Chapter 5 #2
My mouth twitches as I lift my hands. ‘Not yet. I finish at four.’ My hands hesitate, then I sign, ‘You learn fast.’
He huffs and shrugs, trilling out half his melodic song. ‘ASL easy. Need more vocabulary.’
“I can help with that,” I sign and say at the same time. Sim-com is a pain in the ass, but I’ve been doing it for Luca for so many years, it’s become easier. “Can I sit?”
He makes a happy noise in the back of his throat and shifts over, making room for me. His eyes are on me, a heavy weight, and the moment my ass is planted, he lifts his hands to ask, ‘You feel better?’
Biting my lip, I shrug. “Yes. The pain is on-off.”
‘Medicine,’ he signs.
I shake my head. “There’s nothing I can take. Not really. Nothing works.”
I see something flare in his eyes, but he doesn’t sign anything.
After a moment, I ask, “Did you get the cum I left for you?”
His cheeks darken to an almost violet, and his hand dips to the cushion beside him, then he lifts the paper I left with my scribbled note. His clawed thumb brushes over it tenderly, like those pointless words actually meant something to him.
‘Thank you,’ he signs.
All I can really do is nod. I can’t tell him where I’ve been getting it.
I can’t tell him why I’m doing it this way because I don’t know.
But there’s something in me viscerally opposed to letting him drink from anyone else.
The very idea of it makes me furious and jealous in ways I have never been in my life.
But I can’t tell him that. I’ll sound like a fucking crazy person.
“It’s no trouble,” I eventually say. Because it really, really isn’t. I wouldn’t mind doing it more often if I knew I wasn’t going to get caught. “How much ASL have you learned?” I ask, voicing still.
‘Much,’ he replies, and his tail peeks out from beneath him and gently touches my thigh. I pretend I don’t notice it. Instead, I turn my gaze back to the TV and watch it with him. It brings back so many memories of growing up with Luca, learning to sign as he acquired his natural language.
It wasn’t easy. My parents struggled with the whole thing, but at least they tried.
It’s more than most Deaf kids get. When we met several of Luca’s Deaf friends from his school, it became obvious that he was the exception to the normal rule, which was probably also why he was so much happier than they were.
He taps me on the shoulder and asks, ‘When did you learn sign?’
“After Luca was born. We all learned. There was no halfway. We immersed ourselves in it. There were days when there was no voicing in the house.”
‘No voicing?’
“Turning your voice off,” I twist an invisible knob at my throat, and my voice disappears. ‘Like this. Like you, sometimes.’
Cielo blinks at me, and his ears flutter.
I grin at him, and his right fang pokes out slightly. “You’re cute, you know that?” I use my voice again and sign at the same time.
His skin turns a dark blue, and he glances away from me before peering over at me, mostly indiscreetly.
“You know what? Do you want to go to the library? Grab some more videos? So you have something to watch when I’m at work?”
His eyes widen, and he nods.
“Okay, the library closes at eight tonight, but we can head over when I close up shop.”
‘Library,’ he signs back to me, and I nod.
“They have books. And DVDs.”
He cocks his head, and I let out a laugh. Fuck, this monster makes me weirdly giddy. I shouldn’t let myself feel this, but I can’t help it. It feels oddly innate.
“Yeah, like…” I point to the DVD player sitting under my TV and then describe it as best I can. “DVDs are the little discs you put in there. They have recordings just like the one you were watching. And there are books that go along with them to help you learn.”
He nods when he understands and then signs back, ‘DVD.’
“Yes, they have many. You will like. Oh…and there is a coffee shop next door. They have espresso there. It’s delicious.”
He perks up even more, and I wish I didn’t have to go back to work. I wish I could close down earlier. I should look into hiring someone else, but there’s no way I have the budget for that yet. Or probably ever.
It’s a pipe dream that one day I’ll have enough money to be able to afford a few part-time employees.
But if this pain doesn’t go away and keeps getting worse, I might not have a choice.
I don’t want to lose my business, but I know I can’t keep pushing myself.
Eventually, I’ll go past the point of no return, and god only knows what’ll happen then.
“I have to go back to work,” I eventually say, my hands in my lap this time.
Cielo makes a mournful trill, haunting and melodic, in the back of his throat. But after a beat, he nods.
“I don’t want to leave,” I tell him. None of those words are a lie, and for whatever reason, it feels important he knows that. “But I’ll be back soon, okay? If I don’t get any other customers, I’ll close early.”
He put his fingers to his chin and tips them down. ‘Thank you.’
I don’t know why he’s thanking me. This is just basic decency, but looking at his scars, I have to acknowledge he probably hasn’t known a lot of that. Not after what he went through. Not after what Everest told me about the way he and the other Vyastil employed at the Foundry were living.
“It’s just across the street if you need me,” I tell him as I stand.
He meets my gaze, then gives me a single nod before his attention goes back to the TV.
As I slip out of the apartment, making my way back to the shop, I find myself wishing the hours away so I can spend more time with the sweet monster in my apartment. It’s been the place I’ve lived for a long time, but right now, with Cielo in there, it’s starting to feel like a home.