Work Text:
"I don't think this is a good idea."
Sol faces away from the dining table as she rests her palms against its cool surface.
This isn’t the first time someone has shown up at her residence unannounced. It wasn’t uncommon for her family to drop by her old apartment bearing news, or gifts, or even just for dinner. It was exhausting at first—not updating them on her new address is still the best decision she’s ever made—but the experience has given her enough impromptu hosting skills to last a lifetime. Her best friend stopping by from time to time is nothing.
"What if it doesn't work?” He questions, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.
He leans back, fingers tapping rhythmically into the wood. The repetition hardly soothes his nerves, but it’s enough to keep him afloat, to weather this conversation. He glances up at Micah in an attempt to communicate his discomfort.
"Don't worry, darling. If it doesn't work, we can always try again."
In their hand is a case. A small, round, all-black container with a matching wrist strap. The surface is smooth except for a golden sun engraved into the lid and a glowing green light. Micah pops open the case and plucks one of the red, metallic earplugs from its container.
"This is my best model yet! This lovely little thing should have your problems solved within moments of putting it on." They present it to Sol, gesturing at it with their free hand. Her brows crease with concern as she tracks the movement.
"Come here, would you?" they ask.
Micah doesn’t wait for a response before stepping forward. Sol tenses as he approaches him. He reaches for Sol’s left ear, earplug in hand. Sol is pretty sure they intend to test the fit, even though they’ve spent hours before gathering measurements of his ears. Unless his ears have changed drastically in the last 2 years, he isn’t sure why this is necessary. Above the confusion, though, all he feels is dread.
Her hand snaps up to grab their wrist with alarming speed. Her grip is deadly tight, nails digging into their skin. Had her nails been any sharper, she’s sure she would have drawn blood. Micah winces.
"Don't touch me."
He snarls, his tone shakier than it has any right to be. He glares at them through the panic rising in his throat.
It shouldn’t have been an issue. They’ve done this a million times. Mikey will come over with a new set of mechanized earplugs, she’ll try them on, they won’t work as intended, and they’ll watch a show together to shake off the disappointment. This is no different—bleeding, metal, stinging, sticky, loud—yet her eyes burn and her knuckles are turning white.
Sol flinches as Micah wrenches their arm out of his grip. The movement folds his fingers back farther than necessary, pain shooting through his hand. He stumbles back, hip knocking into the table.
A cup rattles and falls to the ground. It doesn't shatter, but the clanging as it makes its way down has Sol covering her ears frantically. The sound rattles around her skull, dizzying. She’s forgotten how to breathe.
Sol wakes to the sound of rushing water. Something warm trickles down the left side of his face and neck. In half-sleep, he’s not sure where the noise is coming from. His jaw is unusually numb but the presence at his side feels terribly familiar.
Groggily, she touches her hand against her cheek. Her fingers come back sticky and red. The smell of iron hits her nose and she shoots up, alarmed. She turns toward the presence. Micah sits there, staring at her like a deer in headlights. In their hands are a pair of blood-stained scissors and a towel. On the bed beside them is a half-empty tube—extra-strength magical numbing cream, it reads, wonderful—with the cap missing.
“Micah? What- What’s going on?” He asks, distressed. His voice is thick with sleep and laced with confusion.
Micah frantically drops the scissors. “This isn’t- I was trying to help, darling. I promise.”
“Help?” he blinks rapidly to clear his mind. “With what? Why—”
It hits him at once. He brings his hand to his ear, feeling around. The blood makes his movements clumsy, but near the top, there’s a clean slice into the cartilage. It doesn’t go all the way through, the tip of her ear still attached on one end. He’s momentarily confused by the lack of pain before he remembers. Ah, that’s what the numbing cream was for.
“¿Qué rayos crees que estas haciendo?” She questions, anger filling her tone. She hops off the bed and stands, looking Micah in the eyes.
It takes them a moment to catch her meaning, but they manage to string together an answer.
“Well- You mentioned being unable to go through with it yourself, so I thought I’d lend a hand..?” they offer tentatively.
“I told you I couldn’t cut my own ears off, so you thought doing it for me while I slept was the next course of action? Really?” she asks incredulously. Her voice steadily raises as she speaks.
Micah tenses visibly, “Not the whole ear, just the excess! And, it’s not as if I haven’t done ear modifications before.” They hold their thumb up against the brass pipe they’d installed along the shell of their ear, showing it off to Sol. “I knew what I was doing!”
“Experienced or not, you can’t just cut chunks out of my fucking ears! With scissors no less!” She’s nearly yelling now.
“I thought you’d be alright with it!”
“Alright with- If I was awake maybe! But I wasn’t. I was sleeping,” he throws his hands up in disbelief, “What don’t you understand!?”
“Was my timing really the issue? At least, if you were asleep, you wouldn’t risk feeling anything!”
“No! Your timing was not the fucking issue,” he yells as he moves closer to them.
“Then what could you possibly be so worked up about?!” Micah complains. It’s like they’re being deliberately obtuse.
“I. Didn’t. Ask. You. To.” Sol plants a finger in the center of Micah’s chest, punctuating each of his words with a firm poke.
“And I didn’t take you for such an ungrateful—” A sharp stinging pain cuts their sentence short. They gape at Sol, cradling their cheek.
“Finish that sentence, asshole. I dare you.”
Micah is silent. Sol holds their gaze momentarily before she scoffs and turns around. She storms off toward the bathroom, steps reverberating loudly against the vinyl floor. Her downstairs neighbors will probably complain in the morning but she couldn’t care less.
She reaches for the door handle.
“Sol. Wait! I’m so—”
Their words are once again cut short by the slamming of the bathroom door. He can still hear them, of course; Micah knows that as well as he does. At least they have the sense to shut up, knowing communicating with him now would only make things worse. He tries to tune out the sound of them taking deep—shaky, remorseful—breaths and focus on finding a first-aid kit.
Sol rifles through her cabinet. She ignores the faint sting of her hand and the dull, throbbing pain on her ear—the cream must be wearing off—in favor of pulling out a small white box. She pops the lid open, pulling out gauze and antibiotic ointment. She places them on the counter and turns on the sink. The blood is starting to get to her.
He gently washes off the blood, gently scrubbing from the neck upward. He looks at himself in the mirror as he does—he actually liked these pajamas. The wound itself is almost invisible under the blood except for the starkly empty space where the cartilage split. Sol blinks away tears as he bends down to clean out the wound as best he can. Saline would work better for this, but it’s not like he received much warning.
Once she’s done, Sol applies some antibiotic ointment to her ear before holding the gauze against it. She’d usually go to the hospital but she’s too exhausted to make the trip. Plus, leaving would mean facing Micah. And currently that sounds a lot worse than any infection she could get. If Sol paid attention, she’d know they’d already left to their room by now, but… She sighs.
He leans against the counter, resting on his elbows, and pushes his empty palm against his eye socket. He watches the colors dance around his vision and takes a few deep breaths through his nose. Out of all the ways this night could have gone... When he finally straightens up, intending to sit on the edge of the bathtub for a while, his arm brushes against a cup on the counter.
In it lies a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, and a shiny pair of silver hair scissors. She stares at it, unconsciously running a thumb along the skin of her left ear, on the other side to the wound. The skins is rough and bumpy, newly scarred. A remnant of a previous attempt.
“...unable to go through with it yourself...”
Sol blinks hard. With a shaking hand, he reaches out and grabs the scissors. The metal is startlingly cold against his skin. He contemplates it for just a second before tossing it into the trash.
"Al Carajo, Mikey. What is wrong with you?" he complains as the cup settles, rolled away somewhere he can’t be bothered to pinpoint. He’s only barely gathered himself by now.
“Me? I am not the one trying to gouge holes into your arm.” Micah says, frowning at her.
Sol grimaces as she watches them run a thumb along their arm. Her fingers have left indents in his skin, red only slightly visible against their complexion. The face they make when they hit a particularly sore spot makes her feel a bit guilty. Mikey has always bruised easily.
They look down, trying to locate the earplug they lost in all the commotion. It hasn’t gone very far as they spot it right by Sol’s foot. She follows his gaze and bends down to pick it up. She brings it to her face and blows on it to remove any dirt.
“Sorry,” he offers.
Micah shakes their head. “No worries, dear. I got too excited,” they sigh, “You know how I am.”
They send her a sardonic smile. They’re confused, she knows. Micah has always been hard to read, especially at the beginning. They’d switch up at the slightest bit of discomfort from her, all practiced smiles and constant endearments. They always knew just what to say to make up for missteps or gaps in knowledge. How to cover for his unnatural demeanor. To get himself out of the uncomfortable situations they can’t help but find themself in. She’d say it was charming if it weren’t so artificial.
He learned to read them eventually. The longer they spent together, the easier it was to tell the fake smiles from the real ones. He slowly learned to pick up on the way Micah would tense after realizing they’d shared more than they wanted to. He’d spend quiet moments in their room, observing their features as another project meets a tragic end, cataloging the way their jaw would clench in frustration. He’d watch their eyes light up as he listened to them explain the different machinery they found interesting.
Sol knows confusion when she sees it. No matter how successful her attempts to get him to drop the mask are, Micah refuses to be caught not understanding something. Not, at least, if they think they should know it already. She sees their face twist up slightly before they paste on a smile, fingers twitching. She should explain but the memory of that night has her holding back.
He looks at the earplug in his hand. It takes some effort to get the words out. “You uh- You mind if I put these in myself?” Micah nods.
“Of course. They’re for you aren’t they?” Sol shrugs. They’re not wrong.
He puts a hand out and asks Micah for the case. They hand it to her from where they’d stuffed it in their pocket. He opens it gently, taking a moment to to admire the design on the lid, and pulls out the other earplug.
They settle nicely in her ears with only minor adjusting, Sol’s earlier hypothesis proving true. Micah had perfected the comfort aspect a while ago. It only took two prototypes before he’d gotten the material and shape perfect. The only real changes to the new designs were size and, presumably, function. She presses their buttons to power them on.
The world goes quiet. Well, quieter, anyway.
The chatter miles away fades from the background. No more thundering footsteps, or rustling clothes of strangers he’ll never meet. No incessant ticking from thousands of clocks—no more fighting, screaming—nothing. The fridge is still buzzing, and he can still hear just past his yard, but it’s quiet for once. It’s as blissful as it is unsettling.
“Talk to me?” he signs to Micah, not wanting to hear her own voice just yet.
They nod, diving head-first into a monologue about the process of making his own hearing aids. It’s a long, complicated process, having decided to reverse engineer a pair instead of looking it up. They get sidetracked along the way, detailing their favorite materials and an encounter with one of their fellow house residents just after moving in. It’s relaxing. She almost forgets she was scared.
After a while, Sol puts a hand out to stop them. They pause in their rant about fire safety and raise their brows at her.
“Ah. Is it time for my performance review?” they ask, only half-joking.
She chuckles then scrunches her nose, “Oh shit, echo. I forgot it did that. It’s worse than last time.”
“Occlusion is still an issue, then.” Micah grabs a small notebook and a pen off the dining table, flipping to a blank page. “I had this issue with my hearing aids as well.”
“So I’ve heard,” Sol snarks playfully.
Micah makes a face, a picture of Victorian offense, and starts jotting down notes. “This is the deepest I could make them go without discomfort, so that isn’t the issue. I can adjust the vent size on the next pair.” They look up at him, flipping the pen between their fingers. “Anything else of note?”
“Higher pitches cut out a little bit. I can still hear it, but the birds outside going silent mid-chirp is a little strange. That’ll make tuning Mabell an issue for sure.”
Micah clicks their teeth at that but gestures for him continue.
“There isn’t anything else I can’t get used to. It’s mostly the pitch issue and the ‘occlusion’,” he puts an accent on the last word, lightly mocking Micah’s speech. They roll their eyes at him.
“Honestly, I might keep these for a while,” he smiles, “we’re getting closer.”
Micah smiles back. For a moment, their eyes seem a bit sad, but it’s gone faster than Sol can comment on it.
“Right, well. I’ll have to take them back eventually for work-shopping. How about we put something on the television and you can wear them while we make dinner? Test them out some more. Sound alright to you, darling?” they ask, flipping the notebook shut and putting it down with the pen. They pull a hair tie out of their pocket and begin to put their hair up.
“It would, but I have one problem with that.” Sol remarks.
“Hm?” They pause mid-motion.
“You’re not touching my stove. I can barely trust you to boil water.” She teases.
“Rude,” they huff.
“Am I wrong?” She stares at them arms crossed, challenging.
“...No comment.”
They spend most of the night doing just that. A few other technical issues crop up through the night—Mikey will definitely have to take them in for some final adjustments—but, compared to where they started? It feels like relief.