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Eddie’s ears are ringing.
They never stop. It doesn’t bother him most of the time. Right now, though, it’s really starting to piss him off.
His leg bounces as he sits in a squeaky maroon waiting-room chair. He’s the youngest person in the room besides the vaguely college-aged receptionist who checked him in. There’s an elderly couple sitting across from him with an oxygen tank on wheels parked next to their bench. Another old man sits in the corner, hands folded across his stomach and head tilted back against the wall. His eyes are closed.
Eddie doesn’t panic. He isn’t panicking. It’s just that the goddamn ringing won’t stop, and he’s realizing now that he couldn’t possibly say when it started. Was it the helicopter crash? The exploding ambulance? The plane that swooped down so close to the top of the fire engine that Eddie couldn’t hear himself think? The bullet that took him down in the street? The lightning strike that nearly destroyed his life?
All he knows is that it had to start at some point. He remembers that the world used to be silent sometimes. When he was younger, back when he and Shannon got married, his ears were quiet. He remembers lying awake on his wedding night and not being able to hear anything but Shannon’s breathing, which had ricocheted around his empty skull until it became cacophonous. He remembers that there was a brief moment of silence between Christopher’s birth and his first cries.
Eddie knows that isn’t when the ringing started, but it’s the most recent time that he can pinpoint the existence of silence.
Tinnitus isn’t exceedingly rare or anything. According to Buck, roughly 10% of American adults experience some form of tinnitus. Buck is also within that 10%, which is oddly comforting in a way that Eddie has no desire to examine. Buck, however, hadn’t failed his latest hearing test so hard that he had to schedule another appointment to discuss options.
Eddie does not want to discuss options. Eddie does not want to be sitting in the waiting room of the otolaryngology department at the V.A. hospital. Eddie does not want to hear a constant high-pitched ringing in his ears until the day he dies.
Eddie really, really wants to hit something.
There are footsteps in the hall, quick and deceptively light, and Eddie smiles despite himself.
Buck throws his body into the waiting room as if he’s rushing to catch a plane, stumbling over his long legs as he stops just short of knocking into a side table.
“My hearing can’t be too bad,” Eddie says as Buck grins and scurries over to sit next to him. “I heard you stomping in here from half a mile away.”
“I did that on purpose,” Buck replies, ignoring the stiff armrests between them to throw his arm around Eddie’s shoulders like they’re having beers on the sofa at home. “In deference to your poor old man ears.” Eddie ignores the armrest digging into his hip to lean into Buck’s side as well as he can.
Buck seems to realize in that very moment that they are surrounded by old people. “Uh,” he says, glancing at the couple across from them, who don’t appear to have processed anything about his presence.
Eddie leans in to whisper, “I’m pretty sure they can’t hear you.”
Buck snorts. “Are we being… What’s the word Chris uses?”
“Problematic,” Eddie says. “Yeah, I think so. I think we’re problematic.”
“Ableist,” Buck says seriously.
Eddie clicks his tongue. “Ah, see, Buckley, I have a pass. But you? You’re on your own.”
“I think calling me Buckley is problematic,” Buck argues. “That’s kinda homophobic. You’re invalidating my marriage.”
“Alright, fine, you’re on your own, Diaz.”
Buck beams and leans in.
The elderly couple across from them apparently can see Buck, because one of them clears their throat loudly. Buck redirects his aim from Eddie’s lips to his ear, and whispers far too sensually, “They’re just jealous that we’re so young and sexy and in love.”
Eddie is still doing his best to calm his giggles when a young woman in scrubs enters the waiting room to call out, “Edmundo Diaz?”
“That’s us,” Buck says to her, tugging Eddie up by the hand.
At Christopher’s high school open house, which occurred only two weeks after their wedding, Buck had introduced himself to Christopher’s guidance counselor as “Mr. Edmundo Diaz,” and Eddie had been forced to say, “Buck, that doesn’t work when we’re both Mr.,” and Buck had said, “What, you don’t want to share your name? Selfish, Eddie,” and Eddie had asked, “Does this make me Mr. Buck Diaz?”
Christopher had sighed impressively loud, and said, “I’m Christopher. Ignore them.”
Turns out marriage is actually pretty fun when you aren't doing it under duress.
Choosing between rechargeable and battery-powered hearing aids (Technically, Buck points out, the rechargeable option is also battery-powered, the battery just isn’t easily removed and swapped out) isn’t exactly fun, but doing it with Buck is certainly preferable to doing it alone. Eddie decides on the disposable battery option, because the idea of having another goddamn thing in his household that he has to remember to charge makes Eddie feel itchy. Then it’s time to choose the color of the aid, and the audiologist hands him a pamphlet. The front of the pamphlet features an old man with dark skin, white hair, and a bright grin, silver hearing aid behind his ear with an ear mold clearly chosen to match his skin tone.
Eddie feels vaguely sick.
“Inside, you can see pictures of each color option,” the audiologist says, and Buck unfolds it for Eddie, and Eddie lets him. The range of color options reminds Eddie vaguely of foundation commercials and HGTV home flipping shows, just a spread of neutrals, but there are a few wild-card options at the end—“Precious Pink,” “Electric Green,” and a rich teal that they’ve labeled as “Caribbean Pirate” for some reason.
“Black,” Eddie says before he can doubt himself, because he instinctively feels that if he got one of the beige-tones he’d set a hearing aid down on a wooden table and not be able to find it for hours. The black seems noticeable enough for his purposes without being… attention-grabbing. It may blend in with his hair, anyway.
The audiologist, a short, pale woman with long brown hair, a warm smile, and cold hands, nods and says, “Alright, I’ll mark Velvet Black down here.” She scribbles something on a Post-It that does not look like “Velvet Black,” or even like any letters at all. Apparently audiologists are also subject to the whole thing about doctors’ handwriting.
“Now, ear molds,” she says with that annoyingly kind smile, handing Eddie a second pamphlet, already unfolded. “You have a lot more options for color with the ear molds. They can do a swirl of up to three standard colors, if you’d like, or two of the specialty options. I’ll let you look these over while I go prepare the silicone for the impressions, unless you have any questions?”
“Uh, no,” Eddie says, even though part of him wants to ask if he can still back out of this whole thing and just go home.
Unfortunately, his job is pretty reliant upon his ability to communicate efficiently in the field, which he is apparently now incapable of doing without some fucking computers in his ears. Eddie likes his job. He also kind of has to admit, if only to himself, that he’s been operating off of assumptions a bit too much lately; “Buck,” “Hen,” “Chim,” and “Eddie” all sound different enough that he can usually guess which name Bobby’s saying even if Eddie doesn’t quite catch the full word, and he knows Bobby well enough by now that he can usually anticipate his orders before he gives them. One of these days, though, assumptions and inferences aren’t gonna cut it, and considering that Eddie’s job involves semi-regular life-or-death stakes, he has to do something about it.
So. Hearing aids.
The audiologist leaves the room, and Eddie sighs. “I mean, I should just try to match my skin tone, right?”
Buck looks at him like he’s crazy. “Eddie, they have glow-in-the-dark!”
“You want my ears to glow in the dark?”
“I’m just saying, let’s keep our options open.”
“Oh, our options?”
Buck blinks several times in quick succession, reeling back as though he’s been struck. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are we not partners? Did I miss something, Eddie, did we break up when I wasn’t looking?”
Eddie knows what Buck is doing, but damn him, it works. He laughs, rolling his eyes and bumping his shoulder against Buck’s. “I’m pretty sure the glow-in-the-dark is for kids, Buck.”
“Who says an adult can’t glow a little if he wants to?”
Eddie shoves the pamphlet into Buck’s hands and lets himself slump back against the audiologist’s firm, overly rectangular couch. “Yeah, well, he doesn’t want to.”
“I know,” Buck says.
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
Buck sets the pamphlets aside and takes Eddie’s hand. Eddie lets him massage his palm, play with his fingers. Lets himself enjoy it. He wonders how long it takes to prepare the plastic goo that’s about to be shoved into his ear canal to make an impression.
“I’m being dramatic,” Eddie says. “I know I’m being dramatic, and I still can’t stop myself from being dramatic.”
Buck is carefully massaging his fingers, one by one. As he firmly massages Eddie’s pinky, he says, “I don’t know about dramatic. You’re kinda just sitting here.”
Eddie groans, looking at the pamphlets in Buck’s lap. “I don’t know why I hate this so much. It’s not a big deal, right? It’s like wearing glasses. Everybody wears glasses.”
“You don’t,” Buck says, moving on to Eddie’s ring finger.
“No, but Hen does. And she can do our job just fine. Nobody looks at her and says, she can’t do the job because she’s got glasses. I’m not… Like, I can still do my job. So I don’t know why I’m… like this.”
Buck progresses to Eddie’s middle finger, and lets Eddie have his pseudo-silence as he continues his meticulous massage. The ringing in Eddie’s ears feels particularly loud. Eddie keeps looking at the pamphlets. Old man. Silver hearing aid. Ear mold color-matched to his skin tone but still visible. Aging. Defective. Not quite able to hide it.
“Eddie,” Buck says in that tone of his that always worms its way directly into Eddie’s chest. The one that says, Don’t hide from me. That says, I’ll never judge you. The one that says, I’ll always love you.
“I’ve always had my body,” Eddie says as Buck massages his index finger. “I’ve always… If there was one thing about me that wasn’t… fucked up and broken…” He sighs. “And now, with this, it’s like, anybody can just look at me and see that my stupid ears don’t—”
The door opens, and as the audiologist bustles in, Buck leans in to whisper, “You aren’t broken,” and then he’s beaming at the audiologist and asking, “Is that the same stuff they use for making retainers?”
“It’s similar,” she says, then, toward Eddie, “Alright, I’m gonna have to put these little sponges in your ears, so your hearing will be muffled a bit, and when I insert the silicone it’ll feel cold and you may feel some pressure. Are you ready?”
He nods, and then she’s gently prodding a little circular sponge with a string on it deep into his ear. Then, she hefts something that looks unsettlingly similar to the gun that a Claire’s employee used to pierce Sophia’s ears in middle school, and then his ear is being filled with pink gunk. She repeats it on the other side, and Eddie feels like his whole head has been stuffed with cotton.
The whole experience is… Weird. Deeply uncomfortable. Exactly as she described, though, which Eddie appreciates. Buck makes overly loud conversation with the audiologist as Eddie waits for the silicone to set.
“How’d you get into audiology,” Buck says (nearly shouts), and Eddie can’t quite tell what she says in response. Something about med school, he thinks, but he’s really not sure. Shouldn’t somebody whose whole job is working with deaf people speak a little louder? Come to think of it, the young woman who’d checked him in at the front desk had been a mumbler. What’s with that?
“Well, Eddie here was a medic,” Buck says, clapping Eddie on the shoulder, “And my sister used to be a nurse, and her husband is a paramedic. I’m sort of the odd man out, but I have my EMT certification at least.” Buck leaves his hand on Eddie’s shoulder, a warm, comforting weight that always makes Eddie feel a bit more settled in his body. Like he’ll never be alone again.
God, Eddie’s lucky. He’s lucky to be sitting here. He’s lucky to have Buck sitting next to him. He’s lucky to have his kid sitting in front of the TV at home.
What would Christopher say, if he were here? He’d definitely advocate for some godawful combination of colors for the ear molds and get Buck to back him up. He always wants the brightest colors for his crutches, even now that he’s a cool, sophisticated high schooler who likes to think that he’s basically an adult. If he’s going to have crutches, Chris always says, he’s not going to be boring about it. It’s not like they’ll magically disappear because he picks the black ones—something that Eddie actually got into quite the argument about with his parents, the last time that Chris needed a new pair before they left El Paso, because they thought that the blue wasn’t appropriate for church, that it was too ostentatious. Eddie was furious about it, and it was one of the things that gave him the confidence to actually believe he was better for Chris than his parents thought, that he really could bring Chris out to California and be the kind of father that he deserved, because at least Eddie would never teach his son shame.
Oh, Eddie realizes, I’m being an idiot.
When the audiologist pulls the now-hardened silicone out of his ears, the release of pressure feels almost cathartic. Eddie feels a bit like he’s been scraped out, like somebody doused his insides in cold water and he’s clean and raw and new.
“Hi,” Buck says.
“Hi,” Eddie says.
“Alright,” the audiologist says, “Did you make a decision on the color?”
Eddie picks up the pamphlet with the ear mold color options. “Can I take this home and call you with a decision tomorrow?”
Buck grins. “You’re gonna make Chris pick, aren’t you?”
“I’m not gonna make him,” Eddie says, “I’m gonna give him the opportunity. If he picks something stupid, I just won’t listen to him.”
The audiologist laughs. It occurs to Eddie to look at the breast pocket of her shirt, where “TAMARA DAVIDSON, AuD, CCC-A” is stitched in white thread. He could have been an excellent detective, in another life.
Tamara gives him her number on a Post-It, and thankfully she writes numbers much more clearly than she does letters. She recommends that he call early tomorrow morning, as the sooner she gets the order in the sooner he’ll be able to get his hearing aids, and then he shakes her cold, thin hand, and then he and Buck are ambling back out into the waiting room.
“Is that guy even breathing?” Buck says lowly, nodding his head toward the old man in the corner with his head tilted back and eyes closed. He doesn’t appear to have moved at all in the time they’ve been gone.
Eddie squints. After a few seconds, he sees the man’s chest rise.
“Yeah, he’s fine,” he says, “Come on. What do you want to bet Chris picks something neon?”
They make their way to the elevator, shoulders knocking together with each step. “Hmm,” Buck hums theatrically. “I think he’ll try and get you to go for one of the glitter options.”
Eddie presses the down button and steps back, close enough to Buck that he can feel his body heat against his side. “See, I think he’ll try to go for something more attainable. He’ll pick the neon yellow, try to make some kind of safety argument.”
Buck laughs. “I think he’s gonna lowball you with the glitter, then try to negotiate his way to the neon.”
“I could maybe do the neon,” Eddie says, “If we did the swirl, with the black.”
“Like our turnouts?”
“Exactly like our turnouts.”
“Eddie,” Buck says seriously, “That’s adorable.”
The elevator arrives, and it’s beautifully empty. They step inside, and Buck is lacing his fingers behind Eddie’s neck and kissing him before the doors even fully close.
Eddie isn’t a defective old man quite yet. In some ways, he feels younger and more whole than he ever has in his life, pressing his hands into Buck’s waist so firmly that if he concentrates, he can feel the pulse of his heart.
His ears are still ringing. They’re never gonna stop, though apparently the hearing aids might help to offset it. Even if they don’t, though, Eddie thinks he’ll be okay. At this point, he isn’t sure what he’d do with pure silence anyway. Buck and Christopher are both loud and ever-present, and they’re the best things to have ever happened to him.
“Hey,” Buck says, pulling back from their kiss to look Eddie directly in the eye. Somehow, in that way that they always know about each other, Buck knows that something has changed. “Are you feeling better about this?”
“I’m feeling great about this,” Eddie says honestly. “I can’t wait to know what Chris keeps mumbling at me when I tell him to do his homework.”
Eddie feels a bit silly, embracing his husband in an elevator like they’re reuniting in an airport, but Buck is warm and solid, and Eddie can’t fucking wait to hear the sound of his breathing every day for the rest of their lives.