Reverberate
Dec. 15th, 2009 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zoemathemataOriginally posted as part of the AU Challenge at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dev_earl 's journal.
Prompt byroque_clasique - Deaf!Dean or Jensen and Interpreter!Jared or Sam!
Meal time is when it’s most annoying for Dean to be deaf.
Going to the movie theatre is pretty shitty too because he can’t have a conversation with Sam if he can’t see Sam’s lips or if Sam can’t clearly see his hands.
It’s not like any time is a good time to be deaf. Hunting is a bitch, but they’ve worked out a pretty good signal with flickering lights, vibrating phones and okay, yeah, occasionally throwing shit at each other. Sam’s actually faster at flicking out messages in morse code with the flash light than Dean is. And Dean can ping the back of Sam’s neck with a rock at insane distances, never missing, but never breaking skin either.
But meal time is a fucking nuisance because one of two things always happens. Either Sam is talking with his mouth full and Dean absolutely can’t look away no matter how gross it gets because he’s trying to follow the curve and dip of Sam’s lips to make out the words, or Dean has to put his burger, his utensils, or his drink down constantly so he can sign.
Also, they usually have to tell the waiter/waitress that Dean is deaf. And he hates fucking telling people. He usually gets one of three looks:
1.Awkward-Oh-Shit-I-don’t-know-what-to-do/say-now.
2.Oh-Honey! (with the head tilt and sad eyes - usually from the motherly types). God forbid another one of them pats him on the shoulder again.
3. Oh-Fuck-I-wonder-if-he’s-an-idiot-too.
There are others but those are the top three.
It’s not life threatening. It’s not life altering. It’s not life affecting, but it is fucking annoying.
Sam can sign too. He’s not as proficient as Dean, but he’s pretty good. But it draws more attention when the too of them are madly signing back and forth. And Dean hates the attention. So they only do it if they want or need to have a completely private conversation.
Dean peruses the menu and immediately starts grimacing at all the things that he might end up seeing get chewed in Sam’s mouth. He sees the light darken on the table top and looks up to see the waitress. Renette, her name tag reads.
Can I get you something to drink?
She’s wearing a horrid shade of hot pink lipstick and her lips are thin and dry. You spend all day reading lips, they are the first thing you notice. Dean directs his gaze back to Sam and signs, coffee, water. Sam’s eyes flick once over Dean’s hands and then he turns his attention back to the waitress.
“I’ll have a coke, and he’ll have coffee, black and a water.”
“Is he deaf?”
No, I just like to fake it and talk with my hands instead of my mouth, Jesus.
Sam ignores Dean’s flashing hands, even as he curses.
“Yeah, he can read lips though, so you can talk to him.”
If Sam doesn’t tell people to actually talk to him, more often than not, they end up exclusively looking at Sam when they speak and not even glancing at Dean. Except to give him the pity look and Jesus, there it is. Renette is a head tilter. He twists his lips into a crude pretense of a smile as she stares.
I’ll grab your drinks, give you a few minutes with the menu.
He doesn’t need a few minutes. He doubts Sam does either. It’s standard diner fare, but he’s used to the implication. The implication that somehow, since he’s deaf, he needs extra time to do everything. Including reading a fucking menu.
She’s gone and he flips the menu up in front of his face. It jerks slightly as Sam flicks it with his finger. Dean lowers it.
I’ll go chat up the family after this. You want me to get you set up at city records first?
Dean nods and sets the menu down. They don’t have to split up, they could do the interview and then troll the records house together, but Dean gets antsy when he feels like he’s being forced to spend time with Sam because of the deafness. Dean likes to do stuff by himself. And while records research pretty much sucks ass, it’s one of the few times that his lack of hearing really doesn’t come up. Record Halls, libraries, parish archives… they all tend to be solitary, quiet places and no one finds it odd if he doesn’t speak. Sam usually sets him up, let’s the record staff know Dean’s deaf but that he can read lips and then Dean’s pretty much on his own. He can write notes and he’s wicked awesome at charades and is generally amazing at wordlessly conveying what he wants. His eyes and face are so expressive when he needs them to be, that he’s almost forgotten he can speak.
He doesn’t speak. He never speaks.
He can speak. If his life or Sam’s life depends on it. But only then.
He wasn’t born deaf. But he was born with the genetics to become deaf. He started going deaf at four. By the time he was five, his dad had him enrolled in a school where he could learn sign language. His teacher was deaf, but could speak. Dean never forgot the first time he heard the strange sing-song tonality of his new teacher speaking. John Winchester had gently explained that Dean’s ears didn’t work like they should and would get worse, and when the new teacher had started talking, Dean had thought this was what “get worse” meant. Consonants were dull, vowels were stretched out in different ways. It took Dean a few months to realize that it was only the deaf people at the school who sounded different. The hearing adults sounded regular. And that’s when he realized it was because they couldn’t hear how they sounded.
At eight years old, when Dean finally became completely, deaf, when he stopped being able to hear himself, he stopped talking.
dev_earl 's journal. Prompt by
roque_clasique - Deaf!Dean or Jensen and Interpreter!Jared or Sam!Meal time is when it’s most annoying for Dean to be deaf.
Going to the movie theatre is pretty shitty too because he can’t have a conversation with Sam if he can’t see Sam’s lips or if Sam can’t clearly see his hands.
It’s not like any time is a good time to be deaf. Hunting is a bitch, but they’ve worked out a pretty good signal with flickering lights, vibrating phones and okay, yeah, occasionally throwing shit at each other. Sam’s actually faster at flicking out messages in morse code with the flash light than Dean is. And Dean can ping the back of Sam’s neck with a rock at insane distances, never missing, but never breaking skin either.
But meal time is a fucking nuisance because one of two things always happens. Either Sam is talking with his mouth full and Dean absolutely can’t look away no matter how gross it gets because he’s trying to follow the curve and dip of Sam’s lips to make out the words, or Dean has to put his burger, his utensils, or his drink down constantly so he can sign.
Also, they usually have to tell the waiter/waitress that Dean is deaf. And he hates fucking telling people. He usually gets one of three looks:
1.Awkward-Oh-Shit-I-don’t-know-what-to-do/say-now.
2.Oh-Honey! (with the head tilt and sad eyes - usually from the motherly types). God forbid another one of them pats him on the shoulder again.
3. Oh-Fuck-I-wonder-if-he’s-an-idiot-too.
There are others but those are the top three.
It’s not life threatening. It’s not life altering. It’s not life affecting, but it is fucking annoying.
Sam can sign too. He’s not as proficient as Dean, but he’s pretty good. But it draws more attention when the too of them are madly signing back and forth. And Dean hates the attention. So they only do it if they want or need to have a completely private conversation.
Dean peruses the menu and immediately starts grimacing at all the things that he might end up seeing get chewed in Sam’s mouth. He sees the light darken on the table top and looks up to see the waitress. Renette, her name tag reads.
Can I get you something to drink?
She’s wearing a horrid shade of hot pink lipstick and her lips are thin and dry. You spend all day reading lips, they are the first thing you notice. Dean directs his gaze back to Sam and signs, coffee, water. Sam’s eyes flick once over Dean’s hands and then he turns his attention back to the waitress.
“I’ll have a coke, and he’ll have coffee, black and a water.”
“Is he deaf?”
No, I just like to fake it and talk with my hands instead of my mouth, Jesus.
Sam ignores Dean’s flashing hands, even as he curses.
“Yeah, he can read lips though, so you can talk to him.”
If Sam doesn’t tell people to actually talk to him, more often than not, they end up exclusively looking at Sam when they speak and not even glancing at Dean. Except to give him the pity look and Jesus, there it is. Renette is a head tilter. He twists his lips into a crude pretense of a smile as she stares.
I’ll grab your drinks, give you a few minutes with the menu.
He doesn’t need a few minutes. He doubts Sam does either. It’s standard diner fare, but he’s used to the implication. The implication that somehow, since he’s deaf, he needs extra time to do everything. Including reading a fucking menu.
She’s gone and he flips the menu up in front of his face. It jerks slightly as Sam flicks it with his finger. Dean lowers it.
I’ll go chat up the family after this. You want me to get you set up at city records first?
Dean nods and sets the menu down. They don’t have to split up, they could do the interview and then troll the records house together, but Dean gets antsy when he feels like he’s being forced to spend time with Sam because of the deafness. Dean likes to do stuff by himself. And while records research pretty much sucks ass, it’s one of the few times that his lack of hearing really doesn’t come up. Record Halls, libraries, parish archives… they all tend to be solitary, quiet places and no one finds it odd if he doesn’t speak. Sam usually sets him up, let’s the record staff know Dean’s deaf but that he can read lips and then Dean’s pretty much on his own. He can write notes and he’s wicked awesome at charades and is generally amazing at wordlessly conveying what he wants. His eyes and face are so expressive when he needs them to be, that he’s almost forgotten he can speak.
He doesn’t speak. He never speaks.
He can speak. If his life or Sam’s life depends on it. But only then.
He wasn’t born deaf. But he was born with the genetics to become deaf. He started going deaf at four. By the time he was five, his dad had him enrolled in a school where he could learn sign language. His teacher was deaf, but could speak. Dean never forgot the first time he heard the strange sing-song tonality of his new teacher speaking. John Winchester had gently explained that Dean’s ears didn’t work like they should and would get worse, and when the new teacher had started talking, Dean had thought this was what “get worse” meant. Consonants were dull, vowels were stretched out in different ways. It took Dean a few months to realize that it was only the deaf people at the school who sounded different. The hearing adults sounded regular. And that’s when he realized it was because they couldn’t hear how they sounded.
At eight years old, when Dean finally became completely, deaf, when he stopped being able to hear himself, he stopped talking.
