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Between the two of you, there’s no need for words. The silence is never awkward, or heavy. It’s light and pleasant and dotted with huffs or laughing or music and whistling and TV sounds, or at least that’s what he tells you. Or rather, what he writes you because Dave was born with screwed up vocals. And even though he’s pretty touchy about it, you honestly couldn’t care less.
As for you, you’ve been deaf for as long as you can remember. Your Dad used to tell you, when you would sit in his lap and try and read the words on his lips, fingers pressed lightly against his throat to feel the vibrations, that you weren’t always deaf. You weren’t born deaf. It had happened one lovely summer afternoon when your Mom’s car was crashed into by a group of teenagers speeding around the corner.
Their sports car flipped over and gave minor injuries to the passengers. Car’s hellfire red paint job was scratched; they needed to get it redone.
You’re Mom’s tiny, sky-blue vintage beetle was crushed on the road. It splattered itself out on the pavement. Glass splintered, shards on the ground, catching the sun. Transparent wings; a thousand colors. Gas from the shredded tank spilling out like guts. Black and red, mixing together. Screams of a thousand sounds louder than thunder, right in your infant ears.
They say it was a miracle you got out of it alive, no broken bones, and no concussions.
You’re Mom wasn’t as miraculous. Dad tells you that he’s proud of you every day.
You don’t really remember being able to hear. Sometimes you ’hear’ sounds in your head like laughter or the rush of wind through leaves, but you wonder if you made them up or are just calling up really old memories, dusty and old to the point it’s worn and warped.
One time you and Dave had a picnic at the park and, after you two have finished stuffing yourselves with apple juice and Cheetos and sandwiches and gushers, you both lay down with your backs on the grass and your fingers curled together. You pulled your phone out with your free hand and asked him:
what does stuff sound like?
And he took the phone from you, never once letting go of your hand, and started to type with the corner of his mouth turned up in a tiny smile.
you are ridiculous john
But he pulls the phone back and keeps typing, slow and hesitant. He’s putting a lot of thought into what he’s writing.
right now this whole peaceful field thing and the kids playing in the background and the trees doing their thang: the best way I can describe the sound is like two of the da vinci’s masterful, plushest puppet asses lovingly rubbing against each other like a fucking violin sweetest music in the world.
You snicker and punch him on the arm. He doesn’t even like puppets, he’s just being stupid on purpose.
And then you argue back and forth, typing fast and passing the phone between the two of you until the sun sets and it’s too cold to stay in the park so you walk to your nice little apartment with the street lamps high and bright, lighting your way. Dave is whistling. You can tell he is by the shape of his mouth and the way he taps his fingers on your hand, in time to whatever melody is rising up and out of his mouth along with white puffs of fog in the cold air.
You two spend the rest of the night watching stupid apocalypse movies, with subtitles just for you. You lie on the couch; Dave curled around you, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, until eventually you doze off and sleep.
Dave: Grab a microphone and drop some sweet rhymes ==>
Two things wrong with that. Uno, not even the world’s most sensitive micro, microphone could project your voice: simply because it doesn’t exist. Zip, nap, nada. No voice for you because I am God and I am a jerk and I said thou shall suffer. Although, you like to think it was a fair trade-off for your incredible good looks and oh my fuck, you are rambling right now.
Reason number two for not at least typing out the wicked beat in red text is pinned underneath you. And he gives a staggered breath as you trace your lips over his collarbone, hot and wet right over your ear. You shiver.
You have one John Egbert, choice hot mama, clinging to you tightly with fingers curled in the fabric of your shirt. As you go along his neck, whispering and kissing and nibbling, he gives tiny squeaks that eventually rise up into moans.
You would never, ever tell him but sometimes you’re glad as hell you got the mute thing and not the deaf thing because damn if the little sounds he makes don’t rustle your jimmies good. He suddenly lets go of your shoulders and stretches up to kiss you on the mouth, slow and deep.
You, Dave Strider, are pleased to report that absence of vocal chords has given you a lot of know-how on how to properly use your tongue. Boy, do you put that tongue to use. This is getting pretty heated.
You get that little bit more excited when his hands wander down to play with the hem of your shirt, so you travel your own down to his hips and tug very slightly at his pants. He smiles against your lips and quickly slips your hand under your shirt and then-
Sweet holy hell, mother of Jesus Christ our saviour.
You pull back with a startled puff and give him a sharp look. He laughs and laughs and holds up his hand. Where the fuck did he get goddam ice cubes while you were making out? Do they even teach that in those shitty magician books he reads? Is that even a thing?
You try to look scandalised as he tosses the ice away, still laughing like a maniac, prankster’s gambit reaching an all-time sky-high. Pranking your cool kid boyfriend whilst giving him a boner racks you amazing prank points on the scale.
You’re still cold under your shirt from where he put his slimy ice cube hands all over you and you snort angrily in his face. But then he’s hugging you and mumbling little words of sorry that always sound just a little distorted when they fall out his throat.
You give another angry hiss that turns into that little wheezy laugh you hate when John sticks his still chilly fingers up your shirt again, grinning like an imp. Your brief wrestle-tickle match eventually escalates into another pretty intense bout of the tongue tango.
Dave: Initiate The Full Sex ==>
Unfortunately, you can’t be Dave right now since he’s pretty busy doing The Full Sex. So you’ll have to be someone else. But since there’s nobody else in the apartment, you settle for being the couch. You know the couch isn’t technically alive, but it does serve as a convenient cutaway for the hot sex happening right on top of it. We don’t need to be reading that kind of yaois right now.
Anyway, doesn’t anybody want to know how the couch feels about this?
The couch has had enough. Do you know how many times those two have done the dirty right on top of it? The couch isn’t a homophobe or anything (I mean it’s a couch) but it would really prefer for all the clothes-off business to happen on a different piece of furniture if possible because the couch is not easy to wash and stains of that kind do not come out easy. It doesn’t mind hosting a good cuddle or the odd mack out. But the couch feels awkward having to be there right now.
The couch minds a little bit less when the two of them finally fall asleep; with the buck-toothed one mumbling words while the blonde one snores, all tangled up in each other’s limbs. It admits that those two make a very good couple, even though it now has a new suspicious, faint stain on the corner of its 70% cotton surface that will probably never come out.
But hey; it’s not really one to complain. It’s a couch.