The One Where Brian Learns Sign Language
By: LaVieEnRose

Justin thinks I'm full of shit, but I swear to dog, I knew he was losing his hearing for a year before we were sitting in that dingy doctor's office reading brochures about decibels and playing with model eardrums. I just didn't think it was worth mentioning.

You know how loud a noise has to be before it starts damaging your hearing? If you're around it for any length of time, about 80 decibels—think the noise when you run the garbage disposal on the sink (not that that comparison means much to Justin, who leaves crud growing in our drain like it's some service I'm paying him for). So enough to be noticeable, sure, but not anything anyone this side of fifty would call 'loud,' and certainly not anything you could hear over the thumpa thumpa at Babylon, where Justin's been spending the better part of twelve hours a week since he was seventeen. Hell, all of us have. You could run any queer in Pittsburgh through the barrage of hearing tests they treated Justin to and I'd bet we're all a little bit deafer than we used to be.

So I figured it was just that.

The doctor told us that, with the disease Justin has, he's lucky he didn't start losing his hearing until he was an adult. That's what they said, 'lucky,' and also 'adult,' as if he's nearing middle-age or some shit and he's enjoyed some long fruitful relationship with his functioning ears. The kid's about to turn twenty-five now, was twenty-three when the doctor imparted upon us that precious nugget of perspective, and I guess I should have been thankful that we got a little taste nice and early of the never-ending parade of bullshit we'd be up against on our exciting journey into the next chapter of What's Wrong with Justin This Time. You know someone actually tried to tell us we were lucky we had the incentive to learn a new language? I'm not kidding.

He's not entirely, a hundred percent deaf, and they say there's no real way of knowing if he's going to get there, but at this point it doesn't make much of a difference. His threshold's about 120 decibels (seriously, find me someone with a fetish for talking about decibels and I'll make his fucking dreams come true—yeah, as if I couldn't anyway, but you know, I'm practicing humility in my old age) judging by the clap of thunder from directly overhead that made him jump about a foot last month, so it's not like it's anything he can use. He'd been losing his hearing gradually for years, but it started speeding up a few months before he was diagnosed and then eight months after that, it was gone. Nice and sudden. Like a thunderclap.

And we're doing fine, thank you very much. I know half of Liberty Avenue is giving me the stink-eye if I even look like I might be thinking about getting annoyed at Precious Justin, and the other half is pissed that I haven't tossed the kid out on his ass and opened up the big steel door for them, but the truth remains: Big Mean Brian hasn't kicked Poor Little Sunshine to the curb just yet.

**

Not like it's all been smooth sailing, or whatever the fuck. Right after we got the diagnosis we were both pretty floored. I couldn't believe I'd written this off for as long as I had, and Justin I think still sort of thought everyone was making this up, like this was all some horrible prank, because as far as he was concerned he could hear fine. It's like how you don't notice your hair getting longer, or your kid getting older. Something gradual like that, it slips right by you.

“What do you want for dinner?” I asked him eventually. He was sitting on the couch, and I came around in front of him to ask him, and it hit me that I'd been doing that for ages, parking myself where he could look at me before I started talking to him. I couldn't even tell you when I started it.

He shrugged.

“You've got to eat,” I said.

“Whatever you want is fine,” which is just about the most un-Justin thing he could have said.

“Don't go zombie-ing out on me, Sunshine,” I said, trying to keep my voice light.

“Yeah, you're right,” he said. “Who knows how many conversations we have left?”

Once Justin started doing more research and it kind of sunk in what was going to happen to him, then it all started feeling pretty fucked up. It was real important to him that we not tell anyone what was going on until he felt like he was in a place to handle the questions and the pity and the histri-fucking-onics, so we had to keep going around acting like everything was fine. And I was willing to do that, obviously. That's the kind of shot he gets to call. And it's not as if I've ever been one for making big scenes about my shit in public. Fuck, if it were up to me, Justin would have gone his whole life without anyone but me ever knowing, if that was what he wanted.

Except it turns out it's really fucking hard to work through your issues with someone close to you having a life-altering illness when the only person you can yell at about it is the one person who you really, really shouldn't fucking yell at about it. And it just seemed like every time we were starting to get a handle on this shit, every time it felt like maybe we were turning a corner, one of us would remember something else Justin was going to lose—singing along to the radio, his mother's laugh, Yellow Submarine, the positively sublime noises I make when I come—and we'd be back at square fucking one, and I'd come home from work and he'd be lying in bed in the dark. So then I'd end up yelling at him anyway, telling him “You're not fucking dying so get the fuck up!” and other soothing words you'd want from your partner in a time like this.

Then came the phase where he was convinced I was going to leave him, which was a blast, since my fucked-up brain already has half of its metaphorical foot out the door if Justin looks at me too long before I've had my coffee, but I was doing my best to project an aura of someone who was not scared entirely shitless wondering what his future was going to look like with this new kind of kid in tow, so fuck him for not giving me any credit for that.

Or maybe he was. “It's not that I think you're going to leave,” Justin said. “I just don't know what I'd do if you did.” At that point we'd already made plans for sign language classes, lipreading practice, all these things that would make it easier for Justin to communicate...as long as it was with me, because guess if the tricks at the baths were going to be lining up to learn how to talk to Justin? They'd just move on to some guy who was less trouble, if they even bothered to see Justin at all after this. Honestly, I couldn't even really be pissed at Justin for not giving me credit for sticking with him through this shit so far, because, God, the stakes were just so goddamn high. What the fuck was he going to do if I didn't come through for him?

But, you know. No pressure, or anything.

“I'm not going anywhere,” I said, and Justin just gave this little shrug, like, 'I hope so.'

And I know you're wondering it, you're sitting here thinking you've got the whole thing all figured out, so no, that's not why I married him. It had nothing to do with convincing him I wasn't going to leave, or with making some display of my feelings for him or some heterosexual shit like that. As far as I'm concerned, it changes absolutely nothing between us. If one of us wants to leave, no piece of paper is going to stop us, though I think we've both come to terms with the fact that we're fucked for each other for life at this point. Getting married was not some big deal. Nobody even knows we did it, besides Michael, and I made sure he knew it was so Justin could get on my health insurance.

Which it was, don't get me wrong, but that wasn't the only reason. And again, don't go expecting rainbows and flowers, here.

I figured we should probably do it as soon as he got diagnosed, but I didn't bring it up to him until he didn't hear a car run a red light and almost got himself plowed over. I was a few steps behind and there was nothing I could do, and Christ, I tried to play it off like it was nothing so it wouldn't freak him out too badly, but it was like watching Hobbs come after him all over again. And after that I just got it into my head that we HAD to get married. I know this is stupid as shit, but I just felt like if Justin and I were married, if he signed a piece of paper telling me he was going to be with me forever, that meant that nothing could happen to him. He'd promised forever so now he had to do it. And I know that's moronic for so many reasons, not the least of which is that Justin's disease isn't life-threatening, and he's gotten through way worse, but just...fuck, how many more times can he keep getting out of this shit alive? So it all became kind of a fuck you; I'm going to have my eye on you for the rest of my life, you little shit, so don't you think you're going anywhere. They're throwing the dirt over me first and here's a contract saying so.

I sat down with all the medical paperwork and took a deep breath and explained to Justin why I thought this was our smartest idea, and the little fucker wrinkled his nose and said, “I don't want to get married,” like he was telling me he didn't want to get Thai food tonight.

This is the same child who cries at Hallmark commercials and about five minutes ago was practically on his knees begging me not to leave him, just to make sure you're keeping up.

“I don't want you doing it out of some kind of obligation,” he said.

“What other reason is there to get married?”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. I don't want to deal with the ensuing Brian Kinney freak out when you wake up the next morning and realize what you've done and you feel trapped and you have to treat me like shit for two weeks to feel like a man. I'm very ill. Haven't I suffered enough?”

“Marry me, you unbelievable prick.”

“Ugh. Fine. I'm really going to miss your sweet-talking, you know.”

I kept the ensuing Brian Kinney freak out to myself just to spite him.

We had a lot of moments like that, actually, during the whole process. Just these times where somehow we'd still manage to joke about what was happening. When we'd get into some little spat or something and he'd make this big show of turning off his hearing aids so he wouldn't have to listen to me. When he'd kiss me and tell me that counted as practicing his lipreading. When we'd leave Deb's and he'd tell me how grateful he was to have a clock on when he wouldn't have to ever hear her singing again. It was dark, but it was the way both of us liked to deal with shit, and not to get too sappy, but it really fucking helped. It was kind of like we were both looking at each other saying, see, I can talk about this, I know what's going on, my eyes are open, and we're still us.

Other times, like I mentioned, Justin wouldn't get out of bed. I was through with the yelling phase by then, so most of the time I'd just come up behind him to hold him, and he'd pretend he wasn't startled, and like he'd totally heard me coming. I could never think of anything comforting to say—not to sound too flippant here, but it's been a year now so I can say with confidence that we really haven't lost that much of our Comforting Justin repertoire by taking away his ability to hear me—but I used to get real close to his ear and murmur, “You're still you,” because it was the kindest thing I could think of to say that wasn't also bullshit.

Well, besides one thing, but we're not going to talk about that.

We fucked a lot during that time, even by our standards, and he was tricking more than he had in a year or so. It was like he wanted to absorb everything he could, like he thought he was going to be losing more senses than just his hearing. Not that he wasn't freaking out about that too; he was constantly listening to music, downloading shit he didn't even like because if he didn't hear it now he was never going to.

Like I said, that's not a train of thought I'm going to be aboard right now, so why don't we just skip to the next part of the story.

**

Honestly, Justin losing all of his hearing was sort of a relief for me. Yeah, I queened out about it at the hospital, whatever, but at least it was over now. No more sitting around wondering when it was gonna get dropped on us. No more making plans we wouldn't get the chance to carry out. We'd finally arrived at our destination and it was time to get out and look around at this shit hole where we lived now.

And imagine, I'm not talking about Pittsburgh.

Justin, unfortunately, didn't really see it the same way. I think going from still having some functional hearing to essentially none was more disorienting than either of us had expected, and he spent a lot of time crying those first few weeks, and texting me a ton whenever I was out of the loft. A few days he even came to work with me and just sat on the couch so he wouldn't be alone in the loft, since it's not like he was working then, either at the diner or on Rage. He was so fucking jumpy at first, startling at the drop of a hat, and it's not like I could fucking blame him, but God, it was sending me right back to where we were when I first got him back after the bashing.

And just like after the bashing, we couldn't talk about it for shit.

If anyone wants proof that Justin and I aren't just doing the same shit we used to—not that it's any of their fucking business, but since when has that ever stopped anyone from having an opinion on us—then it's really right there in what a fucking setback it felt like to go back to the days where we couldn't figure each other out. I'm not saying that before Justin lost his hearing, he and I were regularly sitting down together and hashing out our deepest darkest feelings, but we'd gotten to the point where I wasn't breaking out in hives if we had to do it and he could get enough from a few sentences from me that we rarely did have to. And then that was snatched away from us, just like Justin's entire fucking life was, and here I was using the meager amounts of sign language we'd managed to learn in time to tell him “I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.” The only time he ever seemed like he felt safe was when we were in bed, so I made sure he got as much of that as possible like the selfless partner I am.

We kept taking ASL classes, and between signing the words I knew as I said them and speaking clearly and right into his field of vision, we got to the point where we were pretty okay one-on-one. And now, a year later, he and I are a well-oiled damn machine. Our sign language is still far from perfect, but it's been months now since I've really struggled to get him to understand what I'm trying to say, and most days now I hardly think about it. I wake up to his vibrating alarm clock, sign at him while I'm brushing my teeth, and when I get home in the evening and wrap my arms around him from behind, he doesn't even flinch. So even though we were having some trouble at the beginning, there was still...I don't know, this promise that we were going to be okay, like we could somehow see the future a little bit. It seemed doable that Justin and I would get through it.

Justin and the rest of the world was immediately a fucking problem.

Because all everyone wanted to know, all they wouldn't stop fucking asking me, was why wouldn't Justin talk.

I should explain.

Justin losing his hearing obviously didn't mean he lost the ability to talk. It's weird for him, because he can't hear his own voice, but he still sounds the same as he ever did. Sometimes he'll yell something to me from across the loft and I have to stop myself from yelling back, because he just sounds so damn natural doing it. And trust me, anyone who's been in the vicinity of me sucking the kid off can tell you he's perfectly capable of making plenty of noise. Bad as new.

Justin talked to me right off the bat--even though nowadays he signs to me more than he used to, just because we get into the rhythm of it, and because he's getting to the point where he's starting to think in sign language instead of English which, not to sound too Michael about the whole thing, is just about the coolest goddamn thing and in case you hadn't gotten it by now Justin is a goddamn miracle—and it's still how we do most of our talking. I sign to him, sometimes talking while I do it, depending if I know enough of the words I want to sign for him to need to fall back on reading my lips or not, or depending if the silence is eating me up, sometimes, and he talks back to me.

Now. That's us.

Before he'd entirely lost his hearing, the rest of our little family, for some reason, took an inordinate amount of comfort in the fact that Justin would still be able to speak. I don't know why this was such a relief to them, because you don't even have to look at this plan sideways before it's full of holes. Justin can speak to you, and then you...what, nod? That's the kind of communication you're relieved you're going to be able to have? They needed to learn to sign, which we kept fucking telling them, and they'd nod and say of course, of course, and then throw in some comment about how at least Justin would still be able to speak. Were they under the impression that they'd be learning a different sign language to speak to him than the one he could have been using to speak to them? Did they not get that it was the exact same amount of difficulty for them, whether or not Justin was putting himself through the awkwardness and embarrassment of speaking in public?

Which, he found out, he didn't want to do at all, once it came down to it. And look, I get it. God knows I don't like being out of control, and also...no, I'm not going to complain about having something that's just between the two of us, fuck you, so what if it made me feel shiny and special that Justin's voice was just for me?

What was so fucking annoying was how everyone was on my case about it all the goddamn time. Nobody ever bothered Justin about it—not that they even could, because Michael and Jennifer were the only ones who'd taken learning sign language even somewhat seriously, and they were still disasters, and Mel and Lindsay were in classes but they could have, y'know, started those a fucking year earlier when we brought it up—but the second he was in the bathroom or the backroom or I was out without him, everyone was all the fuck over me: what's wrong with Justin, why isn't Justin talking, wasn't Justin supposed to be talking, we thought he was going to talk to us!

Jesus, it was so fucking annoying. He'd just had his fucking world ripped away from him, every decision he'd made about his life was going to be different now, and they wanted to take away this one choice he got to make because they didn't understand it?

God. I can't even think about it without getting pissed off all over again.

It all kind of came to a head one night at the diner. Justin had stayed back at the loft to work on a painting—this was one of the first times since he'd gotten sick that he felt up to doing his own shit—but everyone else was there, and Hunter was home for spring break so everyone was making a big deal out of that. Everyone talked about how sad it was that Justin couldn't make it, like they'd done anything but smile awkwardly at Justin and expect him to expertly read their lips like the world's lamest Vegas act for going on three months at this point. It was such bullshit.

I went outside for a cigarette when it all got to be a little Much, and Lindsay came out a minute later to steal a drag or two like she always does. We talked about Gus for a while—he was about to turn seven and was a fucking riot—and then the conversation drifted over to Justin.

“I just hate to see him isolating himself like this,” she said.

“He's not isolating himself. When he comes here he can't follow the conversation. He's not the one doing the isolating.”

“I can't believe this happened to him,” Lindz said, because I guess she thought I meant that the disease was doing the isolating, which I didn't. I guess at that point I'd run out of energy to rage at the universe or genetics or Justin or whatever the fuck and had moved on to blaming my friends instead. “Have you talked to him?” she said.

“Of course I talk to him.”

“No, about...you know. Why he doesn't feel like...”

I stomped out the cigarette. “Like what, Lindsay? Like making this all a little bit easier on everyone?”

She didn't say anything.

“You know, he's the one who got sick,” I said. “He's the one who lost his hearing, he's the one whose entire life is fucked up. And all anyone can say about it is, why isn't he making more of an effort to make US comfortable? Why won't HE go the extra mile? Fuck this shit. He's done enough. Why is it his responsibility to smooth everything over? He's sick, he's dealing with his fucking life being shattered, why don't you try learning HIS fucking language?”

Lindsay just kind of sputtered and sighed because what could she even say to that, but I think it was kind of a turning point, both for the gang and for me. That was when they started taking learning to sign some more seriously, and with that last sentence that came out of my mouth, this accidental acknowledgment that Justin had a new language now...it shifted the way I thought about this whole thing. Don't get me wrong, it was still a fucking horrible thing that had happened to him, but it was the start of me seeing it as less of just a tragedy and more of...the start of something new for Justin, this new identity for him, something that was big and special and...his, and if you think I'm a rational person who was entirely proud of him for that and not also insecure and threatened by him having a world I'm not a part of, you're going to be gravely disappointed as this story continues, but we'll get to that when we get to it.

When I got home that night he was wearing this ratty t-shirt he wears to paint, dabbing at his easel over by the window. The moonlight was catching on his hair and he had a smudge of green paint across his cheekbone. The painting he was working on was this view of the river from the loft, and it was, to put it lightly, stunning. I like Rage, but the kid is so much more than that, and when I walked in and saw him I was just...I don't know, floored by him.

I let my hand trail over his shoulders and I circled the easel, getting a full view of it, and Justin looked up at me expectantly, all big blue eyes.

“How was the diner?” he said.

I backed him up against the pillar and kissed him as hard and as deep as I could. I wasn't trying to get him out of his clothes, not right then, but I couldn't stop grabbing at him, at his hair, at his shirt, at his waist. It was just so fucking important that I just...honor him, right at that moment. That's the only way I know how to explain it.

When I finally let him came up for air, he signed, panting, What was that for?

I kisses his nose and signed, You look really nice tonight.

**

We kind of started to fall into a normal rhythm after that. Justin and Michael were pantomiming to each other enough to get comic book stuff done, I was rescheduling meetings I'd been putting off when Justin needed more attention, and things were starting to click back into some imitation of what they were before. The major difference was that Justin still hardly went anywhere without me. Basically the only place he ever ventured alone was Michael's store to do some drawing, and half the time Michael came here anyway. It's not as if he never left the loft—he and I went out just about as much as we used to, though there was less variety with bars and more just straight up clubbing, which was easier for him and fine by me—he just didn't really do any of it without me.

Now, a reasonable person would assume that I'd feel suffocated by this and that I'd want the kid to get some sort of life, because reasonable people would expect some sort of pattern of behavior or character consistency, but you are now entering the Kinney dimension, where every time I looked at Justin I felt this tightening in my throat that made me want to buy out the Big Q's stock of bubble wrap so I could wrap him up like a fucking Christmas decoration, and not in a kinky way.

But one day I ran into Debbie at the grocery store and she made a whole point of telling me that everyone at the diner had learned a few signs and they were working out a system where customers could write down orders for him and they were all ready for Justin to come back and when was he coming back and could you please ask him when he's coming back or we're going to have to hire a new waiter, so that night I sat on the counter when he was cooking dinner and said, “Sunshine...are you going to go back to work?”

He stopped chopping up garlic and watched me. That's one thing you've got to get used to; we can't really multitask when we talk anymore. “I worked today,” he said. “I was at the shop for like four hours.”

“Not that work,” I said. “At the diner.” I used the sign for restaurant, which really seems like an oversell of the diner, but we make do.

“I can't work at the diner,” he said, like it was crazy, and something about the casual way he said that kind of broke me. Like he'd completely written himself off already. And I know I just said I wanted the boy to live in a bubble, but that didn't mean I wanted him selling himself short. Maybe that doesn't make a lot of sense, but in the words of that ancient bear Walt Whitman, I am large, I contain multitudes.

“Debbie says they're ready for you.”

He wiped his hands on a dishtowel and looked at me.

“Look, it's your call,” I said. “You bring in a hundred times more with Rage than you're ever going to at the diner. I just thought...you might miss it.”

Everyone's going to stare at me he signed, like he was too embarrassed to say that out loud, and God, the things this kid can fucking do to me.

Everybody has always stared at you I told him.

He rolled his eyes and grinned.

“Debbie needs to start looking for a, uh, replacement,” I said, searching for the sign.

He showed it to me. I knew we'd learned it at some point. Kid's a genius.

“Replacement. Thanks.”

He nodded.

“I mean, I can't imagine why you'd want to go back there,” I said. “But you're a freak, who knows what you want to do, so I thought I'd pass on the message.”

He chewed the inside of his cheek.

“It's on you, Sunshine,” I said. “It always is.”

He was back at the diner two days later, obviously.

His first week, I kept making all these excuses to spend time hanging around, which probably annoyed the shit out of him. God knows it would have annoyed me. But I wanted to make sure it was going okay, and that no one was giving him a hard time. I acted bored when Justin came over to talk to me so he wouldn't feel like he was being stalked, and I did a good job sitting still and minding my own business if Justin was struggling through something, though I did nudge Deb and make sure she spit in the coffee of the guy who laughed as soon as Justin's back was turned. I'm only a man of so much restraint.

It was only two days after I stopped my little guard dog routine that it happened. I was already back at the loft when his shift ended, and he came home smelling like tuna melts and French fries and immediately started tearing our clothes off. He was so fucking happy, practically giggling.

“Good day at work, dear?” I asked him, and tugged him towards the bedroom.

“The best,” he said. And between grunts, the story came out: a guy at the diner had seem him signing a little with Michael and got all excited and started signing to them. Justin was embarrassed and had to tell him to slow down, that he was still learning, and it turns out the guy--Gregory--is hard of hearing and started learning to sign a few years ago. He and Justin ended up talking for an hour after the shift was over, and now he's going to help Justin work on his signing, and Justin was so so so so excited to have a deaf friend.

We have now entered the phase of the story where I'm a complete asshole, so hold on tight.

I said all the right things that first night, how it was great he'd have someone to practice with and I was happy he'd made a friend, but as he skipped off to the shower something in me was already tightening up, and not in a good way. And before you start rolling your eyes about what a little heteronormative cliché Our Brian has become, it's not because I was worried he was going to cheat on me or some straight shit like that. Justin and I are in a different fucking world from worries like that, so spare me the analysis.

Though I would have to forgive someone for assuming that's what was going on, since that's fucking exactly how I acted, but we'll get to that.

Justin was only working a few shifts a week at the diner, since it was a lot for him to handle and he was busy with Rage and it's not like it was pulling in any real money anyway, and that meant he had plenty of time to meet with Gregory and practice. And meet with Gregory and practice he did, and he'd come home all full of stories about how much he learned and how much they laughed and how Gregory was going to introduce him to his Deaf friends (capital D Deaf, Justin explained) and gradually I stopped saying all the right things.

I warned you about the asshole thing, so don't come crying to me that you don't like this part of the tale. Neither do I.

And yes, of course Justin invited me to have lunch with him and Gregory a hundred times, but I was a little busy working the job that gives the health insurance that pays for all this shit, and yes, of course they made an effort to schedule dinners when they knew I could make them, but something would always come up at the last minute, and if it didn't, I would make it come up, and then I'd sit at home or in the office like a jilted little lover and no, I don't know why I invent trouble for myself, and I've been doing it for thirty-whatever years at this point so don't think you're going to waltz in here and put all the pieces together.

Justin's improvement with Gregory wasn't even gradual; it was like a fucking bullet train. He was coming home knowing signs I'd never heard of, and he'd be so excited signing to me when he first got home and then he'd slow down or just start talking when he realized I wasn't keeping up, and he always looked so fucking disappointed and I just about wanted to go walk in front of a bus for making him look like that. But what the fuck was I supposed to do, actually accept the invitations to get better instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself that he was outgrowing me? Please.

Finally, Gregory invited Justin to this party with all his Deaf friends. Justin was really nervous about it, thinking he wouldn't be able to keep up and he was going to embarrass himself, so I told him I'd come with him and we could be awkward and embarrassed together and if it sucked we could escape and fuck on the roof.

Gregory was medium-height, medium-good-looking, and had one of those smiles that anyone in advertising would kill for, the kind that puts you immediately at ease. I was ready to sign to him, but he spoke to me right away, and introduced the hot guy next to him as, “And this is MY hearing partner,” with a little wink at Justin, and I decided I hated this party.

His hearing partner turned out to be fluent or damn near close to it, and the party picked up into just this flurry of movement, people signing in small groups in every direction, people signing across the room to each other, people not signing at all but making out against the wall, and plenty of them were queer men so we've answered that little question of what Justin would do if I ever left him, I guess. Because Justin was not standing there feeling overwhelmed, was not standing out like a sore thumb, and definitely was not pulling me up to the roof to fuck him. Justin was a fucking social butterfly, and I watched him chat with Gregory and had no fucking clue what Justin was saying.

And if you've never seen the boy you pulled off a bloody garage floor suddenly turn into someone you can't understand, if you've never had the moment where you've realized that he's been a person you couldn't understand for God knows how long, and you've been a fool, you can spare me your fucking judgment for what comes next. Don't fucking act like you know what it feels like for Justin to leave you behind. You have no goddamn idea what can happen to that boy.

After the tenth time he went back to his conversation after having to pause and be my little interpreter for the evening—a job which is MINE, thank you—I left, and I went home, and I started to drink, and by the time Justin got home I was halfway into the bottle.

He slid the door shut. “That was really rude,” he said. His voice sounded kind of funny, after not using it for hours.

Didn't think you'd notice I was gone I said.

He crossed his arms. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I'm sorry, could you not understand my shitty signing?”

“I understood you, Brian.”

I drained my glass and shoved it away so my hands were free. “It was a boring fucking party. If you don't have to hang out at the diner with me and the rest of the hearies, I don't see why I have to hang out with your friends.”

“Silly me, I thought you'd like to know what I've been up to these past few weeks.”

“I know what you've been up to, Sunshine. You and Gregory. Bonding.”

Justin took a deep breath. “He's teaching me about a part of myself that—”

And in that moment I would have said just about anything in the goddamn world to get him to stop talking. So I said the first thing I thought of. “What did you need me there for anyway?" My hands were moving faster than my brain. "You and him seemed pretty cozy.”

I did warn you that I would be playing the role of the jealous boyfriend.

Justin seemed just as confused about me saying that as I was. “Did I...are you saying what I think you're saying?”

Well, you can't unring the bell. “Do you speak with him?”

“What?” He was getting stressed out thinking he wasn't understanding me properly, that's how fucking unexpected all of this was.

I faced him straight on and spoke clearly, signed as crisply as I could for how fucking drunk I was. “Do you speak with him? Do you use your voice?”

“I...yeah,” he said, like he still didn't get it, and it felt like someone fucking hit me. “Brian, what? Isn't that the goal, for me to be comfortable speaking with people besides you?”

“Oh, that's still your goal? You still have some plan to spend time with hearing people, you're not leaving us all for your new friends?”

“LEAVING you?”

“I thought talking was our thing,” I said, feeling indescribably lame.

“This is unreal,” Justin said. “I can't believe after all this fucking time, what, you don't trust me? He has a boyfriend! I have a...” He gestured vaguely. “You.”

“What, like that hasn't stopped you before? I can just hear the violin music now.”

Yes, I said that, and it would take another six thousand words to unpack each and every reason that was a beyond shitty thing for me to say to him, so we're going to have to just blow past it.

You're a fucking joke Justin said to me, and then he left and slammed the door so loud even he must have heard it, and I sunk my head down into that table and hated every single goddamn thing I'd done in my entire life.

But here's the thing, all right?

I could not just stand there and hear Justin tell me about how he had a brand new tour guide to a different part of himself, all right? That is not something that I'm capable of doing, and I'm capable of doing a fucking lot.

Do you remember the last time Justin was discovering something new about himself? The last time Justin was exploring a new identity and—God help me—a community? How'd the little munchkin go about it the first time? Let's recap. He had Daphne drop him down in the middle of downtown. He had no place to stay that night, so he wandered around waiting for someone to scoop him up and take his virgin ass home. And I'm not saying I'm Saint Kinney of Liberty Avenue, but can we take a fucking second to stop and think about how goddamn lucky he was that that person was me?

He could have been fucking killed that night, easily. Could have been the first body Debbie found in her dumpster. He could have been drugged and raped like Ted was. He could have had some guy bareback him. Or he could have just had a really, really shitty time, with someone who wasn't careful, who didn't listen when he asked to slow down, who took him from behind like he didn't deserve to be looked at and had him thinking that's what being a gay man was going to be for him, that was normal, that was what he deserved. And instead, Justin got the only good luck he's had in his entire fucking life and he stopped under that streetlight and he got plucked up by me. Do you think everyone would have been that gentle with him?

So now, who the fuck was this guy?

Do you get what I'm saying here? How badly that could have gone? How we can't really trust that the world is going to hold little Justin's hand when it comes to exploring these new fucking communities?

And he thought he could just wander into this Deaf world without me, that he got to be MY guide, that he was going to be the one right in the line of fire of whatever the world was going to throw at him?

I signed the fucking papers, remember?

I don't do shit I don't mean.

Except, you know, accuse my partner of cheating when that's not even my fucking issue. So as soon as it really hit me that that's what I did, I got out of there to...if not apologize, at least set the record straight.

And hopefully to apologize, but God knows I wasn't trusting fucking anything I wanted to come out of my mouth at this point.

I found him at Babylon, like I knew I would. He was in the back, fucking some guy probably even younger than he was. He gave me an annoyed look when I slid up on the wall next to him, but I just leaned against it and signed I'll wait and was very patient, even though he definitely slowed down just to annoy me, and because he couldn't hear the trick complaining anyway.

He finished with what looked like an utterly unsatisfying orgasm, and I made a silent promise to fix that for him later before I took him by the wrist and pulled him outside. He let me. I tugged him over to the streetlamp where he would be able to see me. THAT streetlamp.

Does he even notice that I think about these things? Does he see me thinking about him and what's going to be accessible for him and what's going to make him comfortable every single fucking moment?

I don't even know if I want him to.

“Look at me, okay?” I said.

He nodded.

“It's not that I don't trust you,” I said. “I trust you. I don't trust the world with you.”

He chewed on his lip.

“I mean, fuck, Justin, can you blame me? Look at all this shit the world keeps doing to you. And now you're starting this new thing and you're becoming this new person and...I don't know anything about this. You're charging in all brave and beautiful and reckless and I'm supposed to fucking...go in first and check and under the bed for monsters, or whatever the fuck. You're not supposed to do this shit alone.”

I asked you to come out with me and Gregory, he said.

“I know you did, but...I could come out with you guys every single fucking time, I could be the best signer anyone's ever met, and I'm still not going to be a part of this world. I'm supposed to go in first. I'm supposed to...”

I'm not seventeen anymore. I don't need you to protect me.

“I know you don't, Sunshine, Christ. You'll be fine. You always get by.”

He looked up at me.

“But what about me?” I said, and goddamn was I grateful he couldn't hear the way my voice broke. “What the fuck happens to me if something happens to you? If you decide you're sick of slowing down for me, or you get hurt, or...”

“Brian,” he said. Out loud. Softly.

“You were so scared I was going to leave you, when you first got sick, you remember that? You said, what am I supposed to do if I'm not with you. Well, what the fuck do you think happens to me, huh? You think the world is fucking teeming with people who can make me feel like this? You think there's some other shot out there for me? This is it for me, this is the one fucking chance I get, and if...”

He wrapped his arms around me and rested his head against my chest, and he couldn't see me anymore so there was no point in saying anything else, so we just stayed like that for a long time.

"I'm here, I'm here, I'm here," Justin said eventually, so quiet I could barely make it out.

It got better after that, and I'm nice for the rest of the story, so you can breathe out now. I know I sure did.

**

Melanie and Lindsay brought Gus over for dinner a few weeks after that. Their signing was actually starting to come along pretty well, and Gus was so excited to show Justin the alphabet and Justin practically burst into tears. It was pretty great.

I wanted to just watch, for a little while, so I drifted up to the bedroom while everyone else was around the kitchen table and just...took it all in. Melanie fixing one of Gus's handshapes when he accidentally signed something dirty. Lindsay explaining what they were learning in their class, halting, nervous, trying. Justin, my Justin, laughing.

Eventually Lindsay came up the stairs and stood there with me, while Justin and Melanie and Gus started on the dishes.

“Thank you,” I said. “For learning. It means...it means a lot.”

“Gus is having a ball,” she said.

“I can tell.”

We were quiet for a minute. Melanie signed something to Justin that I couldn't see from this angle, and he laughed.

“You weren't wrong,” Lindsay said. “With what you said outside the diner that night.”

Well, duh, I didn't think I was, but I had the decency not to say that.

“It is on us to make the effort,” she said. “And we did let him down. But...”

I rolled my eyes automatically.

“That's not why we want to hear his voice,” Lindsay insisted. “We just...miss it. We just want all of him that we can get.”

Well.

It's hard for me to blame someone for wanting that.

Why don't we go to the diner for dessert? Melanie asked us all a minute later, and Gus and his love affair with diner food were all over that idea, so we headed out. Debbie was working, and Michael and Ben were there, and everyone hugged and kissed like we hadn't seen each other in months.

And half an hour later, Justin said, “Debbie, could I get some more water?” like he did it every day, and bless her heart, she only froze for half a second before she signed Sure, Sunshine.

**

Justin was on his back, his feet up on my shoulders, glorious noises pouring out of him. He wheezed, mumbled, begged, scraped his heels against the back of my neck, clawed the bedsheets.

He covered his face and then took his hands away to sign more more more

I can't explain to you how important it was right then that I touch him with as much of me as possible, that every single part of me that could be in contact with Justin was.

I can't explain to you how I am so proud of him that I feel like my fucking chest might explode.

He came, and then I came, and he collapsed back on the bed and I stayed where I was, pressing my forehead to the inside of his ankle. I don't know what it was I wanted to do in that moment. Carry him up to the roof and hold him up to the stars and shout LOOK AT THIS BOY with my voice and with my hands. Cover him with blankets and hide him away so nobody could ever hurt him. All of it. Everything.

He sat up a little and grabbed my hand until I looked up.

Okay? he asked me.

Perfect.