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Max always sees Charles doing things with his hands. Charles is deaf, that’s why he does those hand things, Max hasn’t heard Charles speak, becauss you can’t speak while deaf apparently. That’s also why Max isn’t allowed to greet Charles from behind. He kind of forgot that once. “Charlie!” He hugs Charles from behind happily. Charles looks at Max and smiles. “Quokka, hey, remember, don’t do that Charlie.” Daniel tells Max, the Dutchman frowns. “Oh right, it can scare him cause he can’t hear me.” Max says, letting go. “Yes, he can’t hear you.” Daniel repeats. “But he liked it, he smiled at me.” Max argues. “Still, we shouldn’t come at Charlie from behind.” Daniel says.
“Okay...” Max frowns, letting Daniel pick him up. “Let’s go now, okay?” Max nods and looks at Charles as Daniel walks away. Charles signs “Charlie’s sorry”. Jenson taps his shoulder and he turns around. “What’s going on?” Jenson signs. “Charlie really want to hear, Charlie don’t like how Max has to be so careful around me.” Charles signs back, frowning. Jenson sighs. “You’re going to. Some time. I’m working on it.” He signs. “Charlie want to go home.” Charles signs. “Okay.” Jenson says, taking Charles’ hand and leading him away. At their apartment, Charles is laying in his race bed quietly and thinking about everything, he wonders how Max sounds. He doesn’t know that Max is Dutch and he wouldn’t even know if he himself got the world championship due to his ears not working.
He just really wants to know what goes on in the world by hearing. Being deaf does come with it’s perks though, he knows American and French sign language, he can watch things with subtitles, and Jenson is basically his translator. But more than anything, Charles wants to hear Max talk. Their playdates are confusing, Max talks and Charles signs. So they basically get nowhere. Max says something like “horses” and Charles signs “race”. Most of the time it results in them drawing. A few days later, Charles has gotten a strange device thing, Max noticed. He goes up to Charles. “What is that?” He asks, Charles makes a face of shock and probably of going into his headspace too.
“I- Ch- say that ‘gain.” He says, Max makes a shocked face too. “What is that?” Max repeats himself, Max has an accent and he sounds the way he looks. Max’s voice is his favorite sound! “Charlie can hear!” Charles tears up out of joy and rushes up to Max, hugging him. Max has no idea how to react, but Charles’ French accent is Max’s new favorite sound. He hugs his best friend back and tears up too. They’re both laughing and sobbing, Daniel and Jenson look at each other. “Thank you.” Daniel says. “I’m going to cry for two days straight.” He wipes a tear. “Oh trust me. Me too.” Jenson looks at the littles.
The playdate after that was so much better than the ones where Charles couldn’t hear. “Horse.” Max holds up a horse toy. “Yeah, horse. Wanna play horse, Maxie?” Max nods at Charles’ words. “Race car rides horse?” Charles holds up a race car and Max giggles. “Yeah yeah!” He takes the red bull race car and the white horse. They play race cars riding horses for 1 hour, it’s so obscure, but if Max wants to play race cars riding horses, they play race cars riding horses. After that, Charles was smiling all day until he fell asleep.