Chapter Text
Adam woke up.
Just like that. No slowly entering consciousness, no blurry blinking, just sudden awareness. And it didn’t take long to realize he was in a hospital. The walls and the ceiling were a blanched white and the air smelled like disinfectant. Silence hung like a blanket over everything, smothering any sound that might attempt to be heard. He closed his eyes again, and in that blackness, memories came. His father, hurling him down the steps. Ronan roaring in anger and striking back. Brief flashes of a car ride, Ronan muttering desperately as he drove with one hand and held a towel to Adam’s bleeding head with the other.
Adam’s eyes snapped open again, suddenly very aware of what that terrible silence meant. He shifted his head to the right, ignoring the dull pain that seared across his skull when he did so. Ronan sat in a chair next to the bed, his head down as he stared at his hands. His eyebrows were furrowed in either deep thought or anger, or possibly both. His skin looked paler than usual, and his jaw was clenched. The knuckles on both of his hands were red, but they looked like they had stopped bleeding a while ago. A few pieces of paper sat next to him on the floor, but they were face down, unreadable.
Adam attempted to clear his throat, and Ronan looked up immediately. He pulled his chair closer to Adam and leaned in, concern and barely covered rage in his eyes. He started to say something, but no sound was coming out of his mouth. Nothing. Now that Adam thought about it, the chair hadn’t scraped across the floor either. The world was entirely devoid of sound, and Adam was beginning to freak out.
As if realizing that his voice had stopped working, Ronan frowned and shook his head, picking up the papers that were still on the ground. He held one up, and when Adam saw the pre-written message on it, he went into full panic mode.
The doctors say you probably won’t hear again.
Tears pricked at Adam’s eyes. He started shaking his head, as if he could shake away the silence, jolt the world back to normal. Visions came again, the image of his father’s fist slamming into the side of his head. The blinding white that accompanied his skull slamming into the stair railing. The feeling that something inside of him was broken, and would never be right again. Ronan saw Adam’s distress, and quickly showed him the next paper.
Nothing else, though. I didn’t let him get you more than once.
Adam tried to speak, to ask what happened after he blacked out, but he couldn’t hear his voice. He felt vibrations in his head, but he didn’t know if what he was saying came out right. He tried again.
“What… what happened?”
Apparently Ronan understood him, because he started writing furiously with a pen from a small table next to the bed.
You blacked out. Your mom pulled your dad inside after I got him in the ribs. I drove you here.
Adam sought refuge behind his eyelids again. Now that Ronan had gotten involved, he couldn’t go home if he wanted to live. This was it, he had to move out. Gansey would probably say “I told you so” if he were here. But he wasn’t here. Where was he? Had he visited already, or did he even know what happened yet? How long had Adam been in this bed anyways? It felt like minutes but could’ve been hours. Adam felt Ronan’s hand grab his and opened his eyes to realize he had been trying to get Adam’s attention for a while now.
Suddenly, the door to the room crashed open and in piled Blue, Noah, and Maura, with Gansey in the lead. He was holding several fast food bags and his coat was hastily fastened, the buttons done all wrong. He pulled up short when he witnessed the scene in the room, and Blue ran smack into him. Ronan immediately pulled his hand away and stood up, forcing a look of ease onto his face. They exchanged words, no doubt Ronan telling them everything that had happened and the doctor’s prediction. Gansey looked back and forth from Ronan to Adam, a look of concern and anger on his face, and Adam felt a rush of affection for him, displacing the earlier “I told you so” thought.
Gansey had unknowingly stopped right in the doorway, blocking anyone else’s path into the room, and now Blue finally shoved past him, an annoyed look on her face that melted when she saw Adam. Grabbing a piece of paper and the pen, she kneeled and wrote out a message in handwriting much nicer than Ronan’s scrawl.
Are you in pain? Can I help?
Adam shook his head no to both questions, despite the throbbing that still echoed in his skull. Then he reconsidered, and croaked out “Water?” Blue nodded and immediately walked over to the sink in the corner. When she brought the cup back, Adam grabbed it with surprisingly strong hands. Based off how his head felt, he expected the rest of his body to be just as weak. But his hands didn’t shake, and he guided the cup directly to his lips. The water felt good after- how long?
“H- how long have I…” Adam stammered, still not used to vibrations instead of sound. Ronan took the pen back from Blue and wrote on the back of one of the papers he’d already used.
You’ve been here about two hours. I haven’t left, Gansey was just driving out to DC, and little miss non-psychic here wouldn’t pick up the phone.
Adam saw Blue angrily mouth one word, and he could definitely tell what it was. “Orla”. He imagined Orla talking flirtatiously to some guy on the phone while he was being used as a human punching bag. It was almost funny, in a weird sort of way.
Then Ronan said something else, and Gansey’s face shifted, this time to unease. His gaze went to Adam for a half second, then moved away. Confusion bubbled up inside Adam. He looked from one person to the other, but no one would meet his eye.
“What?” he asked angrily. “What is it?”
With a sigh, Ronan wrote another message on the paper.
The doctors said you could buy some device to help you hear.
Oh. Something he could definitely not afford, and that his parents would not be willing to buy for him. That uneasy look in Gansey’s eyes made sense now. He knew he could afford it, yet Adam would never let him. Adam didn’t have insurance, so either Gansey or Ronan had probably already taken care of the hospital bill. That meant the device was out of the question. Adam couldn’t let another thing be taken care of by someone else.
Adam shook his head. He would have to either find money to pay for them later or get by without them. Gansey nodded once, looking slightly disappointed.
Maura bustled past everyone, reminding Adam of her presence there. She gave Adam a reassuring look, then took his hand and squeezed her eyes shut, concentrating fiercely. Adam shot a questioning look at Ronan. He shrugged and looked at Blue, who sighed and said something back. Ronan grinned and started writing.
She’s seeing if anything else is messed up in you, dude.
Blue scowled at Ronan’s choice of words, but Adam just rolled his eyes. Maura was done relatively quickly, and she released his hand, smiling and mouthing “You’re fine.” Adam wondered what it would be like to have a mother like this, strong and reassuring, instead of one that cowered behind the massive bulk of her husband. What a different life he would have.
The next few hours passed by in a rush of nurses, instructions given to Gansey or Ronan, and last minute ear checks. Apparently nothing seemed to be too wrong, just the fact that Adam’s world remained as silent as the grave. Ronan drove Adam back to Monmouth, just for a few nights, until he could find another apartment somewhere. It was quiet in the car, and not just because of Adam’s suddenly deficient ears. Both boys were in deep thought as the night passed by the windows. Ronan simmered with anger, mainly at Robert Parrish, but a little at Adam, too. Was it so hard for the boy to accept something? Friends were there to do things for each other. God knows Adam had helped him out a number of times. Fixing the BMW, helping Ronan pass tests he couldn’t care less about, and holding Ronan back from fights, although he would never admit to being thankful for that. Ronan was just tired of waiting for something to pass Adam’s charity-o-meter before he would take it.
Ronan parked the car in front of Monmouth. All of the windows were dark, and it didn’t look very inviting right then. Adam suddenly thought of all of his clothes and books, back in the house he was escaping. He would have to go back one more time, making sure it was when his father was working, and not anywhere near the house.
Ronan took one more piece of paper out of his pocket and fished for a pen. He found one in the glove compartment and wrote one small sentence on the paper.
What are you going to do?
Ronan gestured vaguely to his ears, meaning what are you going to do about not being able to hear for the rest of your life. Adam shrugged, once again almost on the verge of tears.
Will you get one of those device things?
Adam thought for a bit. With his current predicament, he would most likely have to find a new job, and between paying for an apartment and paying for school, he would definitely not be able to afford it. He shook his head slowly, anger rising in him and everything. At his situation, at his father, at the world.
Sign language?
Adam was taken aback. Why hadn’t he thought about that sooner? Now he had to do one more thing just to make it in this world.
“Doesn’t the other person need to know sign language too?” Adam had gotten more used to what there was of his voice after talking to endless doctors and nurses at the hospital.
We can learn together.
There was something about that that made Adam ridiculously happy. Maybe it was the “together”. Ronan always did things on his own, the Ronan way. Or maybe it was the open enthusiastic look in Ronan’s eyes. Learning to sign would require studying, something Ronan hated above all else. Adam smiled as he nodded.
“Okay.”