Wrench’s posture goes from tense and ready for a fight — was their own anxiety that evident from just their posture, Teddy wonders, or is he also dubious of just opening the door to someone? And how did he know? — to a little more neutral, and confused.

And then they explain their thought and his eyes go wide, expression clearing of anything else except maybe hope. Something in Teddy’s chest clenches, a little. That wide-eyed haste, the half-second of unmasked heartache: it resonates inside their ribcage in something less like an echo and more a harmonic.

Teddy gets out of his way; hovers a few steps behind with one eye on the knife drawer in case they’re very wrong.

(They’re not wrong.)

As stupidly soft about that momentary vulnerability as Teddy finds themself — Numbers, up close, continues to evoke the absolute opposite feeling. His smile is cordial enough, but it makes Teddy think of a politician. Especially as neatly as he’s dressed and coiffed. Somehow despite presumably arriving to the same wardrobe as Wrench, he’s managed to make it look more expensive; the effect of which just raises Teddy’s hackles in a deep, instinctively distrusting way (while simultaneously making them want to write their own preferred clothing bereaved come home from the war letters.) He looks at them in one sort of annoyed once over along with the house, like they’re an undesirable accessory that just appeared.

(Rationally, Teddy knows they DID just appear. And if he’s anxious to talk to Wrench, of course he wants to be alone. But he’s a stranger in effectively their house, and—)

Well, they don’t really have time to consider the pros and cons. Teddy’s barely given Numbers a small smile and nod and moved back a few steps into the kitchen before he’s signing…loudly isn’t properly the word, of course, but. Well. It is.

Teddy’s not a fast reader of sign — not yet: they have every intention of learning as much as they can. But the main words he’s using aren’t hard, and they’re being indicated, for fuck’s sake, like that much wouldn’t be obvious to someone who doesn’t know the first thing about ASL (Teddy is beginning to think Numbers is really bad at subtlety).

Who is this woman. this WOMAN It tastes like bile in the back of their throat. The word, but also the way it comes off, like they’re, maybe, some (appallingly bisexual?) affair Wrench was having (while Numbers was nominally dead! their brain supplies in Wrench’s non-applicable defense) or maybe just — extraneous, some nothing, a liability there to learn and give away secrets.

“Hey,” they snap without thinking it through, stepping over a little so they’re in both of their view and lifting a hand. “First of all? Not a woman.”

They tick off first naturally on their fingers, and then just keep signing as they talk. Wrench shouldn’t be left out anyway, and they sure as hell aren’t going to let Numbers pass along what they’re saying when he’s talking about them like that. And being unfair to Wrench, in their opinion: as though their being here is his doing.

In the pause after the end of the sentence Teddy is keenly and sickly aware that they haven’t spoken to anyone in town about their gender; there are numerous reasons for that, mostly really obvious. “Fuck,” they mutter, rubbing their eyes, and push their hair back from their face with one hand and let it fall.

Reckon they’re doing this, then.

“I’m right here,” they add, continuing to sign just as emphatically as they’re speaking. “I can fucking see you.”