#adult illiteracy tw

[ashintheairlikesnow]

him halting over words and nat gently encouraging him to keep going and assuring him he doesn’t have to be embarrassed and he’s doing well, the baby isn’t judging she just wants to hear chris’s voice. and he can keep going 🥺

CW: Brief reference to past pet whump/noncon, adult illiteracy, some stimming, referenced parental death

Naomi and Natalie are in the kitchen talking over lunch, eating grilled cheese and tomato soup while they plan some kind of party for Miss Ruth that the old woman isn't supposed to know about.

Their voice filter softly through to the living room where Chris sits, legs crossed, humming while lining up a set of blocks from darkest to lightest color. He's already eaten, and so has Kaelah, Naomi's daughter. He could have gone back to his room, but instead he decided to watch Kaelah, and felt himself melt happily when Naomi didn't even hesitate before saying it was okay for him to be alone with her in the living room.

He was never trained for Domestic or Companion work - he was never meant to be wanted for those things, only for one other thing, the thing he never wanted - but he likes kids, and they seem to like him, and he likes that Naomi thinks he is a good person, good enough and smart enough to not hurt something so precious to her.

He's proud, and nervous, and Kaelah has already tried to pull a small pile of books down over her own head. But he caught those before they fell, so he still feels pretty good about it all.

Now, they're playing blocks, although mostly Kaelah is ordering him around while he lines them up. But it's like playing. And lining the blocks up in a perfect row is soothing, and feels good.

It's right for them to line up just so, turned at right angles to each other on the ends.

Kaelah - two years old with frizzy dark curly hair and bright big brown eyes - is watching Chris with rapt fascination as he works. She has a matching unicorn t-shirt and leggings on, and Chris would wear unicorn shirts if there were any in his size.

Or if Jake wore them, because they'd be safe shirts, then.

"Wed," Kaelah says, solemn and demanding, and smacks at a big red block. "Wed, K'iss."

"Red," Chris says, softly, emphasizing the R sound, and taps on the block, then picks it up and adds it to the line. "That's, that's, that's red... red block."

"Wed," Kaelah agrees, and smacks the block again.

"Good, um, good color, good, good color, Kay," Chris says, and finds another red block to place next to the first one. "Reds, reds are good."

Jake is out with Addie, and Antoni let Kauri take him shopping at Kauri's favorite thrift store. Leila is out with who Chris thinks is her boyfriend, not that Leila tells anyone anything ever. It's just Chris and Natalie, Naomi and Kaelah.

The toddler pushes herself to her feet and walks with an unsteady gait back to the big bag that the blocks came from, pulling things out to discard on the floor without looking, clearly on a mission.

Chris watches, head tilted, hair over his eyes. He's been growing his hair longer, and the copper brushes almost to his shoulders. Some days he holds it back with a clip.

Sir would hate his hair this long, but Chris likes it, likes the swoosh of the end of the strands along his skin if he tilts his head just right, the soft weight on the back of his neck so unlike his collar. A weight he can lift just by pulling it back. A weight he controls.

Sir would hate his earrings, too, two black studs punched in his earlobes and then one tiny silver ring up in the shell on the right side. He wants one in the cartilage, too, but he has to work up the courage to look at the needle again.

Kaelah pulls out stuffed ponies in rainbow colors and a brown fuzzy monster with disturbingly real-looking teeth she calls her "ugler friend", a small bag of glow in the dark unicorns in flat green, GI Joe's, a firetruck that makes siren noises and lights if you press a button on the side, a confused looking plastic fireman, and then finally a box larger than her own head, with big thick cardboard pages.

"Weed, K'iss," Kaelah says, toddling back over with the book clutched in her chubby fingers, dropping it without ceremony directly into his feet. "Weed. Weed now, weed, weed, K'iss!"

Chris runs his fingers over the smooth shiny cover, squinting against the first hint of a headache when he looks at the seemingly hand-drawn letters in yellow layered over green and blue and red. "Good, goodnight Moon," He says haltingly out loud.

Kaelah grins, flashing little baby teeth, clapping. "Moon book!" Then she makes her eyes very big and says, "Pleaaase Moon Book?"

Chris's heart skips a beat, nerves sparking over his arms, but he gives a faint smile and nods. He can do this. The book isn't so many pages, and he's been working so, so hard. He hasn't passed out trying to read in weeks now. Last week he even read Kauri a whole poem.

Kaelah plops herself right down in Chris's lap, snuggling her back right into his chest, her soft frizz of hair tickling his narrow chin. Chris opens the book and looks down, taking a deep breath.

His head hurts in warning, but it's not too bad. And if he's going to be able to go to college, he's going to have to be able to read to take the test for it.

When he starts to read, he feels a strange sense of being somewhere else, a long time ago, and that he isn't the one reading but the one being read to.

"In, in the... The gr... Guh-errrr... gr-ate... great green, green room there was a, a, a... a tuh-ehl... tele... telephone, and a red buh, balloon... and a pick-... picture of the cow juh-... juh-humping oh, over the moon..."

His voice is low and halting, and Chris has to push through the static and ache that tells him not to do this, it's against training, against policy, it's not allowed. He hates his reading voice, slow and stumbling, sounding out phonetics. He's eighteen years old, almost nineteen he thinks, and he can't read.

His lips press together, fighting the sadness and anger. Chris isn't angry very much - he's too happy for that. But sometimes happiness at what he has still gets all mixed up with his furious grief over everything he must have lost.

Whoever he used to be could read, he knows that. Whoever he used to be could read, and do math problems that didn't involve pictures of apples, and wouldn't have to struggle to read to a little girl the easiest book in the whole world.

This is your favorite, huh, baby?

The memory of her voice has been worse when he reads, but he doesn't tell anyone.

He's afraid if he tells, he'll stop hearing it again. He doesn't know whose voice it is, not exactly - sometimes he does but then the memory is gone again and he forgets - but he knows he loved her, and she's dead, and her voice is all he has to hold onto.

"I'm sorry," He whispers. "I'm, I'm, not... not not a good reader."

Kaelah, thumb in her mouth, turns to look at him and pops her thumb out. "K'iss," She says, firmly. "Weed, K'iss. Bun bun kitty."

"I, I know-" He's not sure how, but he does, he does know there's bunnies and a kitten and mittens and the old lady still whispering 'hush'... "I'm just, just, so bad, and-"

"Keep going, honey." Nat's voice is soft from the doorway and he looks up to see her leaning against it with one hand, in her usual jeans and shirt. Her shirt says PEARL JAM and Chris tenses as he realizes he read the words without thinking.

It didn't hurt any worse than the other reading already has.

"Keep it up." She smiles down at him, her brown hair carefully braided and laying over one shoulder. "You're doing great, Chris."

"But, but, but, but I, I, I keep having to... to-to sound it out," Chris says, slumping a little.

Kaelah smacks the open book with her hands. "K'iss more!"

"She doesn't mind that," Nat says gently. "She just likes your voice, and you. Take your time. Everybody starts somewhere, and you've already gotten over the biggest speed bump."

Chris swallows, looking down again. "I, I have?"

She nods and Chris licks at his lips, moving his finger to find the words to start again.

"And... and there, there were three little bears sitting on chairs-"

Oh, I did all those without sounding it out, he thinks, with a stab of something like a sharp pride.

"-and two little kittens and a pair of, of, of mittens..."

He turns the page and Kaelah takes up sucking her thumb again. Chris is aware of Nat still watching from the doorway, the warm and reassuring weight of her presence, and how badly he wants her to be proud of him.

"And a, a little toy house and a young mow, mouse..."

You got this, sweetie, you're doing so good! I'm so proud of you, reading so early! Screw your doctors, baby boy, we got this, you and me! Screw 'em for saying you wouldn't read!

Chris lets the elation in the voice of the woman he doesn't remember carry him through the rest of the words when he turns the pages again, bit by bit.

"And a comb and a br, brush and, and, and a bowl full of mush... And, and a quiet old lay-... lay-dee... lady who was, was whis-... whis-perrrr... whispering, 'hush'."

Goodnight room, reads a tiny boy's voice inside his mind, as the headache throbs but doesn't stop him.

"Goodnight room," He whispers, echoing the boy, the memory of someone he isn't anymore. "Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the, the moon."

Kaelah pats his hand with hers. Her little fingers are always damp. "Good job, K'iss," She encourages him.

Chris looks up to see Nat's smile.

"Good job, Chris," Nat says, and he breathes in the praise, lets it settle in his bones and rush through his blood.

In his head, somewhere deeper than the conditioned ache, she whispers, Good job, Tris, I'm so proud of you.

---

Tagging: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @slaintetowhump , @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker , @boxboysandotherwhump , @oops-its-whump @moose-teeth , @cubeswhump , @cupcakes-and-pain @whump-tr0pes @whumpiary