#he's there with a camera going “you're doing great babe” as mary-alice uses carlisle's books as a staircase to things she can't reach

[goldeneyedgirl]

Do you have any more of deaf alice you’d be willing to share? That fic lives rent free in my mind

Deaf Mary-Alice is currently just a collection of Jasper's thoughts as he simps for her and wonders if she truly understands how much he loves her since they made up all the signs when he was emotionally stunted and Too Battle Hardened by Life to Care, and can't find the right words to explain.

The Cullens aren’t at all prepared for Mary-Alice, and it’s kind of fun to watch.  There are still three weeks until graduation, and he’s already negotiated a deal with Carlisle in exchange for completing high school once again (“Five years, Carlisle, of no high school.”) But it means that he has to leave her behind every morning, moping on the couch.  Except, every day they get home, Esme looks vaguely confused and flustered, and Mary-Alice is up to… something. One day, she’s climbing the railings of the first and second-floor landings, like some kind of bizarre parkouring gymnast - and not the kind of behaviour that Jasper’s sure Esme or any of the Cullens have witnessed or partaken in. But it's no different than her playing in the few trees around Monterrey or swinging from the beams in the roof of the barn. Bouncing off the roof of the mansion, laughing. (She lands on his back, kissing his cheek, telling him he was gone for far too long, her cheek nuzzling against him as she speaks.) Another day, she’s swiped some paint from Esme’s studio and spent the day painting the glass wall in his study with flowers (some of them have bleeding eyes in the centre, and others have tiny bones making up their stems, a casual reminder that she is not as soft and girlish as she might appear). The light through the window throws coloured light around his study. Esme is horrified but trying to cover it up, and Jasper mentally tells Edward that he’ll take care of it, just not to mention it. It’s easy enough to get her a canvas and a pile of sketchbooks that light her face with happiness.  (One sketchbook is hidden under the cushions of his couch; quick sketches of visions intermingled with drawings of him and her - some of them are positively indecent, so the sketchbook stays hidden.)  There's the deer she manages to herd into the Cullens' garden, even manages to get a flower crown on the poor beast. Deciding to precariously perch herself on the very top of the library bookshelves, a pile of books next to her swinging leg as she pages through any coffee table book with coloured pictures, other book piles scattered around the room much to Carlisle's consternation. There's the fact she's caught touching the piano, sitting on the very top and bending over to press the keys to try and 'hear' it better. (He owed Edward for not pitching a fit of enormous magnitude over that; his brother had had the foresight to simply walk out and let someone else deal with Mary-Alice's investigation. And it had been easy to explain that the piano was Edward's, was special to him. By the time night falls, the piano is freshly polished and set to rights, with a wild daisy left on the seat as an apology.) There’s the day that Esme somehow manages to teach her the basics of sewing, and he comes home to Mary-Alice cutting up some of the clothing she’s been given to Frankenstein new items together. By then, Esme looks rather exhausted and frustrated - communication is still terribly stilted, and the mess of hacked-apart dresses probably looks like more work for her.  Instead, Mary-Alice sits there, laser-focused as she puts all her clothing back together, somehow more her than they were when she started.  (If she surreptitiously stitches a black gingham star to the pocket of his jeans at some point, it makes him smile.)