-SIDE NOTE-
[PLEASE READ]

for context; this fic was written purely because i wanted to relate to some characters on a more three dimensional level, not to romanticize anyone's struggles.
to avoid confusion; although i share some common ground with gerard in this fic, i'm not deaf - i've suffered from SSHL before & i also have a pretty nasty speech impediment/disorder, but i'm definitely not deaf. i do however resort to sign language unless i'm fully comfortable because i find speaking really intolerable

in this fic, i'd just like to point out that gerard speaks ASL seeing as it's implied that he lives in America & of course the required reminder that this is completely fiction and not 150% accurate
- some parts are what MY experience with hearing impairment was like - and of course it's not the same for everyone especially with there being different severities of hearing loss and overall deafness... so please don't kill me

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       Despite completely lacking the ability to hear it in any sense, Gerard loved music.

Okay, maybe he should specify that it wasn't exactly the music he adored. It was the vibrations of said music.

He swore God had to be a rocker. Because when Gerard was sprawled out on the ground of his room, a working amp beneath his fingertips and music thumping so hard his bones vibrated, he could feel the sadness, the fear, the frustration leave his body. His head always seemed to completely detach from his body and float up into the skies to roam, his conscious relaxed like a shallow pond.

Sure, sometimes his father and Mikey scolded him for accidentally blasting music too loud - loud enough for the paintings on the walls to shake, but Gerard couldn't exactly help it. He got lost in the sensual feeling almost every time, the tingling feeling against his fingertips always zapped through his body like a terrible sugar rush. Music was like Gerard's external heartbeat; and he loved it.

He especially loved music with heavy amounts of percussion instruments; drums being his absolute favorite. They were powerful and had a helluva unique sound compared to other instruments - and Gerard could feel their vibrations the best.

But Gerard didn't just love the drums themselves - he loved the people who played the drums too. Keith Moon, John Bonham, Neil Peart - they were all fucking awesome. Gerard could play recordings of them drumming all day and never get tired of the vibrations. He loved their music - despite it technically being their bands' music.

And to Gerard, everything was -or could be- a drum. He drummed on the kitchen counter and he drummed on the car dashboard, he drummed on upturned pots and pans and he drummed on his thighs when there was nothing else available. Even as an infant he had tapped his feet to the beat of any music he could feel. His father had told him he was just special - even going as far as telling their complaining neighbor; "That kid could find the beat in cat vomit if it had one."

So when he turned six his father bought him his very own drum kit. He told Gerard any chance he got that at first Gerard reminded him of Animal from the Muppets, like a ball of raw energy and whirling drum sticks. But in a short while he got pretty good! Or so Mikey always told him since he couldn't exactly tell. And by ten he was in a rock band too.

Well, it was an... imaginary rock band, but a rock band nonetheless.

By now though he'd completely outgrown Purple Bicycle Racoons, because he soon came to realize that with his deafness, it was close to impossible to be in a real rock band. He still adored drumming and he did sometimes revisit it for the nostalgia it gave him, but at the end of the day he couldn't even hear his own drumming - and he couldn't always choose to assume it sounded alright to everyone. Because then again, they could just be lying to make him happy and feel less helpless.

Not that Gerard was helpless at all. He was a pretty decent guy, well, according to himself and the other players in Purple Bicycle Racoons anyway. Sure, he had thrown a tantrum about speech lessons and therefore never trained his voice to a point he felt comfortable using it, but he was honestly fine with that - Mikey had told him before that speaking and hearing things was overrated anyway.

And although Gerard had always forced himself to agree, he couldn't help but let his losses crawl up on him in times like this. In times where he just wanted to gaze out his bedroom window whilst simultaneously ignoring his summer reading book; The Master and Margarita. It was the perfect balance, and yet his sorrow just couldn't let him have these moments to himself.

Sometimes Gerard wanted to hear the birds that sat on the tree by his window, and he wanted to hear a bubbling brook, or the swaying trees. Gerard would sometimes even image what it would be like to hear people when they talked. Their voices could be deep like the ocean or high like the tops of the trees he saw on his way to school, they could be empty or cracked with emotion, they could be raspy or shrill. He just... he longed to hear anything at all.

Gerard wanted to know what it sounded like when someone laughed, or when someone cried. He wanted to hear the soft harmonies of the music he blasted, and the pattering of feet on hardwood floors. He wanted to listen to the tick of the clock and the click of typewriter keys. He wanted to hear the wind when it brushed its invisible fingers along his ears, but instead he was locked inside his quiet world; separated from the delight of creation that Mikey had deemed "overrated."

Hearing wasn't like some fucking order of expensive fries - hearing was everything. People depended on it all the time. And although Gerard knew he was just different, he sometimes felt like maybe he just wasn't people. He was a whole different breed of... something.

Sure he went to a special school for people that were deaf, but that didn't make him feel like any less of a freak when he was around his father or Mikey, or even Mikey's friends Pete and Ray.

Not to mention that despite Mikey being younger than Gerard, he always took it upon himself to baby and protect him. Since as long as Gerard could remember Mikey had always been there to walk him to the store, or hold his hand when they crossed the street, or even to stand up for him when there were kids picking on him. Not that Gerard understood what they were saying - but gestures sure did go a long way.

Thankfully despite Mikey's skinny stature and weak punches, Gerard never got picked on by the neighborhood kids anymore. Well, maybe not never, but definitely not as much as when he was younger.

Now Gerard was sixteen - and even though Mikey was only fourteen, Mikey still held the reins whilst Gerard was hushed and cradled like a helpless child.

But despite it all, Gerard smiled softly as he rested his forehead on the soft yellow colored walls of his bedroom. His knees tucked against his chest as he peered out the window he made sure to clean every few days. Some strands of his long blond hair fell over his eyes but he didn't mind, keeping his eyes focused solely on the beautiful birds flying behind the glass. Their white bodies soared across the sky. The silver linings of the clouds were being sliced by vast, beautiful wings. Their figures stood prominent in the bright blue above, with only small pockets of clouds to hide them.

Gerard longed to be that free and beautiful.

The thought made Gerard frown, he shouldn't think like that. He didn't have it bad at all... he had a few friends, a family -even if he was motherless- and the means to do things required of him. He was just as smart as all the other sixteen year olds, or so Ray had assured him - seeing as Ray was also a soon-to-be Junior.

He needed to be positive, just like his father had always taught him to be.

Gerard's eyebrows furrowed when he caught sight of a stray skateboard roll down the mostly empty sidewalk.

It rolled slowly, almost as if someone had carelessly tossed it onto the pavement out of boredom. Gerard couldn't see the owner of the lonely skateboard, and right as he did catch sight of a silhouette, a gentle poke to his shoulder made his eyes snap away from the window.

He was already accustomed to being jolted out of his thoughts and being startled, but it didn't make it any more enjoyable and tolerable.

He was faced with Mikey. He had a terrible nest-looking situation taking place in his hair, and his glasses were crooked as always as he looked at Gerard.

"Dad made lunch." Mikey signed, making Gerard nod and turn away from the window. Mikey knew by now that he could simply speak to Gerard since Gerard had memorized Mikey's speech patterns and it wouldn't make much of a difference since Gerard could simply lipread what he was saying. But Gerard knew Mikey always wanted to double check that Gerard understood him.

Gerard cracked his back and knees before following Mikey downstairs to where he could already smell his father's salmon salad. It had a very specific smell - luckily that wasn't used in a rude manner at all since his father was a retired chef.

His father offered him his usual fatherly grin as him and Mikey took a seat at the dining table. Gerard returned the smile weakly and in the same manner he always did.

"Did you start reading your book yet?" His father asked as he sat down. Gerard scratched the back of his neck.

"A little," He signed, "I got distracted."

His father shook his head with a smile. "We need to get some heavy blinds for that window."

Gerard laughed - which was something he usually tried to refrain from doing. Simply because he didn't know what kind of noise it was. Mikey had once told him it sounded like a snort but then again he didn't know what a snort sounded like either. All Gerard knew was that apparently his laugh was pretty high pitched and pig-like-snorting. Which was... disarming to say the very least.

They began eating, and it was towards the end of lunch when Mikey and his father were discussing something Gerard was too distracted to make out, that Mikey nudged him again.

"Gee, we wanted to talk to you about something." Mikey signed, and Gerard nodded with furrowed eyebrows.

He glanced at his father whom seemed either very excited or more worried than he was when Gerard nearly got hit by a scooter when he was five.

His father threw one last glance towards Mikey before looking back at Gerard who was parallel to him.

"We thought maybe it would be good for you to try going to a mainstream school this year." His father said, Gerard reading his lips as he did so.

Gerard's stomach twisted.

His surprise protected him for a few seconds until it shattered like glass. Gerard guessed it could be labeled shock, but to him they were the same thing for the first fraction of a second; an inability to compute.

Mainstream school?

People- People who could hear mixed in with a single Gerard that was scared of his own laugh?

"Why?" Gerard asked after his initial surprise. "They don't teach deaf people at mainstream schools."

"They have programs now," Mikey chimed into the conversation, signing quickly. "You attend my school but you get taught privately in different classrooms."

Gerard frowned, "That sounds so sad, how will I even make friends? People won't understand me."

Mikey bit his lip before responding, "Ray can help you make friends."

Gerard didn't reply as he looked back down at his food that looked significantly less enticing. Gerard felt like a ball of tangled yarn, the parts that were untangled were available, useable; the rest was a mess, useless until it's untied. The mess felt endless and honestly unyielding. He knew if his father was mentioning this, it was probably already happening - but maybe Gerard didn't want it to.

Sure, when he was younger all he wanted to do was go to 'normal' school and eat lunch in a cafeteria full of kids he knew would be chatting each other's ears off. He wanted to have a vomit green locker and watch the swarms of kids pool hallways and watch kids do sports and be cheered on. But... Gerard never thought it would actually happen.

It was like when little kids dreamed of being celebrities - it was lovely, and fun, and exciting, but the real thing never matched that same picture, and Gerard knew that it would be the same with Mikey's High School.

Maybe he'd get picked on again - or he'd be excommunicated by both Mikey and his friends for being so clueless and alone.

He felt someone nudge his foot gently, making him look up to see his father's lips moving.

"I think it would be good for you to be around other kids your age that go to mainstream school. When you're older it'll be easier for you to understand others, Gee." His father said, and Gerard reluctantly read his lips before nodding.

He let his eyes shift to his plate again as they glazed over with a glassy layer of tears. He blinked, watching them fall into his food. And Gerard bit his lower lip tightly in attempt to hide any sound that wanted to escape from his throat; feeling Mikey wrap an arm around his shoulders.

His lower lip quivered as he leaned into Mikey's touch, and he began to sign something but inevitably gave up and sniffled into Mikey's shoulder instead. Sure, Gerard didn't always mind change - but this was an overwhelmingly huge change. He'd been going to his school for as long as he could remember - he'd never even set foot in Mikey's school, and knowing there would only be a few weeks of summer left, made his stomach lurch.

He felt another pair of arms envelope him, figuring his father had gotten up to hug him as well.

"What if people don't like me?" Gerard signed sadly, and Mikey pulled back.

"They will like you," He signed, "If they don't I'm sure Ray is already working on getting super jacked so he can kick some ass."

Gerard let the residue of his tears slip as he laughed weakly and wiped his nose.

"Really?" He signed, and Mikey nodded frantically, making a small smile come over Gerard's features.

Positive. He just had to be positive.

☆。*。☆。
first chapter! i always appreciate feedback so if there's any notes go right ahead and comment :)