#dan and 'responsible adult' do not belong in one sentence

[caitlynmeow]

Daniela: As a responsible adult-

Bela: *chuckles*

Daniela: ...As a responsible adult-

rumor has it Bela is still laughing at this combination of words coming out of Daniela's mouth

[glitterrhowell]

Chapter 36

title: Seized

Co-author: fadingcrystalvoid

Pairing:  Daniel Howell & AmazingPhil (Phan

Word count: 2k

Warning/Genre: Rape/extreme violence/ depression/PTSD/Degradation/torture/ Non-consensual pretty much everything/Little!Dan/Daddy!Phil/Kidnapping

Summary: It started out as a fun day at the park but it ended in terror. Phil takes his little Dan to the park and while Phil is not looking, Dan suddenly gets kidnapped. What will happen to Dan? Will Phil ever see his boyfriend again? Did Phil have something to do with it? Heavy trigger warning

Read on Ao3

Read on Wattpad

Dan unlocked the front door, sighing at the sight that their apartment had been left in. It was wonderful to be home and see the familiar paintings and posters of their home, it was just rather messy.

Groaning, he dumped all his belongings onto the bed and picked up his phone. He typed out a quick message to Pj, asking if he was free to come over. He replied minutes later with an affirmative and a selfie of him walking along the street.

With the excuse of having company, he began packing up. Nothing was too bad thankfully so with two minutes to spare, Dan had the entire flat back in order.

“Hey,” Dan greeted, stepping aside so Pj could come in.

“Hi, why aren’t you staying with Kathryn anymore?” Pj asked, getting straight to the point.

“She hid Phil’s trial from me cause I was acting like a fucking baby,” Dan explained, face flaring again as he thought of Phil - scared, lonely Phil - going through that again.

“Shit, you found out?”

“What?! Everyone was keeping it from me?” he shouted, glaring at Pj as they stood in the lounge.

“We didn’t want it to affect your progress,” he tried to explain.

“That’s not for you to decide!” Pj looked down, eyes watering.

“I’m sorry. Please- can we just not fight?” he asked hopefully.

Dan, despite feeling so many emotions at once, put Pj first. “Of course. Sorry, it’s just a lot to take in.”

“It’s okay, it really is. Just- I haven’t spoken to you - like, you you - in so long and I don’t want to argue.”

“That’s fine,” Dan said, reaching out to rest his hand on Pj’s shoulder before deciding not to. “Would you like a tea or anything?” he offered, lighting the fireplace as he spoke since the apartment was just too cold to be comfortable.

“Yes please.” Dan nodded and made his way to the kitchen, enjoying the silence for a change. After a quick fill, the kettle began to heat up and Dan pulled out his phone.

“Dan?” a voice pulled him from his thoughts and he looked up from his phone. Pj looked worried. “Sorry, it’s just been ten minutes and tea doesn’t take that long,” he explained, stepping forward with his hands out as if Dan were a spooked animal that might bolt.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, clicking his phone off and shoving it into his jumper’s pocket.

“What were you looking at?” Pj asked suddenly. He moved throughout the kitchen, taking it upon himself to serve them some tea.

“Nothing,” Dan tired, only to be met with a raised eyebrow. “Just Phil’s trial,” he settled on.

“And were you reading facts or fiction?” Pj asked.

“Does Phil actually have a chance?” Dan asked instead of answering.

Pj looked sad for a split second before smiling. “If he’s on trial, he’s got a chance.”

Dan saw straight through him; he didn’t have any hope that Phil would win this time either. And maybe Kathryn didn’t too; maybe that’s why she kept it from him. She didn’t want him thinking they had a chance at a normal life only for it to be ripped away again due to a lack of evidence for Phil’s innocence.

“I can talk to them!” Dan suddenly shouted, jumping and slamming the mug onto the coffee table.

Pj looked shocked for a second, then confused, before a grin spread across his face. “You actually could!” he agreed. “They only didn’t like little-you cause you just agreed to everything and they thought you might be remembering wrong. But now that you’re mostly recovered and in an adult mindset, they can’t just ignore what you say!”

~~~~~~~~

Sighing, Phil braced himself to head back to prison, disappointed as always. It was going to be another long day in court. Turns out having to sit still for hours while people argued your innocence wasn’t too fun. Especially considering it never looked good for him. Don’t get him wrong, he loved that he got another chance, but he wished he wasn’t given it if he was just going to get his hopes up just to have them crushed yet again.

“Your honour, I have another witness I’d like to bring to the stand with your permission,” Mrs Raines said, taking a seat once she finished speaking.

The judge gestured approval with a nod and so Mrs Raines nodded a polite thank you and stood back up. Fixing her suit jacket, she cleared her throat. “I’d like to summon Mr Daniel Howell to the stand.”

Phil, whose head had been slowly dropping over the hours, shot upright in his seat, confused and excited at the prospect of seeing Dan again. Mrs Raines, with Lela’s help, had told him there was no chance Dan could help his case as he was permanently regressed and would just agree with everything. So why she’d changed her mind - and without consulting Phil - raised more than a few questions.

Phil’s eyes flickered to his boyfriend who he hadn’t noticed was in the crowd. He was dressed in a simple but formal suit. As he stood, he did up the jacket buttons and shuffled out of his isle to make his way towards the witness stand.

After swearing to tell the full truth, Mrs Raines began to ask her questions.

“I have notes from the previous trial, dictating all the questions asked and your answers, word for word. I’d like to go over each of these and have you confirm your answers.”

Dan nodded, determination on his face, as she began reasking questions and awaiting his answers. By the second question, his responses were already changing.

“And is it true that while you were like this, Mr Lester abandoned you out in public for some of his friends to assault you?”

“Not at all. Phil had taken me to the park so I could play and just before I went to the sandpit, he’d told me he had to go to the bathroom and that I should stay in the pit. I’d agreed and ignored his request when Sir came up to me. I in no way believe Phil abandoned me so his friends could attack me. And on that note, Sir and the other one are /not/ Phil’s friends. He’d never befriend demons like them.”

And after that answer, all the questions changed, along with their answers. Rather than agreeing with everything asked as he’d done while little, he was now fully aware of what the questions were actually asking and he insisted on Phil’s innocence with each and every answer.

“Mr Daul, you may now question the witness.”

The lawyer nodded, standing from his seat on the other side of the room.

“I don’t have any questions for my client, your honour. I would like to bring some evidence to light, however.”

Dan scoffed loudly. “I never even wanted you,” he growled.

“Firstly, Mr Howell, you signed an oath to tell the full truth. You also did this last time; so why have your answers changed so significantly?”

“I was little when you asked me before. As Mrs Raines said, I simply agreed with anything I was asked. Lela can confirm that too.”

“I’d simply like to state that you were under oath both times. One of those times you must have been lying. I’d argue that this time you are not telling the truth; a child’s mind doesn’t understand repercussions of answers and would, therefore, have no interest in lying. As an adult, you understand Mr Lester will be sentenced to prison and you don’t wish for that, therefore you lie.”

Dan slowly breathed out a shaky breath. “Listen, I never wanted you to begin with. I was the two fuckers who kidnapped me in prison, not my innocent boyfriend. No matter what you say, he is innocent and I will argue that till the day I die if need be.”

~~~~~~~~

Luke sighed, locking his front door and pocketing his keys. It’d been another long day at the station. Not only did he have his regular work to get done but he also was continuing to work of Mr Lester and Mr Howell’s case. And it wasn’t easy. He wasn’t given any time during the day since it was extra work so if he wanted to use the databases at the station, he had to do so during the lunch break.

“Ready?” Julia asked, lifting her handbag up to her shoulder with her free hand.

“Yep,” he agreed, beginning the walk down the hall with his friends.

They arrived at the bar reasonably quickly. It was a typical Friday night, drinks clinking and people dancing. The small group of three ordered drinks and took a seat in the last free booth.

“How’s work been?” Paul asked, sipping his drink.

“Same as always,” he chuckled. “Busy,” he added as an afterthought.

“Any breakthroughs?” Julia piped in. As his best friends, they were both aware he was working the extra case for no pay; they were also aware of how damn complex the case was.

“Not yet.”

He and his friends continued to chat and catch up. When it was dark out and the bar was too loud to maintain a conversation, Julia and Paul headed home. They’d offered Luke a ride but he’d declined. He wanted to stay out a little longer. Maybe have a drink or two more.

He hugged his friends goodbye before taking a seat on one of the bar stools and pulling out his phone. He tapped open the police database and found his case file for Phil’s trial.

“Mind if I sit here?” a voice asked. Out of instinct, Luke clicked his phone off and turned to look at the man who’d spoken.

“Na, go ahead.”

“Thanks.” The man was silent for a minute before waving over the bartender and ordering a dozen shots. “Name’s Chris,” he introduced.

“Luke,” he returned, nodding his head. “Trying to forget something?” he chuckled, watching as the man - Chris, he reminded himself - chugged three shots in a row.

“Just my work,” he laughed in return.

“I can vouch for that.”

“What do you do?”

“Uh, IT stuff,” Luke replied. He didn’t like telling people he was an officer, half the time it scared them off.

“Ya know you look kinda familiar?” Chris then said. “I don’t know why.”

“Ya got a cute face,” he said.

Luke blushed. “Uh, I’m not looking for a relationship,” he tried to explain.

“I’m not either. I’m happy with my partner. Things are just tough at the moment, ya know.”

“Wanna talk about it?” Luke asked politely, ordering another round of shots for the pair to share.

“Na, I’ll work it out.”

Luke wasn’t really sure how it happened. The two had talked for an hour or so before shuffling out of the bar and back to Luke’s apartment. They were both drunk from the amount of alcohol they’d had and neither were really caring about what was happening. All they knew was hands felt good and tounges mingling together was almost just as pleasurable.

They fell onto the bed, puffing as they calmed down.

“Ya better than me boyfriend,” Chris laughed. “Roger’s prob-problematic.”

“Problematic?” Luke questioned, sitting up after his heart rate returned to normal. He reached for tissues as Chris sighed.

“Roger messed up and could be going to jail for a long time. We were getting ready to start a family, ya know, I think he’s the one. So if I say and do the right things, I might be able to get him out or at least have his sentence shortened.” Chris paused, snuggling up to Luke and closing his eyes. “Wanna have a family with him,” he continued. “I know he did some bad things but he doesn’t deserve to go t’ jail. It’s the fucking Lester’s fault he did it anyway. He threatened him, ya know. Threatened to kill him and his family, me too. Ya don’t mess with Lester, he’ll kill ya.”

Luke hummed, only half listening in his post-orgasm, sleepy haze.

“Shouldn’t be telling ya this. It’ll be our little secret, okay?” he whispered, cuddling even closer to him.

“Shit. Fuck. Oh fucking shit.” It was these words that awoke Luke from his sleeping state. His head hurt too much to think and he groaned, rolling back over.

“I got a fucking boyfriend mate! This is a serious problem!” the man complained, collecting his clothes.

“Don’ tell ‘em then,” he mumbled in response, letting his mind wind down so he could fall asleep again.

“Ya don’t understand. Ya don’t mess with Roger, he can fuck ya up. I gotta go. This stays in this room, got it?” the man panicked, already pulling open the bedroom door.

“Yup,” Luke mumbled.

It wasn’t until he woke up for a second time that morning that he realised what had happened. He’d had a one night stand with some guy in a relationship. And not only that, that guy’s boyfriend was apparently terrifying as all hell if the panic in the guy’s voice that morning was anything to go off.

He blinked the crust from his eyes, his head pounding as he tried to remind himself of the previous night. He sighed, pulling himself from the bed and clicking the power button on his phone. Seeing it flash red reminded him he never put it to charge the night before so he plugged it in and went to the bathroom. He splashed his face and got a drink from the tap before swallowing some painkillers. He brewed a coffee and buttered a single slice of toast before heading back to his room.

There was a message from Julia asking him if he’d made it home safe, to which he quickly replied. Other than that there was an email from a college, telling him something they found out about one of the perps they’d brought in the morning before.

The last notification was a warning saying his phone storage was full. He tapped it, opening setting and finding his storage was a solid 80% photos. He opened his photo app, confused as he only had about three-hundred images on his phone. He saw oranges and browns in one of the squares, the little numbers in the corner, telling him it was a video. He assumed it was one of those accidental photos. It wasn’t until he read the numbers though, that he realised why this ‘acidental photo’ (or video, technically) had stolen what little was left of his phone storage. It read 4:27:02. A four and a half hour recording, seemingly by accident.

Most people would ignore it and simply delete it. But with a hangover and a lack of ability to remember the night before, he pressed play.

~~~~~~~~

“Trial of Philip Michael Lester, day seventeen,” the judge said to the court full of people.

“Your honour!” a person in the crowd shouted, standing and marching forward only to be held back by some officers.

“Officer Luke Temple, your honour. I have some evidence which I believe will severely affect the outcome of this case.

“While this is rather uncalled for, I will allow it under the pretense that I am curious as to what this evidence is,” she said, nodding and the officers let him go. He made his way to the stand where he plugged in his phone to the cord, sharing his screen with the projector in the room.

“Last night, I went out to a bar with my friends and stayed behind after they left. I got into a conversation with Mr Daul and in our drunken states, we participated in some sexual acts together. The morning after - this morning - I found out I’d accidentally recorded the conversations we had. As the tape is hours long, I won’t bore you with the full recording. However, I will bring to light this one clip from directly after the sexual exchange ended,” Luke explained, blushing a little but pushing forward and ignoring it. This was far more important than his nightly activities.

The video was of nothing, simply a black screen.

“Roger messed up and could be going to jail for a long time. We were getting ready to start a family, ya know, I think he’s the one. So if I say and do the right things, I might be able to get him out or at least have his sentence shortened. Wanna have a family with him. I know he did some bad things but he doesn’t deserve to go t’ jail. It’s the fucking Lester’s fault he did it anyway. He threatened him, ya know. Threatened to kill him and his family, me too. Ya don’t mess with Lester, he’ll kill ya.” The dull sound of a hum came through the speakers. “Shouldn’t be telling ya this. It’ll be our little secret, okay?”

Once he paused the recording, the whispers in the room became known. “It’s quite clear Mr Daul has a relationship with Kide and therefore is not fit to be a lawyer in this case,” Luke explained.

“Well, this is some important new evidence. But Mr Daul also states that Lester was threatening Kide’s safety; this is also rather important evidence.”

“My apologies, your honour, but that is bullshit. It doesn’t even make any sense. It’s clear that Mr Daul is in a relationship with Kide and therefore is altering information so his lover will stay out of prison.”

“Who the lawyer is is up to the prosecutor,” she informed him.

“I know that but he clearly can’t be trusted. Just question Kide! Seriously! I’m onto something! Phil is innocent! Surely Dan’s words and all the evidence should confirm that!”

“Mr Temple I suggest you lower your voice before I have you escorted from the building,” she snapped, eyes serious as she stared him down.

“My apologies, your honour,” he said, lowering his volume. “My theory is that Kide is stringing Mr Daul along to get a less serious sentence. As you know, if Phil is proven guilty, Kide and Conray’s sentences are reduced; however, if Phil walks free, their sentences will go even higher for lying to the police, obstructing justice, and for the threats. I really believe this is a lead that could prove Phil’s innocence.”

The judge seemed to think before she reached a conclusion. “We will look into this claim.”

[djgblogger-blog]

Your next hearing aid could be a video game

http://bit.ly/2E0X3w5

Video games can help train the brain to hear better. Monika Wisniewska/Shutterstock.com

Roughly 15 percent of Americans report some sort of hearing difficulty; trouble understanding conversations in noisy environments is one of the most common complaints. Unfortunately, there’s not much doctors or audiologists can do. Hearing aids can amplify things for ears that can’t quite pick up certain sounds, but they don’t distinguish between the voice of a friend at a party and the music in the background. The problem is not only one of technology, but also of brain wiring.

Most hearing aid users say that even with their hearing aids, they still have difficulty communicating in noisy environments. As a neuroscientist who studies speech perception, this issue is prominent in much of my own research, as well as that of many others. The reason isn’t that they can’t hear the sounds; it’s that their brains can’t pick out the conversation from the background chatter.

Harvard neuroscientists Dan Polley and Jonathon Whitton may have found a solution, by harnessing the brain’s incredible ability to learn and change itself. They have discovered that it may be possible for the brain to relearn how to distinguish between speech and noise. And the key to learning that skill could be a video game.

The hearing brain

People with hearing aids often report being frustrated with how their hearing aids handle noisy situations; it’s a key reason many people with hearing loss don’t wear hearing aids, even if they own them. People with untreated hearing loss – including those who don’t wear their hearing aids – are at increased risk of social isolation, depression and even dementia.

For many people with hearing difficulties, the problem isn’t in their ears – it’s in their brain. In everyday environments, sound waves emitted from every object around you mix together before they enter your ear. Your brain must then sort out which bits of sound belong to each source in the environment and correctly group these bits of sound together, ignoring some – like the hum of the refrigerator – and focusing on others, like a relative calling out from the next room.

This ability to distinguish, process and make sense of sound is one of the first things to break down in hearing loss from normal aging, or from neurological disorders like ADD/ADHD, autism and dyslexia. It’s so complex that for decades, auditory neuroscientists like me have been trying to understand how the brain does this, and how we can help people who have difficulty hearing in noisy surroundings.

The path sound takes into the ear and then into the brain. Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation

Video games to the rescue

In their new study, Polley, Whitton and their colleagues created a video game to train players’ brains to distinguish sounds better. Players trace their fingers around a blank tablet screen, seeking to identify the edges of a hidden shape. They get continous auditory feedback on how they’re doing through headphones, which play sounds partially obscured by background noise. It works a bit like the “hotter or colder” children’s game: The only way to find the edges of the shape is to listen carefully to the sounds and notice how they change as they move their finger. As the player gets better at the game, the background noise gets louder, making the game more challenging.

To determine whether this video game could help people in their everyday lives, the researchers recruited 24 older adults with hearing loss. Half of the participants played the auditory training game. The other 12 played an equally challenging game in which they heard nonsense sentences (like “Ready Barron, go to green four now”) amid background noise. Those people had to remember, and later identify, which words they had heard in the sentences. Importantly, this memory task tested hearing, but differed from the video game training in that it did not test people’s ability to distinguish subtle differences in sounds.

After eight weeks of training on their respective games, in several sessions a week at home on a tablet, the memory group was no better at distinguishing speech from background noise. But the people who played the auditory video game were able to understand 25 percent more words and sentences in background noise, which was about three times more beneficial than from their hearing aids alone. This was particularly surprising because the video game group showed improvements in speech understanding, even though their training only involved non-verbal sounds.

Fast feedback

In conversations and interviews, Polley admits that he doesn’t know exactly why the game works, but he suspects that the structure of the game is the key: The brain is able to predict how the video game’s sound will change with each finger movement, and then gets immediate feedback about what actually happened.

This is the same sort of feedback that people receive during activities like sports and playing a musical instrument. For example, a violinist anticipates the next note of a piece, places her finger on the appropriate spot along the neck of the violin, and then listens to the sound of the resulting note and how it fits with the other instruments of the orchestra. If any pitch adjustments are needed, her finger almost immediately shifts to the correct spot. And she must do all of this while ignoring extraneous sounds, like the other melody in the woodwind section or the timpani drumroll.

There is some evidence that periods of intense musical training, especially in childhood, can lead to benefits that generalize to everyday communication. For example, my previous work examined the idea that musicians often outperform non-musicians on tests of speech understanding in background noise, and that musicians’ brains might process speech sounds more precisely than the brains of non-musicians.

But just like musical training, practice seems to be necessary for maintaining the ability to understand speech in noisy backgrounds. Two months after the video game training ended, the researchers tested the participants’ speech understanding abilities again, and found that the benefits of the video game had vanished.

A future with better hearing

Despite the remaining mysteries about how exactly this sound-based video game can improve speech perception, this preliminary result raises exciting possibilities for future clinical therapies. It also gives scientists like me further insight into how the brain learns new perceptual skills, by demonstrating that even short-term training can have a dramatic effect on ability to distinguish speech from background noise.

But what remains to be seen is which brain changes underlie these behavioral improvements. In my own research, I seek to answer that question by examining the brains of people who have undergone various types of training, observing how their brains process sound, and comparing them to people who have not undergone training. The hope is that we can learn more about how the brain changes in response to training, and how that relates to people’s perceptual abilities.

So although people should be cautious about claims about training our brains to improve our general intelligence, this study’s results from targeted perceptual training are encouraging. One day there might be an iPhone app that can help your mother-in-law follow the conversation at a crowded restaurant or a student with a learning disorder focus on the teacher’s voice. Scientists just need to figure out how to best train the brain to listen.

Dana Boebinger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.