after eight years of silence, sound was terrifying. everything that moved, that breathed had a sound to make and no impunity to resist. noise was what the world knew, from the second they were born to the one that they collapsed into death. it was like a comfort. quiet made those he knew rub their hands together, tap their nails or their foot. whistle between the hollow of their gaping teeth, the ones lost from bar fights that made their sounds mutilated. it’s too quiet, his fellow gang members would grumble against jesse’s side, oblivious to the twist of his mouth.
truth is, it’s never too quiet. if a transfer of goods went well, everyone knew that jesse might vanish into the broken edge of a room full of cheap mattresses. hands to ears, pillow above his eyes. catching distant sounds was all too fucking easy, and the static of a damaged aid sounded even harsher than far away revelry -- bullets breaking through prisoners who’s use was far from worthy.
years of life with deadlock. jesse can’t fully recall if he had ever slipped into full silence through the creeping days counted on a cracked drywall, faded paint covered wall.
in blackwatch, the training ended with showers. meals. privacy. a room just his, not like the one not meant for habitation that he tracked himself in. this one claimed furniture that made jesse’s shoulders tense and sag all at once, a mattress that didn’t fully dip when he collapsed onto it. it had a passcode of his hand print with override for only one name, the one he expected like a second skin.
one week passes without incident. jesse wears his aids to bed and sleeps on hour increments that slowly blend together. his clothing finds home on the floor. peacekeeper drops to the bedside table rather than his hip, and then within a drawer, tucked away with the symbolism that jesse isn’t quite prepared to measure. there’s a weight in his being here. sometimes he thinks he imagines the eyes on him -- other times he finds it obvious, when full fledged agents drag their attention over his form in training, his hands on his weapons, even the twitch of his smile.
jesse gets used to that too. in some ways he thinks he comes to appreciate it. they’re more comforting than aggressive-- inspection of a would be companion, not a source of prizes to lift from when sleep comes, or death is on the edge of approach. some of them clap their hands on his shoulders. they trust him, in the end. even the commander, who smiles with softer teeth than someone would expect, and knocks his hat with a feeling that makes jesse’s chest tight. he unspools. and after two weeks creep away, he begins to sleep with his hearing aids tucked away near his water glass.
the first night he cries, heavy and hard. relief shattering his bones in such an unexpected way that he muffles his mouth against a pillow, cries until he’s dry and red eyed even in the morning.
these steps get wider. after a month he takes them out after ops, when he’s washed off and listened to reyes’ expectations for their post meeting the next morning. keeps them tucked in a pocket and his back to a wall so he’s not caught off guard. he’s not sure anyone notices. dinner is peaceful, the rowdiness an empty shift of utensils and mouths open with laughter that feels peaceful ricocheting with only pressure in the air.
jesse should have expected he’d get sloppy someday. sagging forward on a couch with sleep slowly creeping, tired in his bones and pleased with how it feels. blackwatch gives him that exhaustion. leaves him grinning almost stupidly as he stumbles back off of transport, feeling hands hitting his back, returning the feeling as his fellow soldiers strip their gear in messy patterns. they follow a rhythm. undress, shower, redress, meet with reyes all so briefly. eat. sleep.
he skips food tonight, adrenaline high and not ready for food. dropping his aids around his shoulders like discarded earbuds, rubbing a hand over his mouth as he swallows down the weight of a yawn.
the silence is so clean -- it makes him drowse. head hanging down and eyes squeezed shut, simply breathing, slowly, a hitch and fall so easy to fall into. jesse doesn’t catch the soft vibration behind him. not the way that fabric shifts, a throw that someone left behind being tugged and smoothed flat. and when a hand falls onto his shoulder, weighted and calloused and tightening when he jumps, gasping hard between his teeth. spinning to stare into the deep eyes that he sometimes can’t help but peer into when their meetings run long.
and reyes, he’s speaking quickly, too fast for jesse’s eyes to catch. brow furrowed in a way that makes all of his stomach drop, pitted as he holds up a hand, scrabbles with the other to force each aid in and snap them on. the change in sound is IMMEDIATE, his eyes shut and his teeth clench for a moment of harsh breathing. choking down the feeling in order to meet those eyes with his own.
“sorry.” it doesn’t sound right at first. jesse shakes his head. “sorry, boss, i was thinkin' of a nap s’all.”
fucked it all up, he thinks, wildly through the wavering grin that locks onto his face. god, goddamn it --
“calm down, mccree. i’m not pissed at you, those things aren’t made to be worn all the time. scared the shit out of you, but i figured --” reyes ends with a shrug. something tired and small, but just like a smile paints his face. there and gone.
but it’s soft. catches his throat when he breathes in hard.
“yeah.” ugly sort of hesitation. encouraged only when reyes raises his eyebrow. “i just sorta like the silence i guess. doesn’t help that i get a full brain headache. ain’t really, y’know, an all day deal. used’t have a dog that’d help me ‘round.”
“service dog. never had one when i was in deadlock, but it’s there job to tell me when someone’s sneakin’ up on me.”
reyes chuckles at that. low, but full bodied. when his hand slips away it’s to cross both arms loosely, lazily, watching the way that jesse relaxes a little bit, sagging into the couch. a hand rubs over his face.
clearing of the throat, and oh, that hurts his head something awful.
“needed somethin’, boss?”
“hmm?” he almost looks surprised at the question, shaking his head. the beanie looks like it might fall off soon. well worn, well used. he needs a new one. “no, nothing. get something to eat before bed, mccree, we don’t serve three meals to have you skip one.”
he leaves like he came. footsteps turning silent as jesse pulls his aids out and drops, when the doorway empties, fully onto the couch. that’s that, he thinks. pulls his awareness to the front and never lets his back to emptiness again. cleans his aids when they start to sound muddled -- tries to fix the small wires when static is the primary sound that he hears.
they’re pieces of shit, but they function. and he wears them like a necklace in down time, reads lips and keeps his voice strong and his back against a wall for a reason far more clean than ever in deadlock, and he grits his teeth on ops when they burst into static and he has to piece together orders, and --
he comes into reyes office only to have a box slid across the desk to him, smaller than a gun. too squared for bullets. instincts tell him what it is but that doesn’t stop the shake of his hands as he opens the top, nearly flips the damn thing over.
two hearing aids sit inside. clean and coated in a near silvery shade, without wires running from one to another to loop behind his hair. they feel like nothing in his palm. sitting there as he looks at reyes -- the bemused eyebrow raise and motion of fingers all he needs to pry his own out and drop them onto dark wood, place the new ones in. they fit perfectly. sealed in neatly, clean, without an uncomfortable twist to make them settle into place. the seal is tight enough that jesse can shake his head and not feel them shuffle, threaten to fall onto the floor.
the button to turn them on moves easily, and jesse sucks in a breath.
it sounds clear -- so fucking clear, no static hum, no crinkling or muffled edges. he can hear the shuffle of papers as reyes slides his hands back, the creak of his chair when he stands to move around and stand in front of jesse’s stock still form.
“yeah. yeah boss, they’re uh-- they’re real great.”
and they’re the greatest thing that jesse could be given, but he chokes that down. stands, moves as if to leave -- and blinks when reyes stops him. there’s nothing else. surely there can’t be anything else, these are too much already, the summary of paychecks that jesse would have to save until retirement or a much sooner death, and reyes has to know that.
yet he still holds jesse in place.
“we still have something to do.” what dies on jesse’s mouth. a pamphlet offered out as reyes keeps speaking, clear despite the blood rushing in his ears. “today’s a day out, mccree. we’re going there to get you a dog.”
jesse -- he’s not sure if he’s ever been speechless before. judging by the grin on reyes’ mouth he’s never seen it either, a crack in the professional glamour that almost makes jesse fall apart on the spot.
“this isn’t a ‘no’ option, mccree.”
“no. i -- i know. just.” and it feels cheap, like not enough, but he croaks thank you and tightens his hand until the pamphlet is wrinkled and crushed.
but the weight in his chest is all too big, a soreness of the mouth that leaves jesse blindly grinning as he rereads the pamphlet time and time again. besides him always is reyes, a shadow that feels warmer than the sun, wearing something that looks like a smile when he thinks jesse isn’t fully looking. they come in alone. they leave with a sweet young thing barely out of puppy hood, her graduation paperwork tucked under one arm for filing, her vest shiny even on transport.
between point a and b, reyes stopped being reyes. that’s the man who leads him into ops and screams at him when he nearly gets his team killed. the one that smiles at him and watches as he gently rubs between the ears of the tan pit bull, the girl he called peaches so shamelessly that both of them laughed? that’s gabriel. he’s not sure when the distinction came to be.
it’s pleasant. like warm bubbles in the belly, something to revere as jesse gently pries the aids out of his ears and tucks them away.
gabriel watches. tests them both -- calling out jesse’s name in a way that makes peaches perk, nudging at the edge of jesse’s boot until he can’t stop trembling with laughter. turns to watch where she points her nose. and grins full bodied at the way that gabriel’s eyes have softened, his mouth an upward curl.
“thank you.” jesse says again, as peaches, his dog, settles back at his feet. “thank you so much.”
“it’s no problem, esé. no problem at all.”
