Salt 'n Pepper ༄ FRERARD

❀ prologue ❀

-SIDE NOTE-
[PLEASE READ]

for context; this fic was written purely because i wanted to relate to some characters on a more three dimensional level, not to romanticize anyone's struggles.
to avoid confusion; although i share some common ground with gerard in this fic, i'm not deaf - i've suffered from SSHL before & i also have a pretty nasty speech impediment/disorder, but i'm definitely not deaf. i do however resort to sign language unless i'm fully comfortable because i find speaking really intolerable

in this fic, i'd just like to point out that gerard speaks ASL seeing as it's implied that he lives in America & of course the required reminder that this is completely fiction and not 150% accurate
- some parts are what MY experience with hearing impairment was like - and of course it's not the same for everyone especially with there being different severities of hearing loss and overall deafness... so please don't kill me

❀ ❀ ❀

       Despite completely lacking the ability to hear it in any sense, Gerard loved music.

Okay, maybe he should specify that it wasn't exactly the music he adored. It was the vibrations of said music.

He swore God had to be a rocker. Because when Gerard was sprawled out on the ground of his room, a working amp beneath his fingertips and music thumping so hard his bones vibrated, he could feel the sadness, the fear, the frustration leave his body. His head always seemed to completely detach from his body and float up into the skies to roam, his conscious relaxed like a shallow pond.

Sure, sometimes his father and Mikey scolded him for accidentally blasting music too loud - loud enough for the paintings on the walls to shake, but Gerard couldn't exactly help it. He got lost in the sensual feeling almost every time, the tingling feeling against his fingertips always zapped through his body like a terrible sugar rush. Music was like Gerard's external heartbeat; and he loved it.

He especially loved music with heavy amounts of percussion instruments; drums being his absolute favorite. They were powerful and had a helluva unique sound compared to other instruments - and Gerard could feel their vibrations the best.

But Gerard didn't just love the drums themselves - he loved the people who played the drums too. Keith Moon, John Bonham, Neil Peart - they were all fucking awesome. Gerard could play recordings of them drumming all day and never get tired of the vibrations. He loved their music - despite it technically being their bands' music.

And to Gerard, everything was -or could be- a drum. He drummed on the kitchen counter and he drummed on the car dashboard, he drummed on upturned pots and pans and he drummed on his thighs when there was nothing else available. Even as an infant he had tapped his feet to the beat of any music he could feel. His father had told him he was just special - even going as far as telling their complaining neighbor; "That kid could find the beat in cat vomit if it had one."

So when he turned six his father bought him his very own drum kit. He told Gerard any chance he got that at first Gerard reminded him of Animal from the Muppets, like a ball of raw energy and whirling drum sticks. But in a short while he got pretty good! Or so Mikey always told him since he couldn't exactly tell. And by ten he was in a rock band too.

Well, it was an... imaginary rock band, but a rock band nonetheless.

By now though he'd completely outgrown Purple Bicycle Racoons, because he soon came to realize that with his deafness, it was close to impossible to be in a real rock band. He still adored drumming and he did sometimes revisit it for the nostalgia it gave him, but at the end of the day he couldn't even hear his own drumming - and he couldn't always choose to assume it sounded alright to everyone. Because then again, they could just be lying to make him happy and feel less helpless.