A Sign Of Love
A/N: italics represent flashbacks
You watched your boyfriend’s band play from the left wing of the stage. Every bang of the drums could be felt in your chest, every strum of the strings brought an odd tingling sensation to the tips of your fingers. You pressed your hand against one of the pulsating speakers, a soft smile stretching your lips as you felt the rhythm in your bones.
Calum’s eyes met yours with a large grin on his face once the song ended, his hands quickly signing “I love you.” With a cheesy smile you signed the words back at the man, his lips blowing you a kiss in response before returning his attention back to the show.
Sunlight warmed the breeze that brushed past your skin, fallen leaves soaring through the streets. The park bench felt cold against your legs as you waited for your charming date to show up.
It was your first date. The first after the man tried to chat you up at a party weeks ago, only to find out that the loud music was not the cause for his words being unheard. This fact did not deter him as Calum still seemed adamant to talk to you, eager enough to swipe your phone from your hands and make your contact list grow. Eager enough to fill each other’s notifications with messages for weeks. Eager enough to ask you out.
Clammy hands held your phone as you checked the time over and over, a dictation app ready to be used. A rose suddenly hung over the screen, gaze rising to meet a smiling Calum who held the flower out for you. You noticed the notebook held under his arm.
You grasped the flower with a small smile and stood up to greet him with a quick hug.
“Hi,” you said, phone ready to catch the next words he spoke. Instead a look of concentration overtook his face as he slowly signed ‘Hello, you look beautiful.’ Heat rose to your cheeks as he grinned down at you, nodding as though to emphasise his point.
You just smiled and looked down at the rose between your fingers, excited for what the rest of the afternoon could hold.
A sweaty Calum engulfed you in his arms, still bouncing off of the adrenaline from the show he just finished. Your nose scrunched up at the smell though your arms still encircled his torso, holding him tight. Only when a water bottle was thrown towards him did he relinquish his grip.
‘You did great, baby,’ you signed after he downed half of the bottle in one gulp. His lips formed a ‘thanks’ with a joyful look in his eyes before grabbing your cheeks, pulling you closer to meet his lips. One kiss turned into two then three then four before you pressed your hands against his chest to push him away, his lips still chasing yours as you pulled back. ‘You stink, shower first, then we’ll see,’ you signed to your boyfriend who nodded in defeat before a mischievous look filled his eyes. ‘Join me?’
“Were you born deaf?” Calum asked one day as you laid side by side beneath the summer night, months of dating behind you.
In all of this time he had always been attentive and supportive, treating you as normally as he possibly could. You could tell he had been secretly taking a sign language course as his skills improved every week, your heart filling with something you had never felt as you saw how much effort he was putting into being able to talk to you. And yet he had never dared to ask the big question, too scared of offending or upsetting you by mentioning the disability that has shaped you into the person you are today.
You read the words as they came up on the screen of your phone, glancing at him briefly before turning back to face the stars.
“Nope. I mean, I was always deaf in my left ear, but I could easily get away with it and live life as normal, if anything sharing headphones was the only trouble. But then one morning I woke up and with a slight ringing in my right ear. A ringing that went on and on and wouldn’t stop. And I couldn’t stop it, no matter how strongly I hit the walls and anything around me, desperate to hear anything else. This obviously alarmed my parents who came rushing in but I didn’t even notice until my dad grabbed me by the shoulders to force me to stop. I watched as his lips kept moving but no sounds came out. Nothing, Cal, not even a whisper,” you told your boyfriend as your eyes welled up with tears. He noticed this and wrapped his arms around you to pull you into his chest, hand stroking your head comfortingly. “The next thing I remember was being in A&E for ages and a couple doctors testing my ears. Eventually one of them handed me a piece of paper that said ‘sudden sensorineural hearing loss.’ The cause hasn’t been identified, but basically there is something wrong with the sensory organs of my inner ear so they can’t detect sound. They said that it was good that I had been diagnosed early and that treatment with corticosteroids would be able to bring my hearing back, but I wasn’t so lucky. So no, I wasn’t born deaf, but that’s my story.”
Calum pressed a kiss to your head and took your phone-clutched hand, kissing it too before grasping the device. He returned it after typing a message and sat up in front of you. ‘Thank you for sharing that with me. I know it must have been difficult but I appreciate you opening up, and I am so incredibly proud of how far you’ve come since that fateful morning.’ A small smile sat on your lips as you read the text, sitting up to face him too.
‘I love you,’ he signed, vulnerability in his eyes as he awaited any kind of response from you. Your smile widened in joy and surprise at his confession. Hands reaching out to intertwine with his, you carefully uttered the words back. Hearing your words made him grin from ear to ear, hands squeezing yours before leaning forwards to give you the most loving of all kisses. His soft lips melted into yours as he reached to gently place his hand on your cheek.
The night was perfect. He was perfect.
Celebratory beers were passed around the backstage dressing room followed by what you presumed were cheers. You chuckled lightly to yourself as you watched the scene, thinking of how oxymoronic your relationship was. One who devoted their life to creating music and sound and the other who couldn’t hear. With a tap to the shoulder Calum refocused your attention to him, signing a ‘you alright?’ with a slightly concerned expression.
You nodded with a smile, looking down at the silver ring on your finger before signing back your reply.
‘I’m happy.’
A/N: I have written this piece for the project ‘DisabledSOS’ organised by @skinnylukes ! This project aims to support and spread awareness about 5SOS fans with disabilities, chronic illnesses, and other health conditions. Carly brought back this movement specifically to bring about more disability-inclusive writing to tumblr and our fandom as I know that most writers (including myself) don’t tend to cater our pieces to this audience. I was really excited when she asked me to join the event and I hope i did it justice! Be sure to check out the #disabledsos tag for other fics/blurbs like this!
Inspired by Season 5 of Skam France, which deals with a normal teenager who experiences sudden hearing loss and has to learn to adapt to his new life. You can watch without seeing the other seasons, each season is based around a different central character and you see everything through their eyes so most things that happened previously are not necessary to follow the show. I truly recommend it!!
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