Chapter Text
It started slowly at first, unnoticeable enough to not click inside Jasper's head. If it had, he would have shoved it down immediately. But it didn't.
He'd always had trouble paying attention during church, his eyes glazing over and his head filling with static as he listened to the preacher's words become muffled, like when he'd been three years old and suddenly noticed his playmates voices sounded like a Bluetooth speaker being played underwater, and that they had sounded that way for quite sometime wthout him realizing it.
Whenever he did this, no one around him seemed to notice. Jasper thought they ought to, wondering faintly what his expression might look like. He floated along absently through all of church, until all of the parents were busy chatting on the lawn while their children milled around, left to their own devices.
"-Ight? Jasper?" the voice was slighty less muffled than the rest, and he looked up, forcing himself to actually take in what he was seeing and where he was. He was sitting on the chapel steps, and Thomas, the church band's bassist, was standing over him with a concerned expression. The grass seemed almost too bright, too green around them.
"S-Sorry, what?" mumbled Jasper, trying to keep the other boy's face in focus instead of drifting away again.
"I said, are you alright?" Thomas repeated, his frown deepening. "You looked a bit...spacey there, mate."
Jasper simply blinked at him for a moment, trying to organize his thoughts over the static buzzing inside of his head. He and Thomas had never really spoken before, but for some reason, Jasper always found himself subconsciously aware of him, of his dark hair and green eyes. Realizing that he needed to answer the question, he cleared his throat. "Um, n-no, yeah, I'm fine." he wanted to kick himself for the stutter. He was still trying not to float away again, like a balloon a child had lost his grip on, and Thomas didn't need to know that.
Thomas sat down beside Jasper on the chapel stairs, flicking his hair out of his eyes. "You sure? You sort of looked like you were somewhere else for nearly half the sermon."
Jasper felt a little stunned. No one had ever noticed him like that before. "My brain just does that sometimes," he answered before quickly realizing how little sense it made. "Um," he added awkwardly.
Thomas just gave him a small, reassuring grin. "Care to elaborate that one?"
Jasper shrugged, staring at two younger kids playing tag while their parents talked. "It's hard to explain," he finally said, picking at his bottom lip with his hand. "And it doesn't really make sense." he added quietly.
"Well, mate, I've got nowhere to be." stated Thomas simply, leaning forward a little so Jasper had to look at him. "I get the feeling you're not used to having someone listen to you when you talk." he deadpanned with another smile.
"Uh," Jasper began awkwardly at that, biting his lip and trying again. "Sometimes, I kind of just start feeling like I'm floating? Like I'm not really in my body, I-I mean." He stole a glance at Thomas, who was nodding like what he was saying made perfect sense. "Everything k-kind of loses focus and sounds muffled," he continued, hesitating before adding, "Kind of like when....um, when I first started losing my hearing."
"I see," Thomas said thoughtfully, and then he was silent long enough for the flourescent light type of buzzing to come back as Jasper felt himself float again, only this time the buzzing spread to his hands, tingling yet somehow simultaneously numb as the world lost focus around the edges, like an old camera. The underwater feeling in his ears was so overpowering that he unconsciously fumbled to check his hearing aids. They were fine. "-Sper? It's happening again, innit?"
"What?" he murmured, trying to focus on the other's voice. "Sorry," he added absently.
"Don't be sorry, alright?" Thomas replied gently, moving to put his hand on Jasper's knee, before seeming to think better of it and letting it drop into his lap. "I'm just going to talk, and I want you to try and focus on my voice, okay?" he told him softly. "Don't try to listen to what I'm actually talking about, just the sound of it, alright?" Jasper just sort of nodded, and true to his word, Thomas began to talk about nothing of real importance, like a boba shop he'd found downtown that he'd really liked, or this complicated song he was trying to learn on the bass guitar.
Jasper let Thomas's voice wash over him, slowly beginning to quiet the buzzing inside of him. The static leeched out of his fingers, retreating back into a tiny, flickering light bulb in the back of his mind, where it belonged. He let out a breathe he didn't know he'd been holding, fidgeting with the end of his curls in a way that always brought him comfort.
"Better?" asked Thomas quiety, studying his face.
"Yeah," Jasper eventually answered, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Where....Where did you learn how to do that?" the question didn't entirely make sense, but he had a strange feeling that the other boy would understand what he meant.
Thomas just shrugged. "One of my...old friends used to get stuck in his head a lot. I helped him." he explained a bit simply.
Jasper opened his mouth to say something. What, he had no idea. "Jasper, honey, c'mon!" his mum called across the church lawn where she stood next to his dad, startling him.
"See you later," Thomas said casually, brushing invisible dirt off his trousers as he stood, even though they likely wouldn't see each other again until next Sunday.
"Yeah," echoed Jasper with a small, rare smile. "Later."