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The hearing in his left ear went first. It wasn’t a slow and steady loss of hearing so much as one day he could hear fine, the next sounded like water was blocking it, and the next he couldn’t hear at all.
No doctor could explain what happened, and they’d assumed it was just a delayed reaction to the head trauma he’s experienced.
They recommended he prepare for hearing loss in his other ear.
They said it so casually, like it was fine and something easy to handle. Like he wasn’t panicking at the fact that he wouldn’t be able to hear anything.
He started learning sign language, late nights sitting with Robin as she worked through VHS tapes from the library with him and Eddie.
He didn’t tell anyone else at first, didn’t want to scare them or make them feel like they had to treat him differently.
But they noticed.
They saw the way he turned a certain way when they were talking, leaning his head subtly so his right ear was facing towards conversations.
They saw his hands moving in fluid patterns when he thought they weren’t looking. El was the one who pointed it out, her own limited experience with sign language just enough to figure out he was practicing basic sentences.
They saw how he kept touching his left ear, like if he touched it, maybe his hearing would come back.
So they went to Robin, all of them, begging her to teach them sign language, begging her to keep it a secret from him.
But even Robin didn’t really know much, and all she knew was self taught, so they struggled after a few lessons.
Eventually, Steve had to tell them.
He could tell some of his hearing in his right ear was going, though at least it was happening much slower.
He sat them all down, Eddie next to him holding his hand, Robin on the other side with an unreadable expression on her face.
And when they all already knew, he felt Eddie squeeze his hand, felt tears run down his cheeks without his permission as everyone surrounded him in a group hug.
Within a week, they all signed up for ASL classes in Indy, Eddie and Nancy driving everyone, everyone chipping in for gas even though Eddie offered to pay for it.
As if that wasn’t overwhelming enough, knowing his chosen family all loved him enough to learn an entire language just to be able to communicate with him, they all started figuring out subtitles for movie nights.
Dustin, Eddie, and Jeff figured out a system that let Steve feel the actual note changes of Eddie’s guitar instead of just the same vibrations through the whole song.
They kept a whiteboard in every room, called it Steve Sharades (“for the alliteration!”), and used it as a message board when they weren’t sure of the signs for certain words or phrases.
He was thankful for that when he woke up one morning to near silence.
Just a slight buzzing in his right ear.
When Eddie said good morning, he only knew because he read his lips.
He cried, he felt lost, scared, alone.
But only for a little while.
His family had been preparing for this, had taught themselves how to still give Steve as much of “normal” as they could.
That night was dinner with Wayne, who had been warned about this possibly happening, and probably got a warning from Eddie while Steve was in the shower earlier.
When they arrived at his trailer, he pulled Steve into a hug, arms tightening until he could barely breathe.
He could feel Wayne’s heartbeat against his chest, felt ihs hands on his back, wide and strong, holding him together.
When he pulled away, he started signing as he spoke so Steve could read his hands or his lips.
All okay, son?
Steve sobbed, but nodded.
Wayne had learned sign language, too.
Steve turned to Eddie to hug him, knew he was the one responsible for teaching Wayne secretly.
Steve told them both he loved them, showed them in every way he could, too.
Just like they showed him.