, I realise that now. Even with a deaf sister, I've never thought about how lucky it is that I can hear. While I write this, the pen scratches against the paper and the joints in my wrist click and next-door is mowing his lawn. These simple sounds have been kept from you your entire life. Unlike the rest of us, you haven't been an observer of the universe as so much the kid who sneaks in through the back door and crouches in the corner, trying not to be caught. This is your dream, this would mean the world to you, and that all makes sense to me now.
Maybe it'll make sense to our parents soon too."
...
She sends you the letter back, annotated with, "Show this to them, maybe they'll understand. Ask them how happy they were when you said your first word. Tell them how much their daughter wants to hear your words for the first time too. Tell them that their daughter wants to go on and have kids and hear their grandchildren's first words.
I don't care if it doesn't work, Nepeta, but being like this hurts. Imagine how much more knowing you could at least attempt to end it hurts."
Your mother starts looking into the implantation process.
...
You're eighteen, and after months of paperwork and procedures and you don't know what else, your older sister sits beside you, on her bed, reading, like she used to all those years ago.
Your house is quiet, just like it's always been, just like you remember it being. It was never troubled by the chaotic rumpus that the home of two young girls should have been. Even when your parents argued it was in soft, gentle tones, like the action of speaking itself was foreign to them, and you suppose that, in a way, it was.
Meulin get's her implant tomorrow, and she's asked you to accompany her. Not her boyfriend, not her friend, not her parents. You.
Of course, you said yes.
Now your head is resting against her chest and your eyes are skimming the page of the book she's reading just like you used to when she was little, and you're scared she won't like your voice or something will go wrong. You find yourself falling asleep against her, then jolting up in a fit of panic, worried about tomorrow.
She shuts her book. She has one page left.
Aren't you gonna finish it? you ask. No, she smiles. You're going to read it to me tomorrow.
...
There's a beep, and then the doctor is signing, "Did you hear that?"
Your sister's head bobs up and down frantically, her expression blank, apprehensive, but slowly morphing into something altogether more expressive.
"How about this?" Another beep, another nod. The doctor clears her throat and says, "Can you hear me, Miss Leijon?"
You realise it's the first time she's ever heard someone speak. Her eyes grow wide and she nods frantically, her hands moving a hundred miles and hour; Nepeta I heard her I heard her I heard her.
You smile. "I know you did," you say. "Can you hear me?" You sign at the same time, acutely aware that Meulin has never heard anyone speak before today and worried she won't understand. The doctor told you it was unlikely she'd be able to hear your voice, but her hand flies to her mouth and she breathes in sharply. In a few blinks, tears a trailing down her face, and your speaking and signing, just like you used when you were younger.
"What's wrong? Does it hurt?"
No. I'm just smiling so hard my face is sore.