Work Text:
Since putting on the newest version of the mask, Ranboo has been acting slightly off, Hetch isn't entirely sure why. They're being somehow both quieter and louder than usual; long, stretched out moments of silence punctuated by almost absentminded sounds or louder-than-average speech, like he's worried he won't be able to be understood. And the way he speaks is starting to sound a bit odd as well, like they can't quite understand how to make the right sounds when they talk.
Their reactions are also somewhat delayed. Obviously, the mask is meant to heavily dull Ranboo's emotional responses and up his pain threshold. But the delay between stimulus and response is a lot more pronounced than the handful of previous versions. It's nothing Hetch hasn't seen before. He's had to adjust reaction time for other perception altering devices, it's not entirely uncommon. Especially because he's inhibiting what usually causes those responses. He just thought he'd already figured Ranboo's out. But Hetch also reasons that it might be Ranboo's age. They're still very young, and Hetch has never worked with someone that young before. It stands to reason that a lot of things are going to change between now and the show that he might not anticipate due to lack of experience.
Hetch thinks that the main problem is that he maybe coded their language pathway slightly off, and of course that he needs to tweak their response time, but neither problem seems to be causing much of an issue. Besides, he can always make those adjustments later, he knows that, so he's willing to see this play out.
He also doesn't really want to deal with having to fix what is probably a minor error so soon after having finished crafting a new mask.
And he's been pretty busy with his work lately.
So there's that, too.
It's probably most of the reason he hasn't immediately decided to fix it.
It starts to get a little bit grating while Hetch is recording, though, since Ranboo has decided to start reacting to whatever Cast is doing in whatever show. Luckily, he's keeping quiet enough that it won't be picked up on the mics, but it is getting on Hetch's nerves. After a small bout of laughter at what Hetch has to admit is a particularly funny joke, he pauses production and goes over to Ranboo, who's currently sat on the floor and they eye Hetch nervously when they realise he's approaching.
"What did I do wrong?" The words stumble out a bit oddly, but Hetch doesn't have time for this song and dance, and Ranboo hasn't done enough to warrant it this time. He can be merciful right now.
"Just… go take a walk, kid." He sighs irritably, making a shooing motion. Ranboo hesitates a bit before he picks himself up off of the floor, taking his sweet time leaving the set, constantly looking back, as though he's not sure whether or not he should be. This is also irritating, and Hetch emphatically stamps his foot, jamming his finger towards the exit of the set.
"I said to get the fuck out!" He snaps, though Ranboo already startles and scurries out the door in a way that reminds him of a spooked, feral cat before he's even said anything. Hetch rolls his eyes. At least he got the message. The rest of filming still has a couple hiccups, but overall isn't too bad. They're the regular hiccups—a small break in perception here and there, maybe an Employee lowering a boom mic a bit too low into a shot, Hetch having to give a couple 'notes' on some performances—but nothing too drastic that can't be done over in post. All in all, a pretty productive shoot.
After the shoot, Hetch gets himself a cigarette and starts looking for Ranboo, allowing himself to enjoy at least a little bit of peace before inevitably having to worry about that kid again. The facility is quiet, and it's night now. He can see the stars twinkling through the skylights. Not much of the moon is visible now. It's a thin, waning crescent. But what little moonlight does spill into the facility is rather beautiful. As far as moments of peace go, this one is pretty nice.
Hetch spots that the big sets of doors on the topmost floor, the ones that go to one of the larger soundstages by where the banner hangs, have been pushed open. Just enough to let a certain curious child get through. Hetch scoffs and shakes his head. Of course. Ranboo is always very interested when a new set is being constructed.
He makes his way up the broken down escalator to the top floor, admittedly dragging his feet a bit. But he gets to the doors eventually, pushing them open further. The soundstage is pretty dark, and there must be some issue with the aircon, because there's an odd, grating, breathy noise.
"Ranboo," Hetch calls out, voice echoing slightly. He waits for a moment, taking a drag from his cigarette, and comes to the conclusion that Ranboo must be somewhere else now. But right before he reaches the doors, he realises that he's not hearing a failing air conditioning unit; he's hearing ragged, shallow breathing.
Hetch quickly makes his way over to where the sound is coming from. It's from part of the set that's hidden from obvious view. A back wall of what is supposed to be the library of a haunted house has come loose and fallen on top of a ladder that, somehow, hasn't completely folded yet. Hetch thinks an Employee must've screwed it in wrong to the other walls of the set, and the heavy bookshelves that were bolted to it were just an accident waiting to happen. Hetch is going to have to have a word with that Employee. Many violent words.
"Help…" Hetch nearly jumps as he hears the tiny voice coming from under the plywood and heavy shelves. From the ladder.
As Hetch takes a closer look at the ladder, he can't keep his jaw from dropping. Because how the fuck did this even happen?!
Ranboo is trapped, sandwiched in between the two halves of the ladder, slowly being crushed by the weight of the piece of the set pressing the steps of the ladder into his back. One of their arms is caught between one of the spreaders, flesh torn and bloody, and Hetch is astonished that Ranboo's humerus hasn't been snapped clean in half. It's probably the only thing that's currently keeping him from getting killed. He's clearly tried to get out, as there are scrapes and scratches all over their visible skin. Ranboo somehow manages to look up at Hetch with watery grey eyes, their eyelids red and puffy.
Hetch doesn't think he's seen a more pitiful looking face in his life.
"I need help," Ranboo somehow manages to say. Their voice is weak and scratchy. He must've screamed himself hoarse. He starts to struggle a bit.
"Don’t. Move." Hetch snarls out. Ranboo ignores him, continuing to (weakly and pathetically) try to get free.
"I SAID DON'T MOVE!" Hetch yells, putting his hands out as a sign to stop. This time, Ranboo listens.
"Hetch, I'm scared," Ranboo says shakily, tears starting up again. "Hetch, I'm scared and I don't know what to do."
"Just calm down. Be quiet. Let me think."
This is a lot to take in. He doesn't even understand how Ranboo got caught like that in the first place. From what Hetch knows, they should've had more than enough time to avoid being trapped. And how does he even get him out? Hetch is strong, sure, but he is not nearly strong enough to lift all of that. Does he just let them die? He could. This set is meant to be a haunted house, after all. A bit of old blood wouldn't exactly hurt it…
"Hetch, please. I'm scared." Ranboo interrupts his thoughts.
"What are you? Deaf? I told you to be quiet." Hetch snaps.
"I'm scared. I need help. I don't know what to do."
What is it with this kid recently?
"I said quiet." Hetch growls, putting his finger in front of his masks lips in a way that's nearly sarcastic. This seems to finally shut them up. Or maybe his vocal chords have suddenly gotten crushed somehow.
In the end, Hetch decides to call up some Employees to lift up the back wall of the set so that Hetch can get Ranboo out of that accidental death trap of a ladder. And when he does, he realises that they look… really bad. Like, really, really bad. Still arguably salvageable, though. Ranboo's been worse off than this. He doesn't think it's worth putting him down at the moment.
Hetch carries them down to the larger of the old evidence lockups near his workshop, the one where he keeps most of his medical supplies, and places them on the chair. He's not sure if the kid needs a blood transfusion, but he's got plenty of O- lying around just in case. For now, he snaps on some black nitrile gloves and cleans off the arm that was nearly severed by the ladder. There's a deep, v-shaped cut that goes all the way to the bone in some places on the upper arm, but doesn't wrap all the way around it. To put it lightly, that thing is going to need stitches. Ranboo is still awake, shaking from either blood loss, fright, or both. They look very dazed, and he still isn't responding to Hetch.
"If it were possible, you would probably be the death of me, kid." Hetch grumbles as he holds their skin in place with his forceps and stabs the curved needle through Ranboo's skin with his drivers and roughly pulling it through, starting off with a square knot and pushing it to the side in preparation for a Ford interlocking pattern. Ranboo flinches as he does so, looking up at Hetch in surprise.
"Oh, so now your reaction time is perfect," Hetch nearly spits out. "You couldn't have had that before you were nearly crushed to death?"
Ranboo doesn't respond, just looks away in what might be shame or exhaustion.
"Silent treatment, huh? Alright, then. Fine by me."
Normally, it's not something Hetch would be fine with. He'd like for Ranboo to try to explain himself so Hetch can ignore and snap at them accordingly. But he can't exactly blame someone for not being that talkative after losing what looked to be a pretty decent amount of blood. Though the situation is less than ideal, he does appreciate how still Ranboo is trying to keep for him, barely flinching as Hetch passes the needle through their skin, looping it through each new stitch, joining the flesh together as he pulls the waxed thread taut.
He's still pretty pissed, though.
After finishing off the stitches, Hetch slaps some gauze that's practically dripping with rubbing alcohol onto Ranboo's arm, and he hears Ranboo sharply intake air through his teeth as he squints his eyes shut in pain. Hetch rolls his eyes.
"Yeah, like that hurts after you nearly got your arm chopped off by a ladder." Hetch growls out sarcastically as he wraps a bandage around the gauze. He's confident enough in the tension of the sutures to not put Ranboo's arm in a sling. It's not like the wound wrapped all the way around his arm or anything. He doesn't feel the need to give them any major care instructions, either. Hetch is going to be keeping an eye on him, and this isn't Ranboo's dominant hand.
He dumps Ranboo on his couch and decides to just give them a bottle of water with some electrolytes in it rather than taking the time to put in an iv for fluids, because that's time he doesn't really have. He has at least two other shoots to work on today, three in post, and preproduction notes to lock in for at least five more. And that's all excluding the project that Ranboo is meant to be the star of. Hetch is so glad he has Cast members he can send out on his behalf for all the marketing and merchandising bullshit. Ninety-percent of those meetings are asinine, anyway, the only ones that truly matter are for distribution rights. It frees him up to be able to get more done.
There's some blood on the mask that Hetch needs to clean off, though, so he takes some time to do that. Usually he's fairly silent while he works, but right now, he's still got a bit of a bone to pick with Ranboo.
"That was really stupid of you, you know that?" Hetch mutters.
Ranboo doesn't respond.
"How many times have I told you not to mess around with the new sets?"
Again, Ranboo doesn't say anything. And again, Hetch reasons that he's still likely shaken up from the experience and/or just tired from blood loss. He doesn't know how long it's been since he was just able to vent at them without having to listen to any whining or pleading or bargaining or half-baked promises. It's kind of nice.
"I keep telling you, over and over again, 'don't touch that, you could get yourself hurt'. Maybe next time you'll freaking listen."
After the mask is cleaned and Ranboo is finished drinking, Hetch gets it back on their face and takes them back to their room. After he puts them to bed, he's finally, finally free to get his work done.
You would think a near-death experience might do something to recalibrate Ranboo out of whatever funk he's apparently in, but it doesn't. And Hetch can't get to the bottom of it. He's spent many a nugget of spare time pouring over the mask's code, tweaking a couple modifiers here and there, unable to find anything wrong with their language processing or reflexes. He's asked the Founder to see if there's anything he's noticed about Ranboo's behaviour during the tests, but the Founder hasn't seen anything of note in the results. Despite their slow responses and the fact that their speech is getting worse, he really can't see any problems. Ranboo is perfectly fine.
Or at least, he should be perfectly fine.
It's now a little under a week since the ladder incident, and Hetch opens the door to Ranboo's room and steps inside. Ranboo is sat at his desk, drawing or colouring something (probably more of that gay shrimp bullshit) and letting out the occasional hum.
"Alright, kid. Let's go."
Ranboo ignores him.
"Hey! I said let's go!" Hetch yells, loudly clapping his hands a couple times in an attempt to get his attention. Ranboo continues ignoring him. Odd. They shouldn't be able to ignore him like this, it's almost like they can't…
Hetch walks right up to them, and snaps his fingers a couple times right next to Ranboo's right ear. No response. He snaps a couple more times next to the left. Same result. And then everything clicks into place.
Ranboo can't hear.
Hetch hasn't been able to find the error because he's been looking in the wrong place. It makes pretty much everything make sense; their slow response time, the fact they talk more loudly, why he can't quite seem to enunciate properly anymore. But how has Ranboo still been able to communicate with… everyone but him, he realises. This entire time, they've not asked Hetch any irritating questions, rarely spoken to Hetch directly, has never made a single response to anything Hetch has said.
But they respond to the Cast, and from what Hetch can see, he can understand the Cast perfectly. When watching the performance, they react correctly at all the right times. He gasps when something is shocking, laughs when something is funny, lets out a small, strained noise of fear when something is scary.
All these random little absentminded noises that Ranboo is suddenly making because they can't even hear himself. He's seen Ranboo carry out entire conversations with the Puzzler, little to no delay, with seemingly perfect understanding. Sure, it's a bit louder than normal and he seems to slip a bit on his speech, but they can understand despite being unable to hear. So why is it that he can't seem to understand Hetch?
Hetch puts his hand on Ranboo's shoulder and they scream, so startled by this action that they fall out of their chair. He scrambles to his feet and backs up against the wall. For a second, he looks terrified, but then blinks in confusion.
"Hetch?" Ranboo asks aloud.
"You can relax. I'm not going to hurt you, I just need to check your mask." Hetch says. Ranboo looks at Hetch blankly, still not calming down. In fact, it seems to make him more nervous. From their perspective, it must seemed like they were grabbed out of nowhere and now Hetch is just standing there, menacingly, because of how little Hetch talks with his hands. Hetch hates having to consider things from Ranboo's perspective, it makes him feel like he's starting to go soft.
Hetch sighs in annoyance, grabbing Ranboo by the wrist and dragging them down to his workshop.
"What did I do wrong?" Ranboo asks, and now that Hetch is listening for it, he can really hear Ranboo catching on their o's and g's. How choppy his words are beginning to become after who knows how long of not being able to hear their own voice. "Did I do something wrong?"
"You didn't do anything wrong." Hetch says irritably without thinking, forgetting that they can't even hear him. They don't even respond to the sounds of the service elevator like they usually do, and Hetch has to quickly yank them in because they linger too long in the doorway, unable to hear the grate preparing to close. He wonders how Ranboo just got off lucky with that injury and didn't get killed when Hetch let him wander around that one time.
He plugs in the mask, opening up the interface, typing in //::chk_vitals.run::} into the terminal, looking through those three-letter abbreviations and highlighting each value until he gets to the one he wants. And it's just as he thought:
OSB
0
SBL
0
SBR
0
He must've accidentally set the overall balance of Ranboo's hearing to zero, eyes blurred from digital strain, and the left and right ears must have followed suit, automatically correcting from tens to the zeros he's seeing now. He sighs in frustration, rolling his eyes. And after all that refactoring… He doesn't know how long this has been going on, though the mask's black box feature has been keeping track, he just doesn't have a program to see that data… Hetch gets a sudden brain wave and he grabs a spare notebook and pencil, jotting down some ideas for a program that will visually show this sort of activity. Kind of like a fitness tracker but to make sure he's not totally overclocking this kid. He's not sure why he hasn't thought of this sooner, especially since this is… what? Mark III? Mark IV? He frowns, keyboard clacking.
//::update_data::}
Huh. Mark IV v.01. Good to know. He jots that down in his notes for reference. Hetch can program that vital statistics window later; if he's not careful, he'll get sucked into this side project and throw his entire well-planned schedule out. He goes back to the vitals window, highlighting each of Ranboo's sound balance values and setting them back to ten, making sure to differentiate between the updates as he types up the notes for this one. The one with that unfortunate mistake will be v.01_a. This is v.01_b. A very important distinction in his opinion.
Once he finishes up the patch, he makes sure to save his work before closing out his terminals and unplugging the mask from all the computers and peripherals he's allocated for this project. He tears out the page from his notebook, sticking it to one of Ranboo's whiteboards with a magnet, again having to tear himself away from the very easy trap of distraction, reminding himself to focus on the task at hand. He doesn't have that much time for breaks, and he wants to save at least some of the time he's alotting to this setback to get after Ranboo for it.
Hetch replaces the mask around Ranboo's ears, hooking up the two clusters of wires that trail down from the straps to the two, small circular nodes that have been installed on either side of the back of their neck, close to the base of their skull. Ranboo flinches a bit once the nodes are hooked in, likely by the sync test sound that only they can hear. But that's a frequency that only goes to their brain. Hetch needs to be sure.
He snaps his fingers by their right ear. Ranboo flinches away from the sound, letting out a small whine of pain. He then tests the left ear. Same response. Good. That's working now. Sounds will probably seem louder for a bit as Ranboo gets used to being able to hear again. He sits down across from Ranboo, leaning over a bit, elbows and forearms resting on his thighs, so he can be at eye level.
"You can hear me? Am I coming through?" Hetch asks. Ranboo looks surprised for a moment, but nods.
"I want verbal confirmation, Ranboo. Are you hearing me?"
It's not exactly necessary, but he wants to be sure.
"Yes. I can hear you." Ranboo's head jolts back a little, and he blinks in surprise and confusion, likely at the sound of their own voice.
"I sound different. Why do I sound—?"
"That'll go away in time, don't dwell on it," Hetch reassures him dismissively. He softens his tone a bit. "You couldn't hear yourself for a while. I need you to do a couple of other tests for me, okay?"
"Okay."
Hetch lifts up one of his hand, holding up four fingers.
"We'll start with vision first. How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Four."
"Now?"
"Two."
"Now?"
"Five."
"And now?"
"One."
Perfect.
"Okay. Now try to follow my finger." Hetch moves his finger back and forth to test their motion tracking. Sometimes Cast members lose their ability to track or develop neurological vision problems over time. It's not that surprising, given how much Hetch tends to fuck over people's occipital lobes. But, just as he thought, Ranboo's eyes are still perfectly healthy.
He then pulls out a few, large cards with red-green colourblindness tests on them and a small, black, rectangular box with what used to be a mode dial on it. Ranboo squints at the first card.
"What number can you see?" Hetch asks. Ranboo stares at the card so hard Hetch is nearly worried that they're going to pop a vessel in one of their eyes from the strain before they look up at him, sheepish and shameful, shaking their head.
"I can't." Ranboo admits.
"Can you tell me what colour the card is?"
Ranboo shrugs.
"It's just… it's just green."
Hetch slides the dial to the next setting, and Ranboo flinches, covering his ears, before he looks back down at the card again, eyes widening.
"But it was…! How did…?" Ranboo mutters to himself, fear becoming more and more apparent in his voice.
"And now?"
"I… what… i-it's red, but…"
"Alright," Hetch turns the dial again. "Can you see a number now?"
Ranboo looks even more horrified, or at least as much as they're able to, and they shake their head.
"Can I see a… I… no, I can't see a number, it's just a backwards letter 'c'—!"
"And the colours?"
"The colours…? It… the 'c' is red and everything else is green."
"Wonderful."
Hetch tests their reflexes and response time after a few more rounds of that. When tapping on Ranboo's tendons, there's just a little bit of delay, but it's barely noticeable and the only reason Hetch is able to see it is because he's actively looking for it. It's about a milimetre off from perfection.
For the response time, he gets up and finds a small, rubber ball that he tosses at Ranboo.
"Think fast," he says, right after the ball has left his hand. Ranboo fumbles a bit when they catch it—either from surprise or the fact that Ranboo is right-handed and Hetch very much isn't—but importantly he still catches it. So pretty good response time.
"Alright. That's it. Now," Hetch crosses his arms accusatorily. "Is there a reason why you never told me you couldn't hear?"
Ranboo stares at him blankly.
"I don't know."
"How long has this been going on?" Hetch asks.
"Since you put this mask on, I think." Ranboo's voice is hesitant.
Holy shit.
"So you're telling me," Hetch tries to keep his voice even. It's not going well. "That you've been practically deaf for two weeks? Two entire weeks, and you haven't said anything?"
"I… I didn't know I was supposed to." Ranboo admits. Hetch leans over, face about maybe half an inch away from Ranboo's ear.
"THAT IS TWO WEEKS, RANBOO!" Hetch yells. Ranboo tries to put his hands over his ears, but Hetch grabs their wrist and shoves it down.
"THAT IS HALF A MONTH YOU HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO HEAR! DID YOU THINK IT JUST WASN'T IMPORTANT!?"
"I-I don't—"
"NEWS FLASH, KID! IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO ME THAT YOU'RE ABLE TO PROPERLY FUNCTION! AND THAT'S TWO WHOLE WEEKS THAT YOU DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING! DO YOU HAVE A BRAIN BETWEEN THOSE EARS, OR DID I SHUT THAT OFF ON ACCIDENT, TOO!?"
"Please stop yelling." Ranboo says quietly. He sounds like he's going to cry. Hetch scoffs, but he lets go of their arm and pulls back.
"How did you know what the Cast was saying?" Hetch snaps, crossing his arms. Almost instantly, Ranboo's eyes light up.
"I figured out how to know what they were saying by watching their lips move!" Ranboo says brightly, clearly excited at having gained a new skill.
Hetch has to sit down for that one. He's lucky there's a chair nearby.
"You can read lips…" He says almost faintly, resting his elbow on his knee and pinching the bridge of his nose through his mask.
It's been two weeks. Ranboo's only been like this for two weeks.
Two.
Whole.
Weeks.
From Hetch's perspective, Ranboo has been able to almost perfectly understand nearly everyone but him for almost the entire time. He knows that Ranboo's a fast learner, that the perception altering technology Hetch has been using on them might be influencing how quickly and how well they're able to pick up on things.
Lip reading, though useful, isn't always reliable. Hetch doesn't understand how they've been able to pick up something so unreliable and execute it with near perfection in under two weeks.
Though he also realises that the Cast, with their performances, with their more exaggerated movements, would give Ranboo much more context to work with than Hetch does, who doesn't tend to emote much and wears a mask to boot.
"…Is that bad?" Ranboo asks.
"No it's not… it isn't bad… It's just…"
Hetch is incredibly conflicted on whether he should be proud or whether he should keep yelling at them. He decides that he's yelled at Ranboo enough, and he can tell that the volume being turned back on is going to take a minute to adjust to. That's punishment enough for something that they didn't even really do wrong.
He looks back up at Ranboo.
"You need to tell me next time if any of your senses stop working, do you understand? You could have gotten killed."
It's a little rich coming from Hetch, who has killed him before, multiple times, in fact, but those were necessary. Kind of like putting them in time out. But Hetch is a very practical man; he doesn't want to have to clean up an unnecessary mess.
"I'm sorry." Ranboo apologises, hugging his knees to his chest. Hetch sighs. Even for him, they look too pitiful to continue snapping at.
"You didn't know any better. But now you do."
Hetch would really like it if this kid stopped grovelling for more than a second. It's so pathetic. It's not like he's going to kill him or anything. At least, not at the moment.
"Just don't do it again."