#hoh!deceit

Nice and hot, the mug warms Remy’s fingers and he gives a satisfied sigh as he raises it to his lips. The moment is short lived though, as Remy catches sight of the time and slams the cup back on he side again

11am?!?

“Shit!”

Remy rushes out the kitchen, a few loud bangs following him as he throws he bedroom doors wide open. Dylan stays put, calmly slurping down the last of his milk when Remy comes back in, tired eyes glaring right through his younger brother.

“Logan sorted everything out, didn’t he?”

Dylan nods. “Yup.”

“You could have said.”

Five bowls of cereal should be enough and Dylan moves to rinse his bowl in the sink, a smug satisfied grin on his face.

“I thought the adrenaline might help to wake you up.”

“What else shall we watch?” He asks as the credits roll, “Maybe an adventure story?

Before he can continue though, the TV shuts off and Logan, who has the remote, shakes his head.

“I don’t think so.”

Roman pouts, crossing his arms.

“Why not?”

Logan doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t have to. Instead he points to the other end of the couch where Remy’s eyes are closed, his head drooped, mouth open and breathing even. He’s fallen asleep and they all look at him in shock.

Remy has always had trouble sleeping (and no doubt college only made it worse), but throw in the last few weeks, moving home, helping Virgil, he’s probably exhausted and the fact he’s asleep is an actual miracle. Best not to put on another film and risk waking him.

Since there’s still a half-finished bed, Roman and Logan disappear to finish building it, while Dylan clears up the mess their dinner made. Patton and Virgil stay put, quietly talking, Virgil in a position of too high of risk of waking Remy.

Remy heads to the kitchen to help Logan with ordering the pizza, while Patton heads towards the couch. Roman has kicked off his sneakers and laid out across it, flipping through the channels on the TV while Dylan is leant over the back. 

“Feet.” Dylan says as Patton approaches. Roman shifts his feet up so there’s space for Patton to sit down, but he doesn’t move to sit up. Patton sits, hands rubbing together nervously as he glances over his shoulder towards the bedroom.

Roman catches a glance of Patt’s face and though he’d had a few ideas for movie night brewing, he figures today is probably a day when they should give each other a break.

“You know what we haven’t watched in a while?” he says, speaking a little louder than normal, even for him. Virgil will definitely be able to hear him. “Nightmare Before Christmas.”

Patton turns . Nightmare Before Christmas is Virgil’s favourite movie and Roman knows that better than anyone, the two of them having ocassionally argued over some of the finer points of it.

“I think that’s a great idea.” Dylan agrees, equally loud, as he pokes Roman in the side.

“Nope.” is all Dylan says as he stops Roman in his tracks. “Too much energy.”

Roman yelps as he’s grabbed and immediately starts squirming, trying to get away. “But I want to help!”

“When you’ve-ve-ve….” Logan grunts in frustration as he drops Roman’s bag next to the couch. “No.”

At the stuttering, Dylan glances over to Logan who purposefully avoids meeting his gaze but Roman smirks.

“Logan’s stuttering.” he snarks.

Logan turns, snapping back, “Roman’s forgetting his lines.”

Dylan takes this as his cue to get Roman towards the couch before the two of them start getting into it even worse, struggling to get the ridiculously boisterous boy to move. Eventually, he manages to get Roman around to the other side of the couch. The boy doesn’t sit though, instead kneeling on the couch, leaning over the back as he shouts after Logan who’s heading towards the other bedroom.

“I AM NOT!”

Dylan silences the kid with a firm hand over the mouth, a gesture that gets Roman’s attention to finally fall on him. Dylan is glaring at him sternly.

“Are you gonna keep being loud?” Roman shakes his head. “Are you going to be quiet?” Roman nods. “Then sit down and shut up.”

Roman rolls his eyes as he turns, dropping heavily onto the couch, quietly grumbling to himself, arms folded, while Dylan moves away and sighs, rubbing at his forehead.

Patton grabs Dylan’s shoulder, distressed and frantically babbling but nope, way too fast. Dylan covers his ears and yells angrily.

“Stop! Stop! Too fast!”

Patton tries again but he’s still frantic, violently shaking his older brother’s shoulder as he fails to slow down. After a while though, Dylan manages to understand two words.

‘Virgil’

‘Headphones’

Sure enough, Dylan follows Patton into the bedroom where Virgil’s been for the last hour and the poor kid is curled up on his knees in the middle of the room, shaking fingers clinging desperately to his now broken headphones, tears running down his face as he rocks back and forth in place.

Though not completely deaf, Dylan developed severe hearing issues starting around age 12. Currently he has about 10% hearing in his right ear, and about 25% in his left ear. Though he knows some basic sign language, he is resistant to facing his personal limitations and is in severe denial about it.

He’s pretty proficient at reading lips, but if he doesn’t catch what you say, rather than asking you to repeat, he’ll just invent something outrageous and respond to that and then smirk when you get frustrated.

“Virgil was working real hard so I snuck a cookie to him and we were talking and he was smiling but then he tripped on his headphone wire and they fell and they broke and he started crying and I just want to hug him but last time I did that when he panicked he punched me.” Patton blurts it out in a single breath, absent-mindedly reaching for his cheek as he remembers.

Dylan props the bedroom door open, kicking the tools away from Virgil on his way to open the window opening it as wide as it will go.

“Thought about it. Didn’t like it.” Dylan has taken to drawing confetti and party symbols on the boxes because he has to do something to keep himself entertained while he ‘helps’.“Something sticking out my ears? No thank you.”

“He had hearing aids for a while.” Virgil lifts one side of his headphones up as he speaks. “But when he got his ass beat and they broke, Mom had to leave it. A single income doesn’t really stretch far with six kids.”

Virgil yelps as a marker collides with the side of his head.