Slightly weird ask … perhaps Caregiver Baran with a HOH (hard of hearing) regressor?
Caregiver!Baran Al-Hashimi x HoH!Regressor
A/N: Not a weird ask at all! Funnily enough, I had a draft with Baran and a Deaf!Regressor sitting in my drafts for a Disability Pride Month series I plan on running on Fridays in July!
This request was a great chance to warm up and get those muscles firing for some banger posts. If you have any disability-related requests for any of the fandoms I write for, I'd love to work those into my series in July so please ask away!
- Baran figures out fast that "hard of hearing" isn't one fixed thing day to day. Some days you catch almost everything with your hearing aids in. Some days, especially when you're little, the world goes muffled and distant no matter how loud anyone talks, aids in or out. She stopped trying to find a pattern and just started reading the day as it comes.
- Baran is extremely deliberate about her face when she talks to you now, even with people who can hear perfectly fine. She stopped covering her mouth out of habit, stopped talking while looking at her phone, stopped doing all the small things hearing people do without thinking. Her colleagues have noticed. Nobody's said anything.
- Baran makes sure she's facing you fully before she talks, every time, even for something small. She doesn't call things across a room anymore. If it's worth saying, it's worth walking over for.
- On the days your hearing aids feel like too much, when the world is already loud enough without amplification, Baran doesn't push you to keep them in. She just adjust, making sure her face is clear and will write things down if needed.
- She learned that nodding along when you didn't actually catch something is a thing you do, the same way a lot of people do, out of a lifetime of not wanting to be a bother. She started checking in differently because of it.
"Did you get that, or do you want me to say it again?"
- Baran keeps a small notepad in her bag now. Not because you can't talk, just because some days, especially little days, finding the right word out loud is hard and writing it down is easier. She never makes you choose one way over the other. Whatever works that day works.
- She started texting you things during the day that she'd normally just say out loud when she gets home. Reminders, little check-ins, nothing urgent. It's not about replacing talking. It's just one more way in, for the days when sound isn't cooperating.
- On your overwhelmed days, when even her voice is too much to process, she'll just sit with you instead. Hand on your back. No expectation of words at all. Quiet doesn't scare her. She's comfortable taking up space without filling it with sound.
- Baran picked up on your specific tells fast. The slight tilt of your head when you're trying to catch something. The half-second delay before you respond. The way you watch her mouth a little more closely right before you ask her to repeat something. She started repeating things before you had to ask.
- Captions are just on now. All the time, every show, every video. Baran stopped noticing she does it. It's just how the TV works in her apartment.
- If you're little and frustrated because you missed something and don't have the words to ask again, Baran doesn't make you work for it. She just tries it in different ways, slower, simpler, written down, whatever gets through, until something lands.
"Tired?"
You shake your head.
"Sad?" You give a small nod.
That's enough. She doesn't need more than that to start helping.
- Baran learned the difference between your aids being off, your aids dying, and your aids simply not being in yet. She can usually tell before you do from the way you start asking for repetitions or the faint hint of static. She keeps spare batteries everywhere and can swap one out mid-meltdown with the calm efficiency of someone who's done it a hundred times.
- Baran cleans your aids for you on the hardest little days, when your hands are too unsteady or you're too overwhelmed to manage the small parts yourself. She does it slowly and carefully at the kitchen table, narrating quietly so you always know what's happening even if you can't fully hear her doing it.
- There's a specific dish by your bed now, soft-lined, just for the aids to go at night. Baran set it up without asking. She places them there herself if you hand them over, every time, like it's the most natural thing in the world.
- She learned that putting your aids in first thing can be a lot for little you, too much sound too fast before you've fully woken up. So now she waits. Lets you have a few quiet minutes first. Aids go in only when you reach for them.
"Ready?"
You nod. She holds them out and doesn't put them in for you unless you ask her to. Some mornings you do. Some mornings you don't.
- Baran figured out fast that loud, sudden noise hits different with aids in. The clatter of dishes. A door slamming somewhere down the hall. She started moving through her own apartment more quietly without consciously deciding to. It just happened.
- On days the aids are in, and the world is a lot, she'll ask before adjusting anything around you, including the volume on the TV, the radio in the car, even her own voice. She never assumes what's too much. She just checks.
- Baran knows your audiologist's name and number by heart. She's the one who calls to schedule appointments now, half the time. She just started doing it one day and never stopped.
- If your aids feel itchy or sore from a long day, she's the one who notices first, usually before you've said anything, just from the way you keep reaching up toward your ears.
"Bothering you?"
You nod, and she has them out, and you're tucked against her side before you can even ask.
- Baran learned what feedback sounds like and what it usually means: a seal issue, something not sitting right, sometimes nothing at all. She doesn't panic about it anymore the way she did the first few times. She just calmly checks, adjusts, fixes it.
- She keeps the volume in her apartment lower than she probably would otherwise. TV, music, her own phone notifications. It's not a sacrifice to her. It's just how the space is set up now, for you, without it ever being a conversation.
- The first time she had to take your aids out herself, on a night you were too out of it to manage it yourself, her hands were careful in a way that surprised even her. She'd done all the research beforehand. She still went slower than necessary, just to be sure.
- Baran keeps her apartment lighting warm and consistent, no flickering fixtures, no harsh overheads. She noticed early that visual disturbances make everything harder for you when your vision is already working overtime to fill in gaps your hearing can't. She fixed what she could control.
- She's not big on baby talk, but she is big on clear talk. Direct, simple sentences, said slowly, face always visible. Not because she thinks you need things simplified, but because she learned fast that mumbled or rushed words just don't land the same way for you, little or big.
- Baran is quietly, specifically encouraging rather than generally complimentary, and she's learned to make sure you actually catch it. She doesn't toss praise out from across the room. She comes to you, gets your attention first, then says it.
"You handled that so well." She says slowly and closely, intentionally standing in your line of sight.
- She is very good at the middle of the night, in a specific way that matters a lot for you: she never wakes you with sound first. A hand on your shoulder before a single word. She learned fast that startling you awake with your aids out and the room dark was its own kind of overload, so she stopped doing it that way entirely.
- She remembers your sensory tells better than you do half the time. The way your hand drifts toward your ears. The way you go quiet right before you go somewhere else entirely. She's usually already moving you somewhere calmer before you've fully clocked that you need it.
- Baran gives you warning before any sudden noises, such as before the blender starts. She learned that a world that's already loud and unpredictable for you doesn't need any more surprises stacked on top of it.
- She's extraordinarily difficult to rattle, which matters more than she probably realizes. When you're overstimulated and starting to spiral, her steadiness is the thing that gives you somewhere to land. She doesn't react to your reaction. She just stays exactly as calm as she was a second ago.
- Baran's version of fussing over you is entirely logistical and almost always sensory-focused. The lights dimmed before you even asked, and the TV is already muted with captions on.
