Easy, Wrench says, and it both relaxes Teddy and feels strangely like a ...not a letdown, exactly, but an anticlimax, at least. A little like when she'd summoned all her nerve not long before she turned 12, strode out to where her dad was chopping wood in the back (not an idea Teddy'd recommend to most people, in retrospect), and announced that she like-liked girls. He'd took a thoughtful look at her, one long breath in and out, and then he'd just said, Figured that much. You gonna help me stack this, stringbean?.
Is it easy? Is this all it takes? And if that's all, why is it so fucking hard most of the time?
(Well. Most people don't normally refer to all other people the same way. It's nice, actually; that equalizing effect that ASL has when everyone just gets pointed at, whoever they are. They're not sure it'd fix other things -- like wife or girlfriend, or more complicated: you sure you don't want to go to prom, honey?; the way it's easier for them to get a gig playing indie folk-rock-something than punk. But it's still nice.)
It might as well be easy, anyway. It's better than it being resisted on principle, or any of what they'd been afraid were behind those stares when Numbers and Wrench turned and just looked at them. They can talk about it more later. If they care enough to, if it ever comes up. It hadn't been the point of what was bothering them, really.
Teddy signs OK back, with a small smile and a little nod of gratitude for them not fighting her on this, and continues. She can tell Numbers is schooling back a reaction, though she can't tell quite what, at Friend From Work; and her own mouth curls up at one corner just a little: it was meant to be sass, after all, in a fond way. (He's better at looking impassive than either of them are at looking like they're casual acquaintances.)
When the two of them turn back toward each other, there's a part of her that wants to -- is it still eavesdropping if you're watching? whatever -- if only because she wants to know more signs and she's been picking some things up from context. But they are -- whatever the hell they are, which amounts to closer than your average colleagues, and Numbers did ask for a moment, if not in the politest way possible. And also, she doesn't know what the rules are here. Is signing where someone can see you tantamount to talking loudly enough that someone can hear you? If they were standing where they were, just speaking at normal volume -- in her kitchen, basically -- she'd consider it her business, but then again, they're signing directly to each other and not at a speed she's meant to catch.
Teddy leans back against the console table and glances away politely. Scout has laid down, sort of, in the way she does when she knows she's supposed to be good but would really like to move; she's watching them sign, alert and curious. Teddy wonders if to a dog trained on hand signs, it looks like they're speaking a recognizable but foreign language. Teddy snaps quietly, barely a noise, and Scout picks up her head, thumping her tail, and when Teddy pats their thigh, scrambles up readily to come sit next to them and get petted.
Glancing back up to make sure they haven't missed anything aimed at them, Teddy catches the end of Wrench's fingerspelling and Numbers mouthing SMITH? and can't help a little huff of a laugh. They furrow their brow a little bit as Numbers steps back, lifting their head to watch carefully and nodding as they follow along, thankful if embarrassed about what in sign probably comes across as the equivalent of someone SPEAK...ING...LIIKE THIIIS.
I'm not dead now makes them smile a little. I see that, she replies, unconsciously mirroring what Numbers had said earlier, and clarifies, You'd look good for dead, with a little laugh.
Bachelor provokes a knit brow: and then she lights up -- a little more than she means to -- when he repeats it and fingerspells, the clarity getting a long up and down oh sort nod. Teddy repeats it for practice. Bachelor. (A lot of signs are references to things and she wonders if there's some implication there that you shave for women, or maybe that married men don't bother? It's the same way she is about learning new words, honestly: she always wants to know where they come from.) She adds a quick, genuine, thank you! I like knowing.
He's turning back to sign something quickly at Wrench, emphatically enough that she can hear the smack of his hands against each other; again Teddy glances away studiously to look at something in the kitchen, but this time it's not quite as long before he turns back.
No joke, she says, and then glances at Wrench with a little shrug, wondering to what extent he means discover or what he already knows, even. There's still a little part of her that isn't sure who she can trust: all she knows about Wrench is what she's been told, after all, and he was already awake when she woke here, with a closet full of tailor-fitting clothes, a wedding band and pictures of her that she wasn't aware for.
And shouldn't it be even more unbelievable than this being 1960 that he's from almost but not quite her own time, and he knows Numbers, but Numbers should be dead ten years ago?
Somehow it isn't: it's grouped in with a sort of general insanity.
Teddy shrugs and sort of gestures at the whole house. They like G-A-S-L-I-G-H-T-I-N-G and C-A-P-I-T-A-L-I-S-M? they offer, with a strychnine grin, and affect a show-off pose so their slightly absurd engagement ring catches the sun and reflects rainbows across the tile, then roll their eyes and shrug, flipping their hand up into a one-handed what sign in a gesture of helplessness. S-A-L-E-S-M-E-N aren't very nice.
I don't know... There are others. New. Married. They add quotes to that one like they did for wife. Teddy presses their lips together, thinking. The ones I met are both on this street... they realize, thinking. Where is your house?
no subject
Is it easy? Is this all it takes?
And if that's all, why is it so fucking hard most of the time?
(Well. Most people don't normally refer to all other people the same way. It's nice, actually; that equalizing effect that ASL has when everyone just gets pointed at, whoever they are. They're not sure it'd fix other things -- like wife or girlfriend, or more complicated: you sure you don't want to go to prom, honey?; the way it's easier for them to get a gig playing indie folk-rock-something than punk. But it's still nice.)
It might as well be easy, anyway. It's better than it being resisted on principle, or any of what they'd been afraid were behind those stares when Numbers and Wrench turned and just looked at them. They can talk about it more later. If they care enough to, if it ever comes up. It hadn't been the point of what was bothering them, really.
Teddy signs OK back, with a small smile and a little nod of gratitude for them not fighting her on this, and continues. She can tell Numbers is schooling back a reaction, though she can't tell quite what, at Friend From Work; and her own mouth curls up at one corner just a little: it was meant to be sass, after all, in a fond way. (He's better at looking impassive than either of them are at looking like they're casual acquaintances.)
When the two of them turn back toward each other, there's a part of her that wants to -- is it still eavesdropping if you're watching? whatever -- if only because she wants to know more signs and she's been picking some things up from context. But they are -- whatever the hell they are, which amounts to closer than your average colleagues, and Numbers did ask for a moment, if not in the politest way possible. And also, she doesn't know what the rules are here. Is signing where someone can see you tantamount to talking loudly enough that someone can hear you? If they were standing where they were, just speaking at normal volume -- in her kitchen, basically -- she'd consider it her business, but then again, they're signing directly to each other and not at a speed she's meant to catch.
Teddy leans back against the console table and glances away politely. Scout has laid down, sort of, in the way she does when she knows she's supposed to be good but would really like to move; she's watching them sign, alert and curious. Teddy wonders if to a dog trained on hand signs, it looks like they're speaking a recognizable but foreign language. Teddy snaps quietly, barely a noise, and Scout picks up her head, thumping her tail, and when Teddy pats their thigh, scrambles up readily to come sit next to them and get petted.
Glancing back up to make sure they haven't missed anything aimed at them, Teddy catches the end of Wrench's fingerspelling and Numbers mouthing SMITH? and can't help a little huff of a laugh. They furrow their brow a little bit as Numbers steps back, lifting their head to watch carefully and nodding as they follow along, thankful if embarrassed about what in sign probably comes across as the equivalent of someone SPEAK...ING...LIIKE THIIIS.
I'm not dead now makes them smile a little.
I see that, she replies, unconsciously mirroring what Numbers had said earlier, and clarifies, You'd look good for dead, with a little laugh.
Bachelor provokes a knit brow: and then she lights up -- a little more than she means to -- when he repeats it and fingerspells, the clarity getting a long up and down oh sort nod. Teddy repeats it for practice. Bachelor. (A lot of signs are references to things and she wonders if there's some implication there that you shave for women, or maybe that married men don't bother? It's the same way she is about learning new words, honestly: she always wants to know where they come from.) She adds a quick, genuine, thank you! I like knowing.
He's turning back to sign something quickly at Wrench, emphatically enough that she can hear the smack of his hands against each other; again Teddy glances away studiously to look at something in the kitchen, but this time it's not quite as long before he turns back.
No joke, she says, and then glances at Wrench with a little shrug, wondering to what extent he means discover or what he already knows, even. There's still a little part of her that isn't sure who she can trust: all she knows about Wrench is what she's been told, after all, and he was already awake when she woke here, with a closet full of tailor-fitting clothes, a wedding band and pictures of her that she wasn't aware for.
And shouldn't it be even more unbelievable than this being 1960 that he's from almost but not quite her own time, and he knows Numbers, but Numbers should be dead ten years ago?
Somehow it isn't: it's grouped in with a sort of general insanity.
Teddy shrugs and sort of gestures at the whole house. They like G-A-S-L-I-G-H-T-I-N-G and C-A-P-I-T-A-L-I-S-M? they offer, with a strychnine grin, and affect a show-off pose so their slightly absurd engagement ring catches the sun and reflects rainbows across the tile, then roll their eyes and shrug, flipping their hand up into a one-handed what sign in a gesture of helplessness. S-A-L-E-S-M-E-N aren't very nice.
I don't know... There are others. New. Married. They add quotes to that one like they did for wife. Teddy presses their lips together, thinking. The ones I met are both on this street... they realize, thinking. Where is your house?