InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "nononononononono"

dr. claire saunders (shessonice) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2009-06-05 21:27:00

Entry tags:

!closed, claire saunders

WHO: Claire & Topher
WHAT: Claire needs to talk to Topher but finds herself hindered in an unusual fashion.
WHEN: After this & this
WHERE: Topher's room.
RATING: TBA
NOTES: Yay, multiple crisis.

To be completely truthful, Claire hadn't really noticed that she'd gone completely deaf. She didn't spend a lot of time doing much but sit around her room and maybe occasionally read the newspaper that was delivered to her every morning. She realized that this wasn't exactly the height of excitement, but after working for the Dollhouse she'd had just about enough excitement for a life time. Unfortunately, things never stayed dull when the Dollhouse was involved. After receiving a particularly disconcerting text message from Marv about Echo and her erratic behavior, she'd left her room and wandered down the hallway to Topher's.

She did notice, however, when her knocking on the door failed to make any noise. Slightly perturbed, she tried to call out, but she couldn't. Brow furrowed, she continued to knock on the door for several seconds before giving up. Irritated and slightly panicked, she took her wallet out of her pocket and used her (probably fake, she realized in a terrible moment) driver's license to open the locked door. Admittedly not the most composed of responses, but it worked well enough, and the door to Topher's room swung open.

"Thank god," She said, and although it felt like she had said something, there was no sound. Inaudibly sighing, she entered the apartment.

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boygodofneuro
2009-06-07 08:03 pm UTC (link)

Topher was reading. Not the kind of sit-down-shut-up page turning that most people do, but a frantic flipping back and forth as he scribbled notes and tinkered and generally failed at sitting still.

He needed to do something. Back at home he would be programming a thousand Actives or teaching his small but loyal group of underlings the post printing script or at the very least, building a a wicked cool model of the Eiffel tower out of paperclips. But here? Useless. Useless and bored.

Sighing self-pityingly, Topher turned back to his books and the small pile of trinkets he was currently ~~dismantling~~ improving. His back to the door, he tipped his chair back casually and continued to read.

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shessonice
2009-06-07 09:06 pm UTC (link)

Finding herself unable to speak, Claire instead tried yelling, which she did for about a minute quite unsuccessfully, her language becomming increasingly colorful as it failed to illicit a response from Topher. Eventually she composed herself and walked around to stand in front of him, but again failed to catch his attention.

She yelled something to the effect of 'please use your peripheral vision' at him, again with no effect, and eventually gave up and just tapped him on the shoulder instead, hoping that it wouldn't scare him too badly (although, he deserved it for being unobservant.)

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boygodofneuro
2009-06-07 10:13 pm UTC (link)

Topher screeched as he felt the light touch of Claire's hand on his shoulder, and with a start he tumbled backwards, flipping off his chair and landing on the ground with a [silent] thump. He put his hand on his lower back and staggered upright, wincing from his fall. Irritatedly, he began to speak, mumbling insults and explanations, before stopping abruptly. Had he gone deaf? Or maybe he'd hit his head a lot harder than he'd realized. Because he was thinking, opening his mouth, shaping words, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't make out a single sound. Shit.

Now, some might say that Topher just spoke to hear himself talk, and in this case, they'd be absolutely right. "Roy G. Biv. Rigel nine. Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy." It sounded like nonsense because it was, the first words that came to his mind, randomly strung together and shouted as he strained, in vain, to pick up any suggestion that he was, in fact, speaking. He knew sign language, of course, because, let's face it. He knew a lot of things. Unfortunately, ASL was, like most languages, a completely useless form of communication when spoken by only one.

He let out his breath and ran his fingers through his already tousled hair. "Can you hear me?" he mouthed exaggeratedly at Claire, who looked like she was torn between beating him senseless and laughing herself silly. "Are you getting any of this? Because this is bad. Like super bad. Bad squared."

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shessonice
2009-06-07 10:29 pm UTC (link)

Being mediocre at reading lips was kind of like playing a really warped game of telephone, which Claire failed to realize even after she attracted Topher's attention. Of course, as soon as she had, he started talking, because that was pretty much all he ever did, normal situation or otherwise. After staring at him indignantly for a few minutes, she intervened, trying to shape her words carefully, for lack of a better way of communicating.

"I don't care what you had for lunch, Topher. We need to-" She paused, sighed, and shook her head as he interrupted her with more of his silent babbling, only this time she couldn't really decipher any of what he was saying even though it looked like he was trying to make it clearer by exaggerating. She made the universal hand motion for 'please shut up' and continued talking.

"We have a problem. Echo is kinky motorcycle girlfriend - Echo. Is. Glitching." She tried again, hoping her point would make it across.

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boygodofneuro
2009-06-08 10:52 am UTC (link)

To be perfectly honest, Topher had never been all that good at reading lips. Never practiced, never had to. So when Claire cut him off and began to speak, he wasn't exactly sure what she was getting at. Something about punch? And slinkies? There was, though, one word he picked up perfectly. Echo.

"Yeah, about that," he babbled, forgetting, for the moment, that Claire was probably having just as much trouble understanding him as he was her. "Look, I've been thinking, and I could probably rebuild my tech with a little fiddling and just a smattering of complete genius." Each word was punctuated by a gesture, not the kind that actually aids comprehension, but small, stereotyped movements, little finger wiggles that just sort of added to the overall confusion.

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shessonice
2009-06-08 09:51 pm UTC (link)

Claire gaped at him for a second as he finished speaking, having completely misunderstood what he'd said. She scanned the room quickly and picked up his notepad and pen and slow wrote something across the bottom of a page with calculated and deliberate movements, still looking rather displeased. When she finished writing she held up the sign so he could read it.

That's entirely inappropriate. it said in her uniform handwriting.

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