A/N: A request from KyoxSakifan, a.k.a. Neko-chan. She wanted some Virichie since she was on a kick of the pairing a while back, so I decided to amuse her with a new one from me about the pair. But I have a feeling that it won't be what she expected from me, and is definitely overdue. XD

I wake from a fuzzy dream, the harsh reality of life distant and oddly quiet. I think nothing of it as I rise and yawn, but as I go to mutter something to stir Backpack from its sleep mode, I grow a little worried.

I can't hear myself. I can feel the vibrations in my throat, but I can't hear a word of what I'm saying. I'm speaking without volume, at least to my own ears.

Alarmed, I race out of my bedroom, silently hollering at my parents. They jump, startled, and stare at me. They say something, their lips clearly moving even though it's blurred from my forgetfulness to put my glasses on. But I can't hear them.

"I… I think I've gone deaf," I force myself to say, even if I can't hear it myself.

My parents gawk at me, and even though I'm a senior in high school, and a male at that, I start bawling. I feel no shame as I crumble to the floor of my parents' bedroom and start to sob uncontrollably.

My mother rushes to my side, and I feel her warmth encase my shoulders. She strokes my hair, but if she's saying anything to me, I can't tell. I shake my head deftly and clamp my hands over my ears.

Where has all the sound gone? Why can't I listen to the beating of my mother's heart, or her soft breaths, or the rustle of bed sheets as my father tumbles out of bed? Why am I incapable of picking up any sound?

Is it my ears? My brain?

…What's wrong with me?

xXx

I end up skipping school. My mother calls in sick for me. What am I supposed to do? I can't go to school when I can't hear the teachers talking. It would be pointless. No one I know of in my school can "speak" sign-language, including myself. With my super-brain, I can probably learn it in a snap, but I would rather figure out he problem and fix it than go through the misfortune of being deaf for the rest of my life.

I refuse to. I absolutely will not stand for a lack of sounds in my life; sound is far too important, just as important as sight. Without sounds, how will I battle the bad guys creeping up on me? How will I hear a cry for help, or a call to action?

How will I ever hear Virgil's voice again?

This last thought I shake immediately away; it's not something I should trouble myself with at the moment. Instead, I focus on contacting my best friend in some way.

We have this sort of vibrating beeper-like system set up now, since the Shock Boxes are too noisy and a real beeper is even worse. It's a nearly silent way of communicating, some in which the vibrations spell out Morse code in short bursts. It works well during school hours; it enables us to meet up if a problem occurs without being caught by our teachers.

Thank God for this system. Because now, its genius-ness comes in handy for my deaf ears: I can feel rather than hear any response.

I wind up getting a message faster than I can send one. Richie. Why. Are. You. Not. Here? V sends in long bouts, one every other minute. He must be distracted, or trying to fool his teacher. Either way, I get the message.

I am home. I have gone. I pause, my fingers shaking, stilling on the button to press. Finally, I form the Morse coded letters for one powerful four-lettered word: Deaf.

There is a long moment without any message coming in through the receiver. I can picture a horrified expression on Virg's mocha face. I can imagine him running his hand through his dreads, or covering his mouth. Then, almost suddenly, a response comes.

How?

I don't. Know, I answer slowly.

Coming over. Is all Virgil says in reply. I send more messages, telling him not to ditch school on account of me, but he doesn't obey. He ignores me, and in moments, I glance over from my place on my bed to see him slipping in through my window from atop his electromagnetic disk.

He looks at me sadly for a moment, and then his shoulders sag and his mouth opens; a heavy sigh.

Knowing that I can't read lips (it's just not a talent I possess, nor have needed to develop), Virgil goes over to my desk and whips out a sheet of paper and a Sharpie marker. He scribbles onto it: 'I was afraid something like this might happen.'

I shake my head. "What are you talking about?" I say aloud. Apparently too loud; Virg winces at the volume.

He jots down: 'Don't you remember, Richie?'

"Remember what?" I ask, hoping that I'm quieter this time.

Virg gives me this stare, as if questioning my sanity. He quickly writes (almost too sloppy to read): 'You got hit last night, when we were fighting some gang bangers! You went down pretty hard, and fell unconscious. But you woke up while I was carrying you home and you told me that you felt fine, so I put you to bed.'

I stare at the three sentences with nothing but shock adorning my features. I try extremely hard to remember, but all I can recall is changing into my Gear uniform after school when V and I saw the news about some gang causing a ruckus downtown. But after that – flying, getting there, fighting, getting hurt – I don't remember a scrap of it. I know it must have happened – Virgil's memory and my lack of hearing is proof – but I can't bring the images into my mind outside of what my brain can generate from my imagination. I can imagine it easily, since similar things have happened in the past, but… this. This is just too unbearable.

I look at my friend with as much calm as I'm capable of. "So you think I lost my hearing after getting struck down?"

He nods.

"Do you think it's temporary?" I mutter, panic rising in my chest. "Like in the movies when an explosion goes off too close, and the person loses their hearing for a while?"

Virgil bites his bottom lip, hesitating. He shakes his head.

The confirmation strikes me like lightning (a sensation I'm quite familiar with, after being around Static for so long). My hand flies to my mouth and I squeeze my eyes shut. It hurts, knowing that I may never hear again. Never know any new music, never understand movies as well, never listen to the sounds of a video game or birds outside my window or my mother's voice or Virgil's voice or anything. A world of silence. Forever.

I almost wish I had gone blind instead.

But what good is that, either? You can't see movies or video games or what the band you're listening to looks like or how your relatives and friends age or any of the beauty of nature or what's on a computer screen ever again.

So I guess I can't win. If I had to lose something, I wouldn't want to lose anything, because each and every piece of me is important in its own way.

…Except maybe my appendix or tonsils. Maybe I would have given one or all of those organs up, if it meant I could avoid this silent fate.

Virgil nudges me, removing me from my onslaught of thoughts. He points at the paper, a fresh sheet with new words on the page.

'You should go to the doctor to find out what went wrong. You're a super-genius, aren't you? Surely you can fix whatever's wrong with you, if you know what needs fixing. Right?'

He has a point. If I find out that it's an inner-ear thing, the doctors can do the surgery for me. If it's a mental thing, I can probably create a chip of some kind to replace the damaged lobe. And if it's both, well, I'll come up with something.

I nod slowly, standing up from my seat on the bed. "Right. Thanks, V. I'll tell my parents. Stay in here, though, okay? I don't want them to rat on you for ditching."

He holds up his hand, his thumb and pointer fingers forming an 'O' while the other three stick up in the air. 'Okay,' he's saying.

When I "talk" to my parents (the communication is off, since I can speak to them but can't hear them, so they have to write to me like V had), they agree to set up an appointment for me to see the doctor tomorrow. They inform me that if it comes down to a surgery of some kind, they'll be willing to use my college fund if I'm willing to take out student loans and pay the loans back when I'm older. I tell them that I don't care if I have debt, so long as I can hear again. After all, what good is college if I can't listen to my professor's lectures? It would be the same level of pointlessness as me going to school at the moment.

With everything finalized, I return to my room with a sigh. But the second I enter, Virgil brings me into his arms.

This isn't the usual "man hug" we share on occasion; this is a real hug, an intense embrace of comfort and sympathy that makes my cheeks blush wildly and leaves me a bit short of breath. I can feel him breathing into my shoulder, hot and moist, and his warm cheek on my neck. In my peripheral vision, I can see us reflected in my mirror, our skin tones in beautiful stark contrast with each other.

"Um… V? Wh-what are you doing?" I whisper, or at least I think I'm whispering it. I can't tell, since whispers don't make your vocal cords vibrate.

But I must have said it aloud, because he hears me and reacts. He leans away enough to smile softly at me, and gingerly touch his hand to the side of my face. I stumble backwards, a little surprised, and he chuckles weakly at me; the only way I can tell is by the way his mouth is slightly open and his shoulders are shaking.

"Silly," he mouths (or maybe speaks it, I'm not sure; I can barely make out the movements as it is). He moves to write on the piece of paper again. It reads: 'Don't act so shocked, Rich. I'm just trying to tell you that I'm here for you, and that I'm going to help you get past this. You're deaf, but maybe not permanently. And it sucks, but it's not the end of the world. You still have me.'

A smile blossoms on my face, and tears prickle the back of my eyes. I wipe the corners underneath my glasses to stop myself from crying. I turn in my superhero friend's direction, but don't look him in the eye. "Thanks, V," I murmur, hopefully audible; I can't tell how loud I'm being. Man, this is difficult! "It means a lot to me for you to tell me that."

He smiles. "Sure thing," I think he says, but I really do suck at lip-reading. It almost looks like it could be, 'Sue Bing' or 'shoe string' or some other random nonsense, but I know that V wouldn't be saying someone's name or mentioning footwear at a time like this. Still, as smart as I can be, my brain can be silly at times and read things incorrectly.

Ashamedly, I want to crawl back into his arms. I feel… shaky, depressed, and a little lost. My world has changed from a vibrant action film to a silent movie. It's nerve-wrecking, and as startled as I was at first, that doesn't mean I didn't want a hug. On the contrary, one would be very appealing at the moment.

Sensing my uneasiness, Virgil comes back to my side and looks me over, questioning me with his eyes. I timidly reach out and grip his sleeve. He gets the message. He brings me back into a hug, tucking my head under his chin. He's so warm, and he smells spicy and sweet, like apple pie filling with too much cinnamon and a dash of that musky scent that resides in all cologne. I subtly inhale, and wrap my arms around him a little tighter than I should be.

But I always wondered: what's with the double-standards? How come two girls can hold hands, cling to each other, and sleep in the same bed at a sleepover whereas if two guys did the same thing, they'd be considered gay? What, are we just too manly to be affectionate? The truly sad thing is, males have both X and Y chromosomes, whereas girls only have X. This essentially means that men are part female, but females are not part male. So the double-standard just looks even more ridiculous.

Even sadder, the whole males-being-affectionate-equals-homosexual thing is usually true. I'm proof; Virg has known since the end of our sophomore year that I'm gay, and he was a little wary of me at first because of it, but now he doesn't care. I'm still his friend, I'm still me, the same as I've always been, so he decided that it doesn't hinder our friendship. Which is nice, because I was terrified – and for a moment, convinced – that it would.

As I'm standing here thinking all of this, part of me is waiting for him to pull away. To cough into his hand, slap me on the back, and (if I could hear) say something along the lines of, 'Yes, well… feel better now? I should go…'

Except he doesn't. He lets me hold onto him for as long as I like, until it's me who feels uncomfortable and turns tomato red (I blame my horribly pale complexion) and coughs into my hand and leans away, telling him that he should leave.

His face looks utterly serene. Virgil nods, wishes me well with a few gestures rather than words, and then leaves via my window, the same as he came in. As I watch him go, I feel my throat constrict and bitter saliva pool in my mouth. I bite my lip and swallow shallowly.

Somehow, I fell like crying, and I'm not entirely sure why.

xXx

After a visit with the doctor, I know what went wrong. I try in vain time and time again to fix it; for the course of a week, I ignore my parents and even Virgil as I go about experimenting on myself in either my room or the Gas Station of Solitude, trying time and time again to restore my hearing with intentions I stick in my ears, or on my temples, or hook up to my earring, or anything. Anything to get me to hear again, if only in one ear.

But I soon discover that the doctor was right (and I was hoping I could prove him wrong). It's not my ears; it's my brain. Something short-circuited when I got hit; something blew a casket, went out, stopped working. Whatever analyzes the sounds I hear is broken. My ears still pick up sound and send the messages, but my brain can't interpret a fraction of it. The doctor said it's a wonder only my hearing was affected; a lot more could have gone wrong. And when he asked how it happened, I just told him that I fell down a flight of stairs. It explained the bruises on my body from the fight, anyway.

Virgil comes by one day after I've given up, my upper body slumped over onto the worktable in the abandoned gas station. I've given up because I know that it's impossible; I can't hear again unless someone operates on my brain, puts a chip on it that will process sound for me, or something else risky and expensive. So that's it, then. I'm finished. Deaf forever.

Virg comes over and touches my shoulder, and I want nothing more than to be able to hear some comforting words in his rich, velvety voice. But no. I'm left without sound, and all I can do is turn in my chair to plant my forehead against his stomach, my arms wrapping around his warm middle as a sobs burst from my throat. He cradles my head, smoothing back my hair, and removes my glasses for me.

Why is V so good to me? I'm just so pathetic, but he doesn't care. And I am forever grateful to him for this. I just love how he never fails me, or anybody else; a natural-born hero, even if he gets cocky or messes up sometimes. But hey, he's only human; he's not some perfect angel. He saves me from myself, though, and that's enough.

Virgil suddenly lifts my face by the chin to peer up at him. I blink the tears away, trying to clear some (but not all, since my glasses are missing) of the blur. His expression is empathetic, solemn, kind. He brings me to my feet and stares at me for a lasting moment, the pads of his thumbs rubbing beneath my eyes to dry my tears. I sniffle, stare, and wonder what he's thinking. Wonder what he's planning. Possibilities rush through my super-brain like wildfire, like they usually do. I ignore them all and focus instead on his chocolaty eyes that I've always loved, and the smooth complexion of his mocha skin.

I can't help myself; I reach out and touch him in return, mirroring his movements as his hands glide down my cheek and over my jaw and grip the back of my neck. And before I can think about it, or react to it, we're both leaning tentatively in, and our lips are meeting in the middle.

We bump noses for a second, but soon we're finding a place to be, figuring out how to kiss. I don't think either of us has kissed anyone before; I'm trying to remember something V has told me before any time he's gone on a date with a girl we know, but each conversation is coming up blank as I close my eyes and sink against him, my sorrows temporarily forgotten.

How long as he known? I ask myself. When did Virgil realize that I have a huge crush on him?

Probably a decent amount of time. I don't mask my feelings well; my mom says that I'm an open book. It's how she figured out I was gay before I even figured it out. It's how I get in trouble sometimes with the enemy, because I have absolutely no poker face.

But why is this happening? I ask myself as I look at things a bit differently the second Virgil's slick tongue timidly brushes the seam of my lips, and I let him enter. What made Virgil decide to do this? He's not like me. He dates girls, and crushes on girls, and was weirder out at first when I told him about my sexuality. So what's his deal? Why is he kissing me? We're friends, and we're close, but when did he start blurring the lines of affection?

It could be out of pity, since I'm a hopelessly deaf case now. But maybe not. Maybe he's doing this because he knows I want it and doesn't care that he doesn't want it in return; Virg can be a martyr like that on occasion.

But I really, truthfully hope that I'm wrong. I would be beyond blissful if this were real; if this closeness, this meshing of lips and mixing of breaths were actually out of love and attraction.

I try not to think about it any longer. Instead, I focus on the feelings of comfort swirling inside of me at the contact, and the ache in my heart for the boy in my arms. I focus on his lips on mine, breaking apart now and again to kiss at my chin or my jaw, and how his hair feels between my fingers.

I focus on all of this, because I can't hear the mutterings slipping from Virgil's mouth, the clipped phrases I'll only later have him write down for me, embarrassed confessions that are something along the lines of, 'I hate that I have to write out that I love you, because you would believe me more if you could hear me say it, and if I could tell you out loud how I fell in love with you, my best friend, a guy, but it's all moot because you're reading over my shoulder as I write this out.'

And it's all I can do not to cry again, so I simply opt to kiss him once more and say what I hope is softly, "I understand, V. But I don't need to hear it, okay? This is enough. This is plenty; more than I could ever ask for."

"Why? Do you love me, too?" he says, and he's about to write out the question, but I read his lips.

I smile and laugh a little. "Now, Virg. Don't be dumb. Why else would I put myself in life-threatening peril with you day in and day out as Gear if I didn't love you? Why else would I kiss you back?"

And he just smiles in relief and shakes his head at me, pulling me in for one of our usual hugs.

And things have changed – drastically, because I can never hear again and suddenly I find myself wrapped up in a love that's been slow-building for ages and finally came full-circle – but at the same time, I feel like things are going to be how they've always been, because there's a strange sense of balance between losing one thing and gaining another.