-D-A-N-I-E-L-
I threw my suitcases down on the floor of the hallway and knocked on the door. The vibrations rang through the wood, and I could feel them reverberate in my knuckles. I watched gloomily as the door swung open.
//My God, Darren, look at you.//
He pulls me close, and I can feel him shaking. //Not crying, Dazza...what do you have to cry about?// I push him away and look right into his eyes, hands on his shoulders. //You *are* crying.// I smile and shake my head a bit.
"I'm okay, really," I say. I sound like I'm in a tunnel. I can barely hear myself. I've got my head stuffed up with cotton, but this time it won't come out. It's rude to let your mouth hang open, Darren.
"You-" is all he can say.
"Aren't you going to invite me in?" I ask, watching his mouth for the reply. I can't hear him. Can't hear anything anymore. Just my own thoughts. I'm trapped with them, really. They mock me, especially the songs.
He waves me in mechanically, and I grab my bags and move them the ten feet to inside the door. I can feel it close behind me.
I join you on the sofa. "Tell me everything," I see him say.
I tell him all about the accident, the explosion in my little house in Sydney. How it blew out my hearing, but luckily not my eardrums, which is why I can still hear myself sometimes. Certain pitches I can make out. But everything else is like I'm swimming, and all I can see him above the water, calling to me. I can feel myself blush as I say this, it's coming out more personal than I've meant it to be. I gauge his face for reaction, and hate that I can't hear him. But his face isn't doing anything but listening. I go on, about how my house was destroyed, little bits of Fender guitar and sheet music and amplifiers, my entire life, music, destroyed in the fire. I see him tell me I'm welcome here for as long as I need to be.
And then he has his arms wrapped around me again, and I feel so tiny. I curl up right there on the sofa, my head in his lap, and he strokes my hair, short from the burned strands cut away. I fall asleep like that.
-D-A-R-R-E-N-
I feel so helpless watching him struggle. He's got his headphones plugged into the amps. The feed through the amplifier is turned all the way up to twelve, and I can feel every note strummed through the floor and deep into my chest. It shakes my bones, and it must shake his. That's how he plays now.
It was a shock to hear him speak. I'd always associated deafness with incommutability. Most people who are born deaf can't speak very well. But it's different for those who are inflicted midlife with the problem. He reads lips. He still laughs at my stupid jokes, and makes his own, but things are different. I can't call out his name anymore.
I hear him struggle through the first few chords of "Santa Monica" and almost break down crying at the futility. I feel weak, smaller than I used to be. And I know it's not Dan's fault, but it almost feels like it is. When he's happy, I'm happy. When he's in pain, so am I. And if he's blind or deaf...well...the bond is close.
Daniel cranks down the volume, and turns off the amp. He turns and smiles at me, and I can tell he's glad for the interruption. These past few weeks have been hard, him trying to play without being able to tell what he's playing. He waves me over, and I go to sit in front of him. I've learned that now. I always sit within his line of sight.
"It's hard," he says softly, his hands not leaving the guitar. The way he's holding expresses all the love and devotion in his entire body. Just by watching I can tell that he's torn by not being able to play. "It was the one thing I could do really well, and now it's gone." His eyes don't leave the Fender guitar.
"You'll get it back," I say, knowing he won't catch my reassurance if he's not looking at me. It comes out anyway.
He's silent for a few minutes, fingering the chords that he knows by memory. Then he starts up again. "I had a dream last night." He looks up at me. "I dreamt that I was in a room, and it was full of people and they were talking, but I couldn't hear them. I could hear music playing, sounded like it was coming from a different part of the house, but as hard as I tried to get to it, I could never make my way through the people. I crawled, I scratched, I fought my way through, and finally I managed to get to the closed door. I was just turning the knob when I woke up." He's looking at me under his lashes, waiting for my explanation. I sigh. "You'll get it back," I repeat, and this time he sees me.
-D-A-N-I-E-L-
It's not so much that I need to hear myself when I play. That's not it at all. I've come to grips with the fact that I've been playing the same thing for so long, that the only time I'd need to hear myself do the opening riff of "To the Moon & Back" would be if I screwed up. But there's a problem.
I can't write new music.
I've tried so hard, I swear, and I've got all these ideas stuck in my head, but it's not working. I just can't hear it anymore. The doctors say give it time, they say let the surgery do its work, they say there's a good change I'll be okay. Bullshit. I can't wait a whole year. Darren is exploding with new ideas, and pent up energy, and he won't leave me alone in the house. He's afraid I'll need something and won't be able to get it. I'm not an invalid. I shift my gaze to him.
"Darren, you're pacing a hole in the floor."
He looks up, grins, and runs a hand through his hair. //Don't get all cute on me. I can't think when you do that.//
"Go out," I urge for the first time out loud. He looks shocked. Then bewildered. Then hurt.
"Am I being obnoxious? Am I puttering?" he asked worriedly.
I grin. "If I wanted someone to give up their social lives for me, I would have stayed with my mum. You look like you're going crazy. Go out to dinner by yourself tonight, just have some time alone. Or for christ's sake, go have a good wank, but calm down."
He's laughing at my scolding tone of voice, but I'm serious. The guy has some incredible tension, and it's starting to wear off on me.
"You sure you'll be okay?" he asks.
I blink, surprised. "You mean you're actually going out to dinner?" I'd thought it would take more convincing than that.
Patented Darren smile. "No, I'll be in the shower."
I'm still laughing when he locks the bathroom door behind him.
-D-A-R-R-E-N-
He woke me up in the middle of the night. His blonde hair all disheveled, wearing a tee shirt and a pair of boxers, he only had to call out my name once for me to be wide awake. I flicked on the light. He can't see me in the dark, after all.
"What's wrong?" I asked, concerned. He's got a check up tomorrow, I can tell he's worried. It's been enough time, the doctors say, since the surgery, and now they can move onto step two, creating a prosthetic eardrum, if everything looks okay.
"Can't sleep," he mumbles. It's two in the morning. He looks dog tired. I pat the bed next to me, and he climbs in, eyes drooping as soon as his head hits the pillow. I wrap my arms around him and wait for him to fall asleep before I turn the light off.
Everything is so perfect that it scares me. Moments like these, when the moon casts its halo across his relaxed face, when everything in the world feels right. I don't realize what I'm doing until it's over, until I've already dropped the kiss to his forehead. I suck in a breath and pray he doesn't wake up. I don't know what it was. It just...*was*.
"Dare?" I hear him whisper. God damn.
"Yeah?" I can barely say it, trying to sound nonchalant. Then I shake my head, he can't hear me. I touch his arm to let him know I heard him.
"Night," he says, and snuggles further into my arms.
-D-A-N-I-E-L-
"Darren you sonufabitch, get out of the bathroom!" I pound on the door, and hop up and down. I have to pee like a race horse.
He says something, but I don't quite catch it.
I can't stand it any more. He's been in there for an hour, and I'm just about ready to explode. I look around desperately, spot a potted plant, and squint to myself, trying to decide if it's worth it.
Darren comes out to see me staring at his ficus. "Don't you dare!" He says, but I'm already in the bathroom sighing. God, he sure can take an awful long time in here. "I got a movie," he calls through the door. "It's called Music from Another Room." I look at him in confusion as I come out of the bathroom. He's already sprawled on the sofa.
"Didn't we loan Truly Madly Deeply to that soundtrack?" I ask, shoving one of his legs over so I can watch too. He shrugs. Just like Darren to forget. He's not exactly a sentimentalist. But we did, I remember.
The movie starts, and I'm not paying attention. I'm watching Jude Law, wondering if he's straight or not, and remembering how Darren was infatuated with him. Enough to go blonde. A few lines seep through my thoughts.
"...when you least want it, you fall in love..."
"...real life comes crashing down..."
Darren nudges me and I jolt. I grin sheepishly, and begin to actually watch the movie. So much for plot development.
Jude Law again, on screen, talking to a table full of strangers, actors I don't recognize. Someone asks him what love is like, and I smile, remembering this part from the first time I watched the movie.
"You know how when you're listening to music coming from another room and you're singing along because it's a tune that you really like...when a door closes, or a train passes, so you can't hear the music anymore, but you sing along anyway. Then, no matter how much time passes, when you hear the music again you're still in exact same time with it. That's what it's like."
Darren is looking at me, all serious and melodramatic. I try my best to ignore him, but for the rest of the movie he keeps looking at me. Afraid.
The credits roll, and Truly Madly Deeply plays, and I sigh. He looks at me.
"What's wrong?"
I shake my head. "Nothing. It's just too bad that love can't be as simple as that. As easy to find."
He's staring at me now. "Sometimes you don't have to find it, it's right there waiting for you." He stops nervously. "And it's all up to fate to finish it."
I blink. And then I lean forward, and kiss him, our first real kiss. I can feel him smile.
Because Darren is my music.
