Chapter Text
The meteor is dark and cold and boring- not to mention there are at least a dozen humans running amok all the time. Okay, well, maybe there are only two of them but with the way they talk and leave all their belongings everywhere, there might as well be a dozen of them. Everyone has been stuck on this meteor for a while now but you generally spend your time locked in the room you picked as your respiteblock, only leaving for very important reasons. Important reasons such as the fact that the other occupants of the meteor seem to be having some sort of incredibly loud party. Again. You groan, trying to cover your ears, despite the fact that you can’t hear much anyway. Maybe it’s the vibration of the walls and floor that are bothering you so much, and not the actual noise level. Well, no matter. It’s time to break up the party so you can actually sleep for once.
You stand up with a soft hiss of annoyance and shove the door open, following the sound down a few hallways until reaching the designated common area, where the unsanctioned shenanigans are occurring.
You glance around the room- only Rose, Terezi, and Dave tonight- and summon up your best yelling voice. “HEY!”
Rose looks over at you and grins. “Finally decided to join all the cool kids, did you?” You scowl, but that only causes her grin to stretch. “Oh, come now, I’m sure it’s not that awful to talk to us every now and again.”
You sigh and stomp over to Terezi’s corner of the room, flopping on the floor next to her. “How can you tolerate these assholes?” you groan, bonking your head against the wall. Even with your natural tone of voice- that is, yelling- you aren’t sure if she can hear you. You can barely hear you and you know her answer, anyway. She likes the humans. Gross. You take a moment to try to focus on the music, to hear if there are any lyrics, or anything of note. You can feel the beat (because of those stupid huge speakers that Rose and Dave figured out how to alchemize a while ago), but beyond that, you can’t tell. You let out a growl. God damn hearing loss. And then there’s a sudden pain in you arm.
“Ow, fuck!” You glare at Terezi, who apparently decided to get your attention by stabbing the snout of her cane into your arm. She cackles at your outburst. “Hello, meteor to Karkat, I’ve been trying to talk to you.”
You growl again, but this time in mild annoyance rather than actual anger. “Sorry, sorry, I just-” She stabs you with the snout of her cane again and you hiss in pain. “Ow!" You try to add extra loud annoyance to your voice. "What the fuck, Terezi?”
She says something in response but wow it’s loud in here and you realize you have no idea what she said. “I have no idea what you said.”
She just laughs, sharp and loud and one of the only things you can hear right now. She elbows you lightly, but even that kind of hurts. She says something else, but her voice is aimed out into the room, towards where Dave and Rose are trading a pen and paper back and forth. Rose looks over at Terezi and answers her, but you can’t even hope to know what she said. You really are garbage at lip reading. The way humans pronounce things is weird anyways, without fangs or mandibles or anything; how are you supposed to know what they say at all, really? Suddenly something flies past your head and you jump- much to Terezi’s delight. She cackles and elbows you again and you elbow her back, to no avail. Dang she’s tough. Or you’re really not very strong. Who’s to say?
She clicks a pen and starts writing on a pad of paper. Oh, that’s what flew past your head. You glance over at Rose and Dave, who aren’t talking anymore, although every now and then Dave makes some gestures and Rose sort of copies them. That’s weird. But then again, humans are weird and annoying and oh hey, Terezi’s trying to get your attention.
“Thanks for not stabbing me this time,” you grunt.
She waggles her eyebrows to insinuate that she would really like to stab you again. You take the paper she’s offering before she has the chance. Hopefully. The paper reads, “YOU KNOW 1T’S K1ND4 FUN TO H4NG OUT W1TH TH3 HUM4NS, NOT TO MENT1ON TH4T YOU’R3 TH3 ONLY ON3 WHO DO3SN’T COM3 DOWN TO P4RTY.”
You sigh. “I don’t want to have to deal with them!” you yell. Fuck, this music is still so loud you can barely think. You don’t care if Rose and Dave hear you or not at this point and decide you’d rather just yell about it. So you stand up and do just that. “Please, for the love of anything that’s good left in this sorry excuse for a universe, just turn down your fucking music!”
Terezi sighs dramatically, and says something you can’t hear to Rose. Rose, who finally turns down the music. You can barely feel the vibrations anymore and sure as hell can’t hear it. “Fucking finally,” you shout. Then you notice Dave, who looks absolutely baffled.
“What happened to the music?” he asks, his voice far quieter than you expected.
You crunch your face up in that weird expression you do when you’re confused because not only are you confused, but it’s also hard to hear Dave with him practically whispering over there. “It’s still playing, I don’t know what you’re on,” you answer, now that you can actually tell what people are saying. Mostly.
“I- Wait, is it really?” He looks at Rose, who nods.
It’s pretty clear what’s going on but you continue to be confused anyway. “Are you trying to make fun of me for not liking your shitty loud music? Well EXCUSE me for being a pathetic little wriggler who can’t enjoy the worst music known to anyone ever that’s being played SO FUCKING LOUD that I can’t even hear myself think let alone talk to anyone on this stupid, horrible, boring as fuck rock!” Honestly you were just getting the rant rolling, but you stop when Dave snorts and starts laughing. “What the fuck do you want, Strider?” you growl. He keeps giggling like an idiot, which is only adding to your confused and angry state. You open your mouth to yell some more, but he cuts you off with a wave of his hand.
“Dude your rants are way funnier in person, oh my god.” He stops laughing and just holds a stupid grin on his face. Rose has a very similar grin, although hers looks more like she’s waiting for you to realize something but fuck if you know what she wants. Terezi also seems entertained and, shit, what are you missing?
“Why exactly is this so funny?” you nearly screech, getting more frustrated by the second. At this rate, you wouldn’t be surprised if you spontaneously combust. That might be kind of nice, actually.
Dave is still smiling like a moron and says, “I have literally no idea what you’re saying but you’re so mad it’s hilarious.”
Come on, you should have figured it out by now. But no, you still think he somehow knows you can barely hear and is making fun of you. You think that, that is, until he and Rose make some quick gestures at each other and after a brief pause he follows up.
“Dude. Karkat. I’m not making fun of you or whatever, my hearing is just fucked.”
Oh. Well, shit.
“Oh. Well, shit. I didn’t know.” You suddenly feel kind of bad, but you’re also still mad because they should have told you.
“Of course you didn’t know, you never come hang out with us, asshole!” Terezi hollers from her corner of the room, where she’s been pitilessly watching this ridiculous misunderstanding take place for the past several minutes. You glare at her. She just sits there, looking decidedly pleased with herself.
“Whatever, I don’t care, just stop playing the music so loud.” And with that, you stomp through the halls back to your respiteblock. Well, that could have gone better.
------------------------------------
It’s been a week or so since the whole Ordeal happened, and you’re finally feeling less angry that no one told you. Partially because Terezi recently took to yelling through your door for you to come hang out and it gets a lot harder to ignore everyone when the second loudest person on the meteor is yelling at you- even if you don’t hear exactly what she says most of the time. You’re not sure if you want to know, honestly.
There isn’t exactly a “day” or “night” on the meteor, though through some magic bullshit it does have roughly day-long cycles of “brighter and warmer” and “darker and colder” that are close enough that you all don’t go crazy. You didn’t sleep last night and opted to move to the common room because let’s be real, your respiteblock isn’t very interesting and you were about to have a breakdown.
You figure it’s close enough to morning that you can make coffee without feeling like an irresponsible piece of shit, so you do that. It’s not good. You sigh and trudge over to the couch where you had set up camp, plop down, and resume flicking through Troll Netflix to attempt to locate a movie you haven’t watched yet.
Someone leans on the back of the couch next to you and you gracefully spring at least three feet in the air and then hit the ground very hard and much less gracefully. Thankfully, your coffee cup was already on the floor. Unthankfully, you did knock it over.
“What the fuck! Why would you sneak up on me like that!” You scramble to pick up the cup while beginning your rant, and then a rag drops onto the ground in front of you. You hear someone laughing. Of course it’s him. You glare up at Dave, who’s grinning at you from behind those stupid shades.
“I’m sorry bro I tried to make a lot of noise but you were all caught up in your movies I guess!”
You throw the coffee-soaked rag at him. He expertly dodges your definitely extremely accurate toss, then picks the rag up and flings it into the sink. He turns to you and shrugs. You take out your phone and type the most eloquent insult you can think of, stomp over, and shove the phone in his face.
He snorts. “Fuck you too, dude.”
Okay, maybe it wasn’t that eloquent.
“You’re taking all the fun out of insulting you,” you grumble.
“Uh-” he starts saying something and then cuts himself off. You growl loudly (who’s going to hear you?) and start typing.
carcinoGeneticist [CG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]
CG: LISTEN. YOU’RE TAKING ALL OF THE FUN OUT OF INSULTING YOU IN PERSON.
CG: I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO RIPPING ON YOU BUT AS IT TURNS OUT ALL MY BEST MATERIAL IS BEING WASTED ON SOME USELESS BASTARD WHO CAN’T EVEN HEAR IT.
Dave reads for a few seconds before responding.
TG: ok first of all telling me to listen is so insensitive you live with terezi you know how touchy we disabled folk are
TG: and second man its not my fault i cant hear do you think i wouldve picked this
TG: its fucking frustrating as shit and its not like you know what its like but if youre gonna insult me im gonna need you to use your phone or just learn how to sign like a normal person
You squint menacingly at your phone and then up at him. Then back at your phone, resuming typing in a way that could possibly be perceived as “overdramatic”.
CG: I CAN’T *BELIEVE* YOU’RE PULLING THE “YOU CAN’T MENTION ANYTHING THAT COULD POSSIBLY BE CONSTRUED AS TALKING ABOUT MY DISABILITY” SHIT, I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THAT FROM TEREZI WITHOUT YOU CHIMING IN ABOUT IT.
CG: AND WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN, “SIGN”?
You hear him laugh after he reads your messages - one sharp “heh” that does more to amp up your frustration at him than anything he typed. When you snap to look at him, the poker face is perfectly in line once again as he answers you.
TG: you know man, sign language
TG: talking with your hands like some kind of italian mime just trying to get by, got his hat on the ground waiting for someone to drop in some pennies or whatever the fuck the currency in italy is
TG: i think its the euro but earth got fucking shot down in a blaze of glory so i guess it doesnt matter anymore
TG: the mimes family is starving and all he can do is mime words and shit so the business hasnt really taken off yet but hes sure something will come of it as long as he keeps trying to do something or meet another italian mime who can talk to him because i dont know if yall actually have anything like a mime back on murder planet
TG: but theyre these clown-adjacent dudes who never talk and just like pretend things are happening to them and its pretty impressive i think
TG: way fucking better than actual clowns you know whats the deal with those anyway
CG: DAVE *PLEASE*
CG: I AM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU TO STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR EARTH ITALIAN MIMES. I COULD NOT POSSIBLY CARE LESS.
CG: EVERY SINGLE PATHETIC MOLECULE OF MY BEING IS SHRIVELLING UP AND DYING PAINFULLY AS YOU CONTINUE TO TORTURE ME INTO A SLOW AND AGONIZINGLY UNINTERESTING EARLY GRAVE.
Dave laughs once again, turning to look at you. “Sorry you hate Italian mimes so much dude, I’ll only talk about the French ones from now on.”
You grimace and see a small smile play at his lips. Not that you’re paying attention to that, of course. Anyway, back to the subject at hand, you roll your eyes at him and type again.
CG: JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU MEANT BY “SIGN”.
You see his eyebrow twitch up slightly so you cut him off as fast as possible.
CG: *WITHOUT* TELLING ME ABOUT MIMES.
He shrugs one shoulder, the smile getting a little more noticeable. Still looking at you, he makes a series of quick and pointed movements with his hands, slightly mouthing words and adjusting his facial expression as the movements changed. When he’s done doing whatever-the-fuck that was, he stands still and looks at you, seeming very pleased with himself. You narrow your eyes at him.
“Sign language,” he says, speaking slower than usual and moving his hands in time with the words, “is a language made by people who can’t hear. So we can still talk. I mean, I can talk, but signing is easier. And other people who know it can talk to us.”
Huh. You’re not going to lie, you kind of wish Alternia had something like that. You were listening, but the movements of his hands distracted you - those were all words? There was a way to talk to people when you can't hear?
“So-” you start talking and then cut yourself off with a short growl.
CG: SO
CG: THE HAND MOVEMENTS ARE WORDS? JUST LIKE THAT? HOW THE FUCK DOES ANYONE KNOW THAT.
He tilts his head slightly to the side, thinking.
TG: i dont know really i guess it developed like any other language
TG: like one day someone was
TG: get this
TG: *miming*
(You roll your eyes hard enough it hurts)
TG: some words and then someone else was like oh that makes sense how about this movement for that and the first person was like oh hell yeah or they probably didnt say it out loud because of being deaf and not talking and all
TG: not that deaf people cant talk i mean i can but i wasnt born (made?) deaf so that has a lot to do with it but they got the idea across without talking is what im getting at
TG: probably gave the other dude a sick fist bump or something
TG: made up some more signs and called it a day
For the first time in a very long time, you’re not sure what to say. You were definitely not expecting to learn something about Earth culture today, let alone the fact that there was an entire language created for people who can’t hear.
“-if you want?”
Ah shit, Dave was talking.
“What?” You respond automatically, before starting to type again. He waves his hand in the space above your phone.
“Y' don’t have to type. I said I can teach you some signs, if you want.” He suddenly looks kind of nervous, and surely the fact that you immediately narrow your eyes at him doesn’t help.
“Why?”
“Um. Okay I’m pretty sure you said ‘why’, but tell me if I’m wrong, but I know you like talking and thought signing might be kind of fun? For you.” His voice gets even quieter than normal as his sentence trails off and you have to strain to hear it. You’re surprised. You also think he's right and it could be fun.
That was nice of him and you're not sure what to make of that. So of course you ruin it.
“No I don’t want you to teach me a whole new language, what the fuck? It’s hard enough knowing one! And I especially don't need you to teach me anything.”
You know he couldn’t hear that, but from the quick look of hurt that crosses his face, you figure he got the gist of it and you hurry back over to the couch to gather your things and retreat to your respiteblock. You suck.