I read @solohux‘s d/Deaf!Matt/Techie fic and I started thinking about reasons Techie might know ASL (or like... Space Sign Language) and I don’t know what happened.
People talked behind Matt’s back. He knew it. He let them think he didn’t, but he knew. What he didn’t know is that they weren’t necessarily always talking about him.
Techie was hearing, so he knew perfectly well what was being said. About Matt, about himself. He also knew that he definitely didn’t want to talk about it. Matt treated him normally, and while he knew intellectually that nothing would change if Matt knew, it was still a frightening concept. Matt didn’t know when his words deserted him, because there was no difference between signing so Matt could understand him and signing because he had no other choice.
Eventually, though, the day came where they had to talk about it.
It had started off as an ordinary day, up until lunchtime. Matt and Techie usually tried to coordinate their lunch breaks so they could eat together, and they were walking to the mess hall when Techie suddenly stopped, reacting to something a stormtrooper had said as he passed. He whirled around, signing furiously.
“Fuck you! Fuck you!” he signed, then stuck his middle finger in the air in a sign that wasn’t technically part of any sign language, but that the stormtrooper undoubtedly understood.
The stormtrooper just laughed and kept walking, and Matt grabbed his partner’s hand and moved them out of the way of anyone else before pointing towards the departing stormtrooper and then raising his palms in a questioning shrug.
Techie fought back tears as he shakily signed, “Called me…” then paused, not knowing a sign for that particular word, so he simply fingerspelled it. Matt gasped; it was not a nice word. He had half a mind to catch up to the stormtrooper and show him precisely why no one called him names where he could lipread them, not anymore, but Techie needed him right now.
Having been called that word himself in the past, and remembering that Techie had signed instead of shouting, Matt touched his finger to his ear and then his mouth, then pointed at Techie with a quizzical expression. “Are you deaf, too?”
Techie closed his fingers twice to sign “No”, then pointed to himself and shook his head while tapping his fingers against his chin to sign “I can’t talk.”
Matt stared at him for a moment. Techie was avoiding his gaze even more than he usually did, glaring somewhere past Matt, although he knew Techie would still see his signs. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked.
Techie finally let a few tears spill as he raised his fists and then jerked them towards himself, opening his palms. “Scared.”
Matt pulled Techie into a tight hug and then pulled him to their quarters, where he signed “I love you. I’ll always love you. Don’t worry.” Techie leaned in to kiss him, and Matt returned the kiss enthusiastically, settling them both on the sofa. Techie cried in earnest, but it was more with relief than anything. Relief that he had finally told Matt his secret, and Matt was treating him the same as always, not pitying him or mocking him. Techie laughed a little through the tears when Matt kissed his tearstained cheeks and up to his puffy eyes. Neither of them really wanted to go back to the mess, and they had enough snacks stashed away that they didn’t really need to. This was where they needed to be.
A few notes: I wasn’t sure how to say this in the actual fic, but Techie doesn’t just go around signing to everyone with Matt being the only one who doesn’t know, it’s just that Techie is already in signing-mode because he’s with Matt and is nonverbal right then anyway, so signing just kinda automatically happens. Usually if he’s nonverbal and not around Matt, he just kinda doesn’t talk. I dunno if I’m making anything any clearer here, lol.
In my head, Techie is nonverbal here because he’s autistic, but if you want to read him as having another speech disorder, that’s fine too.
I actually don’t know ASL so there was a lot of Googling and piecing together sentences here for the purposes of describing signs so if you know ASL, please feel free to correct my grammar or sign choices!
Of course, only now does it occur to me that solohux is in England and might have been using BSL in her fic, but it’s really late and I’m tired so let’s just pretend since researching ASL is more useful to me anyway. (aka I made a dumb mistake, I’m sorry, please don’t hate me, I’m very tired)
