by Anna Martin
Luc’s lips skimmed up the side of Caleb’s neck, and he nuzzled into the space below Caleb’s ear, then kissed across his cheek. Caleb’s lips parted easily, and their tongues slid together, slow and deep, demanding and taking at the same time. With his eyes screwed shut, Caleb’s world closed in on Luc’s body and the sheets under his back.
When things got too much and he was right there, right on the edge, Caleb reached up again and squeezed Luc’s arm in warning, then took his cock in his hand and pulled on it until his orgasm overwhelmed his whole body. Having Luc inside him—inside him—when he came changed everything.
As the trembling shocks of pleasure started to subside, Caleb put his hand on Luc’s lower back, and Luc realized he was coming too. They clung to each other, draining the pleasure from each other’s bodies until there was nothing left. Nothing at all.
Luc turned Caleb’s hand over so the palm was facing upward and firmly traced three letters with his finger—W-O-W. From his position, with his head on Caleb’s chest, he could feel the soft chuckle that was Caleb’s response. Luc yawned widely and kicked his feet about until he caught hold of the blanket, then pulled that up over the both of them. He wasn’t bothered about moving from this position. In fact, it felt quite perfect.
15. Retreat
Luc was lying on his bed, sprawled on his back, definitely not waiting to hear from Caleb. Not at all. He was listening to the most recent Black Veil Brides album and thinking about how he might try and grow his hair out like Andy’s. He wasn’t sure if he had the patience, though. He’d probably give up before it even got as far as his shoulders.
When his phone rang he jumped and scrambled to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Hello. Is this Luc?”
“This is he,” Luc said, leaning back in his desk chair. “Who’s this?”
“My name’s Carrie-Anne Stone… I’m Caleb’s mom.”
Luc sat bolt upright. “Is he okay?”
“We had the consultation today, for the cochlear implant trial.”
“Yeah. I mean, Caleb told me about it.”
“They’ve decided he’s not suitable.”
Luc froze, stunned. Caleb had been so sure he would get a place on the trial, that he would be able to hear within a few short months….
“Luc? Are you still there?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. I’m just a bit stunned.”
“We are too. Caleb… well, he hasn’t taken it well. He’s refusing to communicate at all. This doesn’t happen very often, but the last time it lasted for a few weeks, and we’re hoping… we’re hoping to pull him out of it quicker this time.”
“Can I help?”
He heard a sigh of relief down the phone. “Yes,” she said, her voice breaking a little. “Please.”
“I’ll get in the car now. I can be there in a few hours.”
“We’re more than willing to help out with the cost of gas—” she started, but Luc shook his head.
“No, it’s fine. I promise. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
There was no one else in the house. The rest of his family wasn’t likely to be home for hours. Luc scrawled a note for his sister and left it next to the fruit bowl, then grabbed his car keys and rushed out of the house. He only remembered to lock the door when he was halfway down the steps and felt a rush of frustration as he turned back, locked up, and jogged down the street to the garage where the car was parked.
He made the four-hour drive in just over three and a half, surprised he hadn’t been pulled over for speeding and half expecting a ticket to come through the mail. All looked calm at Caleb’s house. It had grown dark while he made the drive, and the street was as neat and silent as it was the last time he was here.
As he made his way up the front path, the door opened. Caleb’s mom—Carrie-Anne—held the door open, the soft light from the hallway spilling out into the street.
“Hi,” Luc said.
“Hi,” Carrie-Anne replied with a small smile. “Thank you so much for coming.”
Luc shook his head. “I want to see him, if I can help….”
“Can we just have a few minutes to explain?” she asked as she shut the door behind him.
No, his mind screamed. Luc clenched his teeth. “Of course.”
Caleb’s dad was sitting in a recliner in their living room but immediately stood when Luc walked through, and offered his hand for Luc to shake.
“Thanks for coming,” he said, repeating his wife’s words. “I’m Mark, Caleb’s dad.”
“Nice to meet you, sir,” Luc said. He could be polite. He wanted Caleb’s parents to like him.
Carrie-Anne gestured for him to sit down, and he did, reluctantly, perching on the edge of the sofa.
“Would you like a drink?” Carrie-Anne asked, fussing.
“I’m fine,” he said and forced himself to smile. “Thank you.”
“We had an appointment today with a group of specialists who are running a new trial for a cochlear implant,” Mark said, leaning forward in his seat. “We had been contacted about a year ago to say that they’d like to invite Caleb for an assessment.”
Luc nodded. Caleb had told him this much already.
“They’ve seen him twice before today, and we thought things were going well. But unfortunately they’ve decided not to take Caleb on the trial.”
“But… I don’t understand,” Luc said. “Caleb told me they thought he was the perfect candidate for surgery.”
“He is,” Carrie-Anne said. “Physically. They’ve done all the tests, and the doctors are pretty confident they can help him. That’s not the only part of the assessment, though. Psychologically and emotionally, they don’t think he’s ready.”
“This is because he doesn’t try to talk.”
Carrie-Anne nodded. “Yes.”
“That’s bullshit!” Luc said, exploding out of his seat. “Who are they to play God and decide who they help and who gets forgotten about?”
“It’s a trial, Luc,” Mark said. “They’re not under obligation to take on anyone they don’t think is suitable.”
“But he is,” Luc said, sinking back into the sofa. “He is ready. I know it.”
“We do too,” Carrie-Anne said, and Luc tried to ignore the tears that were threatening to spill from her eyes. “We’ve known for a long time that he might be able to have this type of treatment. But we can’t force them to do it, and we can’t afford to pay for it ourselves.”
Luc shook his head and dropped his face to his hands. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have—that was out of order.”
He felt the sofa shift, and a then warm arm wrap around his back. Instinctively, he turned his face against Carrie-Anne’s shoulder. She gently stroked the back of his hair, smoothing down his T-shirt, and Luc couldn’t remember the last time his own mother had offered this type of comfort. It had been a long, long time.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” she said and dropped her cheek to rest on his head. “We’ve been through this before. I suppose we’re a little more adjusted.”
“It’s just… this would change his life, you know? For the better. And he wants it so bad, and he’s so scared of letting anyone know in case he comes across as weak or ungrateful.”
“He won’t talk to us,” Carrie-Anne said, pulling away from the embrace and letting Luc scrub his hands over his face. “I suppose you don’t talk to your mother either. It’s one of the downfalls of having a teenage son.”
Luc smiled wanly. “I guess.” He opened his mouth to ask something, then shut it again. Carrie-Anne caught the action.
“What is it?”
“Would you please tell me,” Luc asked, aware of the desperation in his own voice, “about why he doesn’t talk anymore?”
Caleb’s mom looked to his dad and back again, her face worried.
“He won’t mind,” Luc said. “I asked him, and he said it was okay to ask you.”
“What do you know already?” she a
sked.
“That he doesn’t vocalize, although he can’t tell me why,” Luc said. “He said that you could tell me more.”
Mark nodded. “Caleb had lost most of his hearing by the time he turned nine years old and stopped vocalizing when he was ten or eleven.”
“You don’t know when?”
“It didn’t happen overnight,” Mark said gently. “We noticed over a period of months. By the time he’d stopped completely he was nearly twelve. He went to therapy for a long time after that, but he was never able to say exactly what triggered his reluctance to speak. Or attempt to speak.”
“We think he might have been bullied,” Carrie-Anne said. “There’s no proof of that, but it was around the time that most children start going through puberty, and we think Caleb was under a lot more pressure than other children his age to try and fit in. He was self-conscious about his voice before. I think that was exasperated by whatever else was happening with his school at the same time.”
“It was noticed too late,” Mark added. “And believe me, I have a lot of regrets about that. We should have got him help sooner. There’s no going back, though. We can only keep going forward. You should know how unusual it is for Caleb to make friends with someone new. Someone who doesn’t know his home sign.”
Luc nodded. “The fact that we have video chat helps, I think. He can type pretty quickly. It’s the same sort of speed as a regular conversation, and he doesn’t have to worry about his voice, or signing, or me not understanding.”
“That makes sense.”
“Caleb’s communication problems don’t start and end with his deafness,” Carrie-Anne said with a wry smile. “He doesn’t use facial expressions in the same way a lot of his deaf peers do, he doesn’t attempt to vocalize, and he loathes having to write things down to make himself understood.”
“But he does that with me,” Luc said.
“Yes,” she said. “He does. And again… that’s very unusual.”
“I don’t know why,” Luc said lamely. “We just sort of clicked.”
“We’ve been waiting for something—anything—to click for Caleb for years,” Mark said. “If that’s you, then as far as I’m concerned, that’s fantastic.”
“Thanks.”
Feeling awkward, Luc was ready to go and find Caleb. He had the answers he’d been looking for, or some of them, anyway.
“Go on and see him,” Mark said, clapping his hand on Luc’s shoulder. “Hopefully he’ll talk to you.”
Luc nodded. “That’s all I want,” he mumbled under his breath.
The door to Caleb’s bedroom was closed, and Luc hesitated before letting himself in. He hated when people barged into his own room unannounced, but it wasn’t like he could knock, and there was no response to his pressing the small doorbell he knew connected to the flashing light.
Inside Caleb’s room the curtains were drawn, and Luc could just about make out a lump under the covers that he guessed was his boyfriend. Not knowing what else to do, he shut the door behind himself and kicked off his shoes, then crawled into the bed and curved himself around Caleb’s body. This at least was familiar.
For a moment Caleb didn’t move. Then he rolled over and rearranged their bodies so his head was tucked under Luc’s chin and his arm anchored them together. He didn’t seem surprised, or shocked, or much of anything at all. Luc pressed his lips to Caleb’s hair and held on to him as tight as he dared.
Luc made the sign for “sorry” over Caleb’s chest, then did it again and again until he was sure Caleb had seen it. Caleb caught hold of his hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it, his lips lingering there.
They lay like that for a while longer, carefully holding on to each other, fingers and lips quietly exploring. Luc was hyperaware of the fact that he was wearing the same clothes he’d worn to school that day—black jeans and a T-shirt—and Caleb was wearing a baggy T-shirt and boxers and nothing else.
From what he could tell, Caleb seemed calm, maybe a little sad, introspective. That was Caleb most of the time, though.
When Caleb caught hold of his wrist, Luc forced himself to pay attention. Still, it took him a moment to understand what Caleb was doing—finger signing a series of letters against his palm.
He’d read about this technique, most often used for people who were hard of sight as well as hard of hearing. Each letter of the ASL alphabet was formed against the recipient’s open palm—a more long-winded way of having a conversation but one where Caleb wasn’t forced to move from his spot on Luc’s chest to communicate.
Caleb paused between each letter, but Luc wasn’t used to feeling them. He had trouble remembering what they looked like most of the time. Still, he caught:
A-N-K-S… a space… 4… C-M-I-N-G.
Not sure how to respond, Luc took hold of Caleb’s palm and traced a heart onto the surface. Then he pulled Caleb back into his arms.
For a couple of hours they snoozed, not really sleeping but definitely not awake either. Luc often felt like this at the end of a long drive. It took time for his brain to unwind.
He was woken by a soft knock at the door and a light that flashed above Caleb’s desk. He didn’t bother to call out. The door was already being opened, and Carrie-Anne stuck her head around.
“Dinner?” she signed.
“Yes, please.” Luc realized he was hungry and that Caleb’s mom looked like she’d been crying.
She pointed to Caleb, who was still sprawled over Luc’s chest, sleeping fitfully. Whether he wanted dinner or not, Luc was going to make him eat some, so he nodded again. Carrie-Anne nodded and made to leave. Luc shot his hand out to signal for her to stop, then felt awkward about how to phrase what he wanted to say.
“I don’t eat meat,” he said quietly, embarrassed.
She just smiled and nodded. “I know.”
Luc bit his lip and signed, “Thank you.”
She nodded and carefully closed the door behind her.
Awake now, Luc started to gently smooth Caleb’s hair, hoping to nudge him into wakefulness too. Plus his boyfriend had terrible bedhead, and he felt it was his responsibility to fix it for him.
When Caleb blinked awake, Luc smiled, pleased to see a little of the sadness from before had slipped away.
“Hi,” he signed.
Caleb looked at him for a few moments, then wriggled up the bed and pressed their lips together in a hard kiss.
“We should eat dinner,” Luc signed, feeling confident enough that his ASL, although stilted, was getting better.
Caleb nodded but didn’t sign anything in response and pulled on sweatpants before lacing his fingers with Luc’s and heading down the stairs.
Dinner was awkward. There was no conversation, just four people around a table pointedly not talking to each other. About halfway through the meal, Luc felt something tapping at his ankle. He glanced up, but Caleb wasn’t looking at him. Luc had to fight his grin.
He hooked his foot around Caleb’s ankle and finished his risotto with a new sense of peace.
After dinner Luc called Ilse and explained to her what had happened. He begged her to call the school and say he was sick so he could stay with the Stones all weekend. She was pissed that he’d taken the car without asking and only relented when he explained about the CI trial.
“Tell Caleb it’ll work itself out,” Ilse said.
“Thanks, Illy.”
Caleb was back on his bed, but on top of the covers this time instead of huddled beneath them. Luc only had a few things in his backpack, so Caleb found him a spare pair of pajama bottoms and a T-shirt for him to wear. Even though it was still early, Luc changed for bed anyway.
“Did you ever have speech therapy?” Luc asked when he settled on the bed in front of Caleb, feeling like he was drowning in the oversize T-shirt.
Caleb winced. “Yes. It was awful.”
“Really?”
“Yes. They would always say ‘great!’”—he signed the word with an overexaggerated expression
of encouragement—“or ‘awesome!’ I’m not stupid. I know when things are wrong.”
“So they would tell you that you were doing things right when you weren’t?”
“Yes.”
“That sucks.”
Caleb laughed. “I don’t go to that therapist anymore.”
“I don’t blame you. Caleb…. Can I try something?” Luc said carefully.
Caleb nodded—reluctantly.
Luc shuffled forward on the bed and crossed his legs. Then he gestured for Caleb to move closer and closer, then grabbed hold of his ankles and pulled him forward until Caleb’s thighs were resting on top of Luc’s. It was a little awkward but not uncomfortable.
Their noses were only inches apart. Caleb though this might be the point.
“Hello,” Luc said.
“Hello,” Caleb signed back with a smile.
Luc laughed and shook his head. “You say it. I know you can.”
Wincing, Caleb turned away and shook his head. Luc caught Caleb’s chin in his fingers and gently turned his head back. Then he placed a soft kiss on Caleb’s lips.
“No bullshit,” he said, leaning back so Caleb could read his lips. “I won’t give up. I won’t do the fake, sappy encouragement that doesn’t work. We’re going to get this right if it fucking kills us. Now, say hello to me.”
Caleb sighed. “Hello.” He knew it sounded terrible. He knew his vowels were all wrong and the consonants weren’t sharp enough. But Luc smiled anyway.
“Hello,” he repeated.
“Hello,” Caleb said.
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“Hey, that one was better! Hello.”
They repeated the same word back to each other over and over, while Caleb’s vocal cords got their first proper workout in over a decade.
It didn’t take long for him to develop a headache, the result of straining to hear as much as he could to pick up the sounds. Luc seemed to understand and cut off the impromptu speech therapy session fairly early, lying back on the bed and dragging Caleb with him so they ended up splayed around and on top of each other.
