Chapter 2: Speak Now
There was a saying: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. As Genesis had once explained, it was a metaphor for life: "Giving someone the solution doesn't help them grow. It just doesn't work like that. You need to give them the tools and skills to succeed and help them flourish." Even the following Loveless quotes had been less convoluted that Angeal's explanation, as usual, so Sephiroth had decided to keep this in mind whenever he found himself fixing another person's errs.
Sephiroth couldn't exactly cure deafness. He hadn't realized how little medical science knew on the inner workings on the ear. After procuring numerous books on the subject, Sephiroth had to conclude that he had neither the skill, nor medical science the knowledge, to cure the problem.
So Sephiroth switched tactics. If he couldn't cure Zack, he would provide a fishing rod – metaphorically speaking.
Many of the books he read on living with deafness told him what he wanted to know. It helped him understand subtle things – how to rely on visual cues when out and about, how to connect modern technology to home systems, how to read nonverbal gestures and understand nuance when lip reading... But none of them talked about how to survive in the military with deafness. Sephiroth hadn't expected them to.
Hearing was a critical part of being a warrior. If one couldn't hear an enemy, they might get caught in an ambush; they might not hear a comrade's call for help; they might not be able to react to a frontal assault before it was too late. The list just went on and on, ranging from life and death situations to daily interactions. Sephiroth wondered if there was a way to work around the disability, to hack the sense enough that Zack could get by on the battlefield. The only way to find out was to experiment.
Sephiroth started spending more time in the VR room, after hours. At first, he brought some SOLDIER-standard earplugs. The things were uncomfortable and passably useful for his preliminary tests. The did dampen noise somewhat, until he felt as if he was underwater, but didn't silence the world. Thankfully the VR room came with a mute button.
It was surprisingly difficult to fight without hearing. Sephiroth had trained for status ailments, such as Blind, Silence, and temporary deafness stemming from acoustic trauma. But engaging in a long-term fight with these ailments was surprisingly difficult. Sephiroth realized that many of his default strategies involved removing the source of the ailment in order to buy enough time to dispel it. Strategies that were entirely useless when it came to Zack's problem.
Sephiroth had to pay more attention to the movement of the world around him. He kept the Masamune before him, and he looked past the bulk of his pauldrons to get a better view behind him. And his sense of space was surprisingly less useful than he thought it would be; Sephiroth could feel someone when they were approximately a sword length away. But no further. He even went so far as to smell for his foes: it was particularly challenging in the VR room, as everything smelled the same (Sephiroth had made a note to talk to the engineers about that).
After a few days of training, Sephiroth came to the conclusion that it was impossible to fight while deaf. Not impossible, per se, but one's attention became too divided. But Sephiroth kept searching for solutions. Perhaps if he had different equipment, like a broader sword and reflective vambraces, it would be easier to manage the visual cues in every direction (trying that gave him a headache). Or perhaps if he simply moved more to get a better scan of the area (this wasted energy and gave enemies a pattern to pick up on).
Sephiroth had to admit, the few gains that came from fighting in a mute world – not hearing the dying screams of your comrades and the innocent, a convenient excuse to ignore orders, and no crippling ear pain following an explosion – did not outweigh the drawbacks.
Although he had made little gains, Sephiroth refused to give up. He needed to try something entirely different. Materia.
The Earth materia was what the silver general started with. With a low-powered and carefully crafted Quake spell, Sephiroth became the center of a sonar. He could feel the vibrations of his surroundings: along the floor, up the walls, along the ceiling. It was a little confusing to practice in the VR room – he could feel the duality of the distorted virtual world extending and mingling with the thundering footfals of secretaries and scurrying feet of scientists – but in-field application worked quite well.
Sephiroth wasn't entirely sure, however, how to amplify the Quake to a three dimensional space. It was fantastic for sensing things in the nearby area that happened to be on the ground, or if he happened to be in a cave or a building. But in the open? He couldn't sense an aerial ambush.
It was when he was pondering this problem that he almost went to Genesis. The red general seemed to have the solution for every problem Sephiroth every encountered, particularly when it came to materia. He had gotten all the way to Genesis's office before he stopped himself; it was Zack's secret. And a secret Sephiroth would keep.
After several elemental combinations, Sephiroth found an alternative. The simple Command materia, Sense. In fact, it had been one of the first materias to try, but had abandoned after the success with Earth.
It was, complicated, to say the least. Casting and sustaining a low-grade Sense spell was difficult enough on it's own, but tuning the spell to his specifications required very particular set-up. The sense spell automatically attached to the caster's strongest sense. When used typically, the information it retrieved was processed with sight – some people saw numbers, others saw bars, and a few saw strange amalgamations of things that only they really understood. This more minute cast, however, settled itself into the next strongest sense. For Sephiroth, that was hearing – it was quite counter-intuitive. But, with some tweaking, he managed to direct the information to his eyes. And it was... strange, to say the least.
It was like he could see a grid everywhere around him – even where his eyes weren't looking. He could see the names of things, lingering like labels above them – threats, allies, civillians, cover, annoyances, paperwork – it was almost dizzying. But it worked.
The Sense spell didn't cover quite as much distance as the Quake, but when combined Sephiroth could zero in on disturbances on the ground. Potential threats with trails of sound waves vibrating along the earth could be identified and cataloged for what they were. Fighting Blind would be a thing of the past.
It was a solution. A viable solution that any SOLDIER would find useful. Especially Zack.
The only draw-back was the complexity of the techniques. They were high level and Sephiroth wasn't sure if Zack could handle them. But, whatever training was necessary, Sephiroth would give him. The tools, the training, the fishing rod – everything.
Now. It was time to tell Zack.
"Hey, Seph!" Zack said as he plopped on the couch.
"Zack..."
"I'm all ears, babe."
Sephiroth didn't know how to begin, so he simply signed, "I know."
"Yup. I'm listening."
Sephiroth wanted to correct him – for one thing he couldn't listen, and furthermore Sephiroth was signing, so there was nothing to hear anyway. Zack was reading, not listening – but Sephiroth ignored the nit-pick and continued. "About your problem."
There was a flicker on Zack's face. Signing had taught Sephiroth to pay careful attention to expressions and body posture and what they meant for every sign. Something that almost looked vulnerable passed across Zack's face, something that was like fear. But it passed quickly as Zack laughed. "Angeal tells you everything, doesn't he? What I wouldn't give to hear what you guys talk about sometimes. Don't worry, I'm sure I can master that easy."
Sephiroth had hoped Zack would have picked up on it by now. But he had managed to keep a secret this long, Sephiroth shouldn't have expected anything less. "Your hearing."
"What? My ears? I haven't noticed anything wrong with them... What makes you think there's a problem?" Zack's wasn't scared, no, he just tilted his head like he always did. But Sephiroth could feel the muscles in Zack's thigh tense against his own.
"Zack..." Sephiroth stiffened, but continued to sign, "I... I want to help you. I don't want us to end. I don't want you to -" Sephiroth didn't know when he stopped signing and starting speaking, but he lifted his hands again, "I don't want you to leave me. I want to help you fight, to get stronger. Even if you can't hear."
"Wait, wait, wait," Zack raised a hand for pause. His shoulders were visibly tight, and tension thrumming off his body, he truly looked hesitant. "How long ago did you... did you figure it out?" Zack's voice was heavy with an emotion Sephiroth couldn't identify, but it sounded almost like... fear.
Sephiroth shrugged. The motion was smoother than it had been, but the stress in his shoulders still made it awkward. Sephiroth lowered his hands when he realized he didn't know how to sign the words he wanted to say smoothly "A little over a month. I simply... wanted to have viable solutions before I approached you about it. I know, Zack, that you are not everything you have made yourself out to be. Yet, you have excelled far beyond your peers even with limitations, and you hide your struggle with a smile. But I want to help you. I want to give you all the resources you need to stay safe and - "
Sephiroth couldn't bring himself to continue when Zack started crying. Laughing, actually. But mostly crying.
"Zack - "
Zack's head was in his hands, and his shoulders shook. "You... you're too much," the words were cracked, and spoken through a sob.
Sephiroth hadn't expected this reaction at all. Anger? Quite possibly. Crying? Very probable, Zack was a very emotional person (Sephiroth had prepared tissues). Laughter? Very low on the list. But laughing and crying? That was a combination he didn't quite comprehend.
Sephiroth placed a hand on his boyfriend's shoulder. In that moment, Zack seemed so very fragile, like he might break at the slightest touch. He looked very much like the child he was, lost in a world without a way – like there was nothing that could save him now. That familiar pang of fear hit Sephiroth's stomach at the thought.
As if the touch had been all he needed, Zack lurched into Sephiroth's chest with a sob. Arms wrapped around his back, so tightly it reminded Sephiroth of a drowning man grasping hold of a float. There was a tightness in Sephiroth's throat as he swallowed as he too embraced his boyfriend. He could feel Zack hiccuping against him, the hard, almost desperate, press of Zack's forehead into his collar. Silently, he lay his head on top of Zack's.
And Zack kept whispering, over and over, "Thank you."
It was a few days later when Sephiroth decided to ask his questions. They had just been finishing up dinner.
"I am curious, Zack." Sephiroth spelled out the word he had yet to learn.
"About what? Oh, yeah don't sign and eat it can get messy." As if to prove his point, the fork Zack had been waving flung a bit of sauce on the table. Zack didn't seem to notice.
"I'm sure I will master it," Sephiroth said the words slowly as he signed, still agitated that he hadn't learned the language quickly enough to converse in it fully. "But I had questions about your hearing."
Zack took a breath, a deep and readying sigh, and put down his utensils with the gravity Genesis used when he lowered Loveless. "You want to know how I made it in, huh?"
"That and other things."
"Well..." Zack leaned back and raised his hands and signed as he spoke. "What do you want to know first?"
"Can you hear at all?"
"Ehh... sort of. Not so much anymore. But, I can hear explosions and gunshots. I'm not really... it's more like... I'm really, really, really hard of hearing. You know?"
"So you used to be able to hear?"
"Oh, yeah. I came down with something bad when I was little and then something weird happened with my ears. Doctor called it, uh, degenerative hearing loss," Zack stumbled on the word – Sephiroth almost didn't catch how quickly he fingerspelled it. "And I, uh... I went from listening to Ma's lectures to reading her lips pretty fast."
"You've managed to keep your enunciation very clear." Sephiroth had ready many books that talked about how the deaf often had trouble speaking clearly.
"You have my Ma to thank for that," Zack laughed. "She made sure I could still speak good. Oh, and Balto taught me how to read words the right way, and helped me figure out how to read lips. I owe my perfect voice to tenor to them. I... am a tenor, right?"
Balto? That name almost sounded familiar. Sephiroth couldn't put a finger on it. Instead he smiled, thankful for the information. "I will be sure to send them letters of thanks."
"Ma would love that! Oh, and maybe a whole letter to the town. The story would last for months!"
"Speaking of Gongaga," Sephiroth stumbled over the fingerspelling. "You said everyone signed?"
Zack got a bittersweet smile on his face. "Yeah. I don't remember who started it, but they all learned to sign so we could all keep talking to each other. The mayor never quite got it down, but he always tried so hard, so I always paid extra attention to his stories."
A whole town, banding together for the sake of Zack? Perhaps it was just proof that Zack was special. Even as a child.
"That is impressive." Gongaga was a small town, some might even call it backwater. But for an entire population to devote themselves to a second language for the sake of one child. The thought filled Sephiroth with a strange warmth.
"I should write them more..." Zack said wistfully.
"So... how did you do it?"
"Do what? Get everyone to sign?"
"No. Enter the military."
"Uh..." Zack scratched the back of his head and looked around for a minute like he was looking for an excuse before settling his eyes back onto Sephiroth. "Just remember I really, really hate lying."
"Of course," until Sephiroth found out about Zack's secret, he had been certain Zack was completely incapable of lying.
"Well, uh," Zack waved his hands for a second, a gesture Sephiroth recognized as not really saying anything so much as making movement for the sake of making movement. "It started with convincing the doc to fudge my medical records a little bit." Sephiroth had known this was the truth, why else would Zack's records look so in order? But it was strange to have Zack admit to forging legal records. Zack still looked at his face intently, as if hoping for a reaction; Sephiroth simply nodded. "Getting to Midgar was easy. I was really worried about the hearing test, but all the other guys took it right in front of me. I managed to memorize the pattern so I passed it easy!"
Sephiroth knew he was frowning. The entrance examination's hearing portion was usually never conducted publicly – specifically for the finicky natures of the testing equipment, they were outdated and the noise pattern was hard to change after it was entered into the device. Sephiroth had spent a long time in the archive room trying to figure out how Zack had passed this test, but there had been no mention of the public exam. In fact, it was only stated that it had followed the standard behind the curtain procedure.
"Getting through boot camp and entering SOLDIER sure was nerve-wracking. There weren't any problems, but there were some awful close calls! I didn't even know after my first shower to fake ear pain. Angeal almost called me on that one."
"I do find it surprising that Angeal doesn't know..."
"He doesn't?" Zack looked strained at the thought. It was almost as if he wanted Angeal to know.
"... do you want me to tell him?"
"Um, maybe we could let him figure it out on his own? Like you did?"
"Wouldn't it be better if we just tell him? I'm sure it would be less stressful for you."
Zack stiffened. "Seph... I – thank you, for all of this. It's... so relieving having someone else know. But, I don't want everyone to know. I just... I don't think I'm ready for that."
"That is fine. I will keep your secret."
Zack smiled. A hand reached over the table and took Sephiroth's own.
Sephiroth couldn't help but break the silence when his phone received mail. Distracted by it, but unwilling to stop asking questions, he asked, "How do you answer calls?"
"Oh, uh, funny story about that. Really, really funny." Zack laughed with some strain. "I, uh, kind of don't. Even when I have the volume up to max -" Sephiroth had noticed that "- I have no idea what anyone is saying, I can kind of hear garble, so I just guess a response."
It explained so much. It was rare that Zack wasn't late or repeating things back into the reciever. But so much of SOLDIER communication happened through the PHS, it was hard to do anything without getting a phone call every other hour. A thought occurred to Sephiroth. "... is that why you stay on the SOLDIER floor after hours so often?"
"I always knew you were a smart cookie, haha. Oh! Speaking of cookies, Angeal looked like he was in a baking mood today! Did you get any?"
Sephiroth felt a laugh bubble up. He realized it was the first time he had laughed in days.