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stellar-imagines · 5 years ago

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SCENARIO REQUEST: ❝a silent voice.❞

[ Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia ] [ Characters: Bakugou Katsuki ]

「Scenario of Bakugou, Midoriya and Reader who were childhood friends and one day, Bakugo loses his temper and sets off a loud explosion causing Reader to lose her hearing. Years later they meet at UA and Bakugo didn’t know about the hearing loss before she introduced herself in class.」

BAKUGOU KATSUKI

“I’m deaf.” those were the words you wrote when it came to your turn to introduce yourself to Class 1-A

Bakugou had thought you looked oddly familiar. Standing in front of his classroom, fiddling with your UA uniform with a few other people he don't recognize, lined up next to you. Aizawa went ahead and introduced the Support Course students who will be working with the Hero Course students for a special assignment. The ash blonde didn't seem that excited to be working with someone he barely knew. Heck, he never liked group projects to begin with anyway. When the pairs were being announced, the ash blonde kind of waited until he heard your name to be called because he wanted to know if you were someone he knew before.

"Bakugou Katsuki and [Last Name] [First Name]."

Now that he heard your name, he recalled being in the same class as you were back in the first year of Middle School. Bakugou couldn't remember properly because it was such a long time ago but he recalled that you, along with Midoriya were childhood friends. You had to move to Osaka because of your father's company moving headquarters or something along those lines. Since the end of first year in Middle School, he hasn't seen you nor contacted you. He remembered you at the girl who stuck by his side like glue, admiring his quirk just like Midoriya.

When you approached Bakugou, you gave him a nervous smile, offering a handshake. The guy grunts and looks away as Aizawa and Power Loader went on to explain the assignment involving the two classes. It was a fairly simple assignment, the Support Course students were to design an support item for their assigned student whereas the Hero Course students have to utilitize the support item in their battle with other students. It's nothing too difficult as Support Course students often made their own items during their free time. Just after the class was dismissed, Bakugou watched as you gave him a small wave and walked away.

"[Nickname]! It's been a long time." Midoriya had approached you, much to Bakugou's surprise.

"[Nickname]?" Bakugou muttered to himself. It didn't take long for him to actually remember that you were one of his so-called childhood friends, someone who tagged along with him back when he was much younger.

He knew you but at the same time he didn’t. You weren’t the meek quirkless girl back then who didn’t have friends to hang out with except for him and Midoriya. Bakugou finds your behavior a bit weird and creepy. You refused to speak to him whenever you see him and when it comes to discussion, you’d both just text each other. How you got his number was surprising but he soon learned that you had asked his classmates. It would’ve been much faster if you asked him directly. He did mention that to you but you relied with overhearing that he didn’t like giving away his contact number to just anyone. You had a point there but this was different.

Working with you wasn't as difficult as he thought it would be. You were very open to new ideas and had no trouble telling him outright that there were things that you couldn't do or things that just can't work. Bakugou was on his way to your workshop when you told him that you finished a prototype for him to try out in the training gym. You wanted to record a few things along with his feedback. On his way, he spotted Midoriya and you talking but from his perspective, it seemed like Midoriya was the one doing most of the talking. From a distance he could see Midoriya speaking while making hand gestures. It didn’t seem like you were talking that much though but it was a given since you’re deaf.

It so happens that Bakugou was supposed to pass through this very hallway to get to your workshop. You waved a goodbye to the green haired boy before jogging towards your workshop.

”Why the fuck are you gesturing your hands so much you nerd? It’s not like she’s a fucking kid.” Bakugou grumbled when you were finally out of sight.

”K-Kacchan!?” Midoriya jumped slightly, surprised at the ash blonde’s sudden appearance.

”Damn girl. Who the fuck does she think she is? Does she think I’m going to learn sign language for her sake? How did she even end up like that to begin with?” Bakugou wondered out loud.

“You mean.....y-you don’t know?” the shorter boy’s expression was a mix of surprise and confusion.

”Know what now?”

He felt guilt twisting the insides of his stomach when Midoriya spilled everything to him. He didn't realize that loud explosion had caused you to go deaf. At that time, he was super pissed at Midoriya for standing up to him and acting like a know-it-all. He recalled you jumping between the two males to stop the dispute but alas Bakugou had let out a loud explosion and rang in our ears so horribly that caused you to collapse onto your knees. He assumed that you were overreacting when you cried and held your ears, calling you both weak and a waste of time before leaving the two of you alone. It was the end of his first year in middle school and you had moved before he knew what happened with you.

“[Nickname] lost her hearing before she moved. When you used your quirk last time, it completely damaged her ear.”

"Oi." Bakugou spotted you walking in the hallway, carrying a box filled with his equipment in it. Now that he's standing right in front of you, he couldn't faintly make our the burn mark by your ear that was undoubtedly his doing. You tilted your head, wondering what he wanted from you. The guy motioned you to hand over you items which roused more confusion.

"Hand it over." he said. You blinked a few times, wondering what's with the sudden change of heart. You weren't sure what to do when he just took the box out of your hands and began walking. You stood there in silence, opening your mouth to speak but stopping midway. You can no longer remember how your voice even sounded like and had a feeling Bakugou will mock you for it so you stayed quiet.

He stopped all of a sudden when he didn’t see you follow him. Bakugou turned around and make a gesture, telling you to come over. You followed without any hesitation and stood by his side. He grabbed your hand, causing you to jolt in surprise before gazing up at him as if to see what he was trying to do.

”I don’t know if you can hear me or not but I won’t fucking let go because I won’t know if you disappeared or something.” he muttered. You blinked a few times as Bakugou began dragging you towards the direction of Gym Gamma.

Looking at your joined hands, you found yourself reminiscing the times you said his hands were special as it was the source of his quirk. It was warm, big and calloused from training. Even though he may be the reason why you don’t have the confidence to speak and proper hearing, he’s still someone you looked up to. Bakugou was not a bad person and this just proves it right. Even after this whole project ended, the two of you still keep in touch with one another.

You bumped to him in the hallways quite often and you would give him a small smile and wave at him. Bakugou would respond in his own way, giving you a glance and nodding his head. This time round, the two of you were with our own respective friends. You waved at them but it was meant for Bakugou. The other guys, Kirishima, Kaminari and Sero waved back and said hello to you while Bakugou did the usual. Your own friends greeted the group of boys with a brief good morning. Once you were about to walk away, Bakugou stopped right in front of you which caused you to do the same.

Bakugou briefly signed a goodbye to you which was quite surprising because you never knew that he learned sign language. Then again, the two of you never actually talked besides through texting. You find yourself smiling and signing the same thing before jogging over to your friends. Bakugou finds himself avoiding your gaze as he signs something again. The guy left right after you wave a small nod of acknowledgement.

”Whatcha signing over there with [Last Name]?”

”Is it some secret code or something?”

”Hah? We’re not 10 year olds, you idiot.” Bakugou scoffed.

”Since when did you and that Bakugou guy get so friendly with each other?”

In response, you shrugged and hid your blushing cheeks from your friends.

Go out with me on Saturday.

Was what Bakugou had signed before you two went your separate ways.

Total: 1566 words Published: 05.05.2020

Thank you for requesting! ｡٩(ˊᗜˋ)و*｡ Hello people, it’s the third week of online classes and I feel like it’s been a decade. ― author Lou

Thank you for requesting! We’re both suckers for Silent Voice? But we can’t do something as amazing at that.― author Natsuki

Requests are closed for now! Matchups are closed!

Please do not mind the grammar mistakes and typos.

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primasveraas-writing · 4 years ago

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Finnpoe Modern AU- Single Dad!Poe- PART 2

Lmao so Part 2 was supposed to be focused on Finn and Poe’s relationship but that didn’t happen as planned so. yknow. Now there’s a Part 3 on the way where more things actually happen, Finnpoe-wise, and that should explain more about their relationship. It is also very possible that a Part 4 may happen, but all of this is for after finals end next week ANYWAY

Thank you again to Eliane, who had the original idea for this headcanon!

Part One l Part Two l Part Three

XXX

BB makes it through preschool and starts kindergarten the next year

He's nearly a year older than his classmates, but Poe is still terrified on the first day of school

He's less scared than the first first day, and now BB is comfortable enough to stick his tongue out at his dad when he catches Poe wiping tears out of the corner of his eye

But BB still allows a hug, long and tight, when it's time to say goodbye

He signs goodbye! with ease, and pride and bittersweet sorrow swell in Poe's chest

BB has a group of friends by the end of the week

BB has a lot to say, Poe hears from their parents, and Poe chuckles to himself at that

By now, Poe feels more secure in being a single parent, but he remembers Shara's fire and how that was balanced so readily but Kes's calm demeanor

It seems that BB is inheriting all of Poe's sass and spirit, totally untempered

(He doesn't mind in the slightest, though he fears the day BB realizes he can out-sarcasm his father)

Sometimes, BB complains that his Deaf friends can sign better than him, and Poe feels a pang of guilt. They've been learning together, and after a year, they've come a long way, but there are still hurdles

On top of his other classes, BB spends his afternoons in the special education classroom

They find a sense of community there; children and parents who have had similar experiences

It's easier then, better than the year before. The father and son have settled in somewhat, even though Poe dreads the end of the year- BB will switch buildings and teachers and everything will be new again

Despite the impending change, BB thrives. He can write a few shaky words and he's nearly entirely fluent in ASL by the time kindergarten ends

The summer flies by: BB is six already, losing teeth, joining the soccer team

He plays #8 on the team. He's fiercely into it, which isn't entirely helped by Poe screaming his support on the sidelines

Jess, Karé, and Snap all yell too; Kes is the only one who shows his enthusiasm at normal volumes, although Poe can never quite forget the game when BB got fouled and Kes sulked about it the entire night

They meet BB's new teachers in August, a couple of weeks before the start of school

Poe's prepared for this now. He knows what to advocate for, how to navigate the reactions to BB and the calm, placating smiles from people who look lost when they first meet his son

BB's teachers are kind, at the very least. Poe had been a public school kid, but with some financial help from Kes, he'd managed to get BB into a slightly more controlled environment- it's a private school, still a relatively big one, but Poe chose it for its positive reputation and special needs programs

His boss, Leia, had endorsed the decision- her twin brother worked in the district, and if nothing else, Poe trusts Leia’s judgment

But most of all, BB was happy there in both preschool and kindergarten, and that’s all that truly matters

They end up at the special education classroom last on the tour of the new building- Poe nods at a few familiar faces before an older-looking man introduces himself as Luke. He shakes Poe's hand firmly and signs hello back at BB, who's staring up at him, unabashed

I'm Luke, he signs, and doesn't even raise an eyebrow when BB tells him to call me BB

“I work with your sister, I think- Leia Organa,” Poe says because Luke seems all-too-familiar, and Luke nods quickly

“My little sister, yes. She’s mentioned you. She says she reminds you of her husband when he was younger.” Luke raises an eyebrow. “You’re not a troublemaker, are you?”

“No,” Poe says automatically, at the same time BB signs yes!

You’re a troublemaker, too, Poe reminds the boy, ruffling BB’s hair. His son snorts, shaking his head, and peers around Luke to see the rest of the room

“Leia likes troublemakers. She’s the best one of all,” Luke says matter-of-factly, then grins. "But- you'll want to meet the rest of our staff," Luke says, signing as he speaks and peering around the room

"There's Mr. C, and there's Finn. He's new this year, too"

Poe's stomach twists at the words- he's all for giving the benefit of the doubt, but he'd hoped for someone with a little more experience

That's his first impression of Finn- the second is that Finn is-

-well, Finn is hot. Nicely fitting jeans and a gratuitous v-neck, accompanied by a winning smile that flashes before the two men's eyes meet

Finn's eyes are warm and brown and it melts Poe on the spot

BB has already abandoned him, tearing across the room and offering his hand to Finn. Poe blinks, trying to get his thoughts in order, and introduces himself to Finn

The young man is right out of grad school (he came highly recommended, and they had to fight to get him, Luke chimes in, while Finn studies his feet), but he's always wanted to teach, even if he had a brief military stint that ended poorly

My abuela was Air Force, BB supplies

She must have been talented, Finn answers. I think I'd get scared all the way up there

I wouldn't! BB replies at lightning speed, and oh no, Finn's laugh is just as delightful as every other aspect of him

They talk for a few minutes more before Finn is stolen away by other parents and Poe decides to talk to other teachers

(I’ll be seeing you, Finn,” Poe says, and Finn just smiles back, but Poe can’t help but sneak glances at the other man, even with distance now between them

Finn catches him just once, and grins at Poe widely)

Poe doesn’t see BB’s teachers too often- there are stories from his son, occasional phone calls, and parent-teacher conferences, but he runs into Finn fairly often outside of BB-related happenings

The younger man has an apartment within a mile of Poe’s, and Luke and Leia seem somewhat determined to drag their protégés out once in a while

Dinners on a few occasions is one thing, but Poe also discovers that he and Finn frequent the same bars

(Frequent, Poe thinks, is a liberal term for a teacher and a single dad, but he does to find a free night once in a blue moon)

(It makes sense, Poe also realizes, that he would run into a man who wears sensible v-necks at the only gay bar in town)

Poe is nursing a whisky, scanning the room for anyone as tired and old as he is, when he spots Finn half hiding in a booth near the back of the room, a young brunette woman slumped next to him

They look slightly out of place, and Poe is debating if he should go say hi or not when the woman looks up at him, her gaze piercing. Poe looks away, the tips of his ears burning, but he can see her whispering to Finn out of the corner of his eye

Poe is staring determinedly at the melting ice in his drink when he hears slight scuffling behind him, then a voice says “Hi Poe, good to see you.”

Finn’s tone is somewhere between the one he uses on conference night and a clearly forced effort to sound casual, so Poe musters his best smile

“Hey Finn,” he says, friendly, then his mind goes blank

“I didn’t realize I would see you here,” Finn blurts, and his eyes go wide. His companion gives a huffy sigh before nudging Finn’s side with her elbow and retreating back to their booth

“I didn’t know you were- that you go to-” Poe is just as flustered, and neither he nor Finn can meet the other’s eyes. “-that you go to gay bars,” he finishes lamely

“I do,” Finn says, voice soft as he stares at the ground. “Well, not too often but Rey-” he jerks his head back to indicate the woman conspicuously watching them from her seat- “has been stressed lately and I wanted her to have a good night.”

Poe takes a sip of his drink. “She your girlfriend?”

There’s no hope of any sort of recovery now- Poe is vaguely tipsy, a lightweight after his son changed all his evening plans for the past two years, and Finn seems beyond flustered, but this conversation started badly, anyways

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Finn says firmly. “We’re gay- I mean she’s gay- well, I’m bi, but she’s gay- a lesbian. We only kissed once and it was real bad. We’re both single and not dating each other.”

“Good to know.” Poe says mildly, at risk of embarrassing Finn even more. Then:

“Can I buy you a drink?”

#poe dameron #poe dameron fanfic #finnpoe #finnpoe fanfic #stormpilot #stormpilot fanfiction #stormpilot imagine #stormpilot headcanons #stormpilot fanfic #stormpilot au #finnpoe au #finnpoe fanfiction #finnpoe imagine #finnpoe headcanons #finn #star wars #Star Wars Sequels #star wars au #star wars modern au

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first-living-myth · 4 years ago

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Summer Made Children

Picture credit to @unbeknownsst

Jade hurt his ankle, and is laid up with cast and crutches. Jesse is sitting next to him, doodling heart on their cast to cheer him up.

Summer-made children, to come back to,

JESSE

"Did you fell off the tree?"

Mom indeed been working temp as a nurse (that's why she's not home every nigh; she's working in the emergency unit though the evening till early morning) not even once-- Jess ever saw someone with broken bone and casted leg in front of his eyes. He sat a little away from the bed: unnecessarily looking terrified. This is one of the weekly trip to dad's place as the adults call it, holidays. Yet if it's a holiday why Mom always looked rather sour everytime he's being picked up of the apartment? He noticed so; children always do, her tightened jaw and stifled frown and a little bid of adieu that sounded like, I want him back in Sunday before 7 pm, instead of a nice 'Have a nice weekend!'

"Did bad kids hit you?"

His eyes are all doe; the thing that would still be with him once he later grown up into a man, doe, big eyes. Although little legs just decided to took himself onto the chair right next to the older kid's study, keeping distance from the bed, afraid those little clumsy hands of his would leave the boy in pain accidentally. (he is clumsy, big one.)

"Is it broken?"

(Little gasp!)

"Do you need help!"

JADE

Jade Huang was twelve and he fell from the stairs.

The classroom is large and daunting, far too threatening for Jade's tiny brain to comprehend. He did not like it, not even the slightest. However, he dare not to refuse his mom’s will, forced him to get off to school no matter what. Typical Asian parents, he dare say. He wore plain silky white shirt, short sleeve, tapered western, baggy lightweight black pants, then also his most remarkable sceptical and somewhat supercilious, with its odd rectangular, thick dark brown glasses. It was quite unhinged actually, due to the constant damage he shoved. He likes to throw things around when too immersed with something; bad habit never cease, just like wonder does.

Jade never once revel in commingling coeval groups, simply enough, he prefers to be alone. Hence, he wouldn’t get surprised anymore if the peers around him despise his presence; uncanny, an oddball, yet shrewd to say the least. He could never mingle well, a perfect misfit. Then, when lunch time comes, he always sits beneath the tall primeval, verdant, gigantic and gnarled, shady trees, all alone but with his fine, readable, small leather-bound books. He would read anything, from classic literature, until full-colored comics.

Whether he will understand the contexts or not, possibly more coherent with the latter, it wouldn't be a problem. Reading was and only his solace, in amidst of boisterous cacophony.

“Oi, clotpole!”

A chubby, bald, slanted eyes, noteworthy flabby tummy, has appeared. He seems cute, yes, to others, indeed. But Jade, himself, saw the other child, named Jason, as his mortal enemy; Jason oftentimes beat Jade until he felt like his end was near, pulled childish pranks, such as stole Jade’s favorite toy and many others. As usual, he chose to be wise, at least he thought, to ignore the impudent boy.

“I said, oi, clotplole! Didn’t you hear or are you deaf?”

“What do you want this time?” He asked, nonchalantly.

“Buy this for me! You’re rich, aren’t you?”

Jason said with a glimmer in his eyes, playful just like a misbehaving child would, while proud, holding up a crumpled, frayed brittle, piece of paper. There was a picture of something, he was unable to limn it, because it wasn’t considered as one of his interests. One thing for certain, it was some kind of toy.

“Why?”

“Because I want to!”

“Why?”

“You’re rich?”

“Why?”

“Just buy it, motherfucker!”

“But I don’t want to, and my statement is final.” his tone surprisingly even, almost studious.

“You bloody wonker!”

The next thing Jade knows, he was at home, laid up with cast and crutches. He was unconcious for a while, and refused to talk. Even when the old fine looking aunty was talking to him, he kept his mouth shut. Albeit seen disheveled, his gaze fixated on looking at a child of eight or nine, all pale skin and thin bones and dark, tangled hair.

Ahn Jaesuk, the name of the child. But he prefers to call him Jesse, as prolly everyone did. This is their third meeting, Jade was slightly content, thrilled yet he did want to show it.

“Hi, Jesse.”

JESSE

"Did it hurt?"

The kid talks so much. So-fucking much, he pulls the chair closer to the bed that his curious side grows. Frown curls in response; he's so expressive in the contrary to the older boy regarding to his either reaction or feelings, big, even. He gives big reactions to almost anything.

(His expressions changes often when he's trying to read Jade's collection of books; the expression where he barely understands letters, the expressions where he found a new verb he never heard before, the expression where he found BIG ACTIONS in the comic books! Later growing up he'll find fondness specially towards DC Comics.)

"I mean, when the bad kids hit you."

Did he come too straightforward? No means to offend, but,

"Or did you really fell off the tree!"

He's careful not to jump into the bed. Sick people needs bigger space, Mom once said. She's the nurse afterall; a pro in sick person, making them less sick, helping the doctors to help the sick. The easy way in comprehending the term in the brain of a nine year old.

"So, do you, need a help when you need to go to pee? Was it hurt when they put the cast on your feet? Mom said where the bone is broken it will be swollen and painful.

JADE

Jade is the only child and he didn't know how to deal with a little brother, the one who acted and played like so. He didn’t know how to deal with Jesse, even though he had done lots of research. By all means, reading many books that he could possibly find, few have been proven useful, but the rest look ridiculous though. A snippet from Jade’s reading material, ‘Raising A Kid’, ‘Teaching Boy About Things’, ‘Shit Brothers Said’, ‘I am A Brother’, and the list goes on. Well, what would you expect from someone mediocre, twelve years old, plain yet geeky boy?

“Hey, do you know what word to describe someone that asks too many questions, talk too much, like you?”

Jade asked, mimicking a wiseacre or smart aleck look alike’s expression, his brow wrinkled as he leaned in close to headboard, which was covered in white pillows, in his smaller and rather austere bedroom.

“I read it in a book, apparently those people are called loquacious.” Jade slurs. He was slightly worried if this is the right choice or not; he was concerned, he hardly believed anything at all. One of the human nature, future is always seemed scary, because they cannot control it; predictions, however, is in another hand. Now, Jade prayed with all his might, he's able to, at least, produce a good outcome through this.

Even so, Jade stilled in disbelief, a hefty sigh escaped successfully. It’s not like it should be a surprise, or anything, because even at the very first meeting, Jesse couldn’t shut up; a brazen young boy, inquisitive most of the time. But the child seemed fastidious about Jade’s current condition and all. Many would think Jesse was being annoying, making the whole plight vexatiously so, most certainly to a sick, helpless boy. However, Jade saw things differently, it was adorable, cute to be truth, and amusing to look at.

He felt the sudden urge to squish, pinch those plump cheeks, when he was watching vacuously open, soft vermeil, comparatively dainty lips of Jesse’s keep moving and talking. And so, he did, unconsciously and makes wonder spread in his chest.

“It’s hurt, the pain still lingers but I guess I’m okay.” He laughed, dryly. “Someone pushed me. From the stairs. It was scary. It was high. He was bigger than you. Strange.” He said, intermittently so.

JESSE

"What?"

He sounded as chirpy, until a really, foreign word hits his ear, over a pronounciation that the little boy barely could repeat. Mouth opens; involuntarily, a gape visible, and he doesn't even know that he's making that face for that brief moment,

<: O

(That's exactly the face he is making.)

Doe-eyed, mouth-gaped, briefly silent; do all 12 years old be this cool? Or only because Jade spent more times with books instead of communicating with actual person? But Jess surely never heard that word before.

"--Lo, locucious." Hey, he tried his best to repeat that out. Hopefully the older one still has that emphaty to correct the kid, or he will grow sticking to it until someone else is kind enough to point out. But Jess knows the word, retaliation!

Don't ask where did he learn that but Batman comics taught him so! Inclusing many scientific terms (he believed they are scientific, because, Detective Comics,) that came out of the same comic book series.

Jess also spent too much time reading colorful comics.

He gave out big reactions, remember? Again, big frown curling over his big displease of an expression in which shifted in no time upon the progression of the story; someone pushed me, fell from the stairs, it still hurt--- he cringed a big fear, he was bigger than you; and his frown curling up into a fright. As if the older boy was telling him a horror, bed story time. (Would Jade read him bed story times?).

And he looked up the other boy with that same fright. Is he worried? Well, look at his face right now? "....Joshua got his knee hurt too when we played football in school," Joshua, Joshua Carson, his classmate, but he didn't mention about the fact that the mentioned boy as his classmate. "He skipped school for two! Weeks! I envy!! But then I missed him so I visit him everyday after school."

Chirpy, chirpy little boy,

"Uh-oh do you want me to take your drink!!"

(The story is still in progress).

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theawkwardterrier · 5 years ago

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things left behind and the things that are ahead, ch. 28

AO3 link here

Peggy tells him she’s pregnant on Christmas morning, after they’ve exchanged gifts. He finds himself overcome with giddy laughter all through their breakfast, and has a baby announcement card mocked up before supper. The following February, she miscarries. It happens again that summer, and then midway through the next year: that process of hope, ever more careful now, then despair, swallowed and borne and hidden by each for the other.

Steve knows it’s him. In Peggy’s other future, with her other husband, she had two children. He’d met them. Peggy tells him fiercely that she won’t allow him to feel guilty about it, that he certainly didn’t go into fertility specifics with her elderly self so he might not know everything that he thinks he does. He feels guilty anyway.

“There are other ways to have kids,” Bucky points out around a bite of hot dog as they take in a ballgame. (Steve’s been trying to get to as many Dodgers games as he can. They’ll be moving the team next year.)

Steve takes a bite of his own, pretending to mull over what Bucky has said while already having rejected it in his mind. But it comes back that night as he finishes washing up and starts down the hallway to join Peggy in bed. He passes by the little room that they always keep closed now. They’d been nearly five months along last time. Halfway had seemed a safe enough time to buy the few things now gathering dust: a rocking chair, a blanket, a little stuffed bear.

How would it feel to have a baby lie beneath that blanket, to sit in the rocker and soothe them to sleep? Even if it were a baby that didn’t share blood with him or with Peggy, Steve thinks suddenly that it can’t feel as bad as keeping that room shut forever.

He sits staring at his book, propped up against his pillow. Finally he turns to Peggy, waits until she can tear herself away from her novel to notice.

“What would you say,” he asks carefully, “about adoption?”

She bookmarks her page thoughtfully, staring at him for long, slow moments. Finally she says, “I’ve actually been wondering about it myself.”

They don’t adopt a baby at all. It becomes obvious pretty early on that the babies are the easiest to place, that this is what most of the other couples are looking for. Instead they are introduced to Rosie, four years old, stubborn and furious in a way that puts both her parents to shame. One look at her clenched fists behind the yard fence at the Sheltering Arms Children’s Home, at the way her hair has been crammed into bristling pigtails for their meeting and how her face is as red as her name, and they know they have to take her home.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy.

They learn quickly to put anything they don’t want broken higher than the reach of a four year old on a chair. Peggy takes her time getting ready in the mornings, knowing that any perceived weakness or retreat will be latched onto, but she breathes a sigh of relief every time she gets to drive away from the house. Steve figures that outings are a no-go just yet after she bites a boy who tries to take her swing at the park hard enough to bring blood. He becomes expert at fitting in bits of housework around the times Rosie exhausts herself and collapses into a nap.

“Giving up now will only make things worse for her later,” Peggy says one night in the dark of their bedroom, and Steve can tell just from her tone that she’s setting her jaw the way he’s familiar with from European battlefields. “It will only teach her that other people are not to be relied upon or trusted, that those who promise to love you will give up.”

She’s right. She’s right, and Steve has to keep reminding himself as he closes all the windows so the neighbors won’t also have to listen to Rosie shrieking unceasingly that she hates him, hates him, hates him.

Sometime in 2014, or perhaps 2015, he read an article about how important early childhood education is for development. The question of sending Rosie to kindergarten is not so much a discussion as an accepted impossibility. Steve makes first grade his goal instead. When she pounds her feet on the ground or smacks the walls, he puts pillows beside or beneath her and reminds her not to hurt herself, bandages her fingers if she does. While she shouts, blistering up with rage and curses that he didn’t even know someone could learn that young, he sits quietly beside her with his sketchpad, taking deep breaths in and out until she starts to copy him without realizing. If she throws a tantrum during dinner, she has her food in her room and they ask if there is something to do to make it better for tomorrow. He knocks on her bedroom door and waits before he ever walks in. When he gets the urge to yell, he turns away.

One afternoon she steals his wedding ring while he is washing the lunch dishes and flushes it away before he can get it back from her. He sits on the rim of the bathtub with his face in his hands and for the first time he thinks with a bit of relief about waking up alone in that SHIELD-constructed room, about the realization of the snap: I have been through worse than this, unrelenting and encompassing and hopeless worse.

And then he feels her close to him. No hand on his arm or nuzzle against his shoulder, but soft peanut butter breath and a tiny voice saying, “I’m sorry I did that. I want to get it back,” and even if it is too late for some things, it is just the beginning for others.

When Rosie enters her first grade classroom, it is with reminders to count to ten and then to twenty, with a warning that hurting someone else was not acceptable (they’ll get into the nuances of this later), and with a note from her father that says that she should be excused if she feels that she needs to be. When the teacher and then the principal ignore this last, they learn just why it’s a mistake to try that with Grant Carter. (When the principal retires the next year and her replacement is equally dismissive of such indulgent special instructions for a second grader, it becomes quickly and terrifyingly apparent that it’s even more of a mistake to try that with Peggy Carter.)

In third grade, Rosie wins the spelling bee, has a playdate with one of her vast array of friends nearly every week, and leaves the class only twice between September and December. Her teacher describes her as bossy and stubborn and self-righteous and smart as a whip. Bucky reads over her report card while twirling spaghetti around his fork, and reminds Steve with stifled laughter that Mrs. Leary did always say that retribution would be visited upon him for his behavior in her class.

Just before Christmas, as they decorate the tree together, Rose mentions to Peggy, though certainly loudly enough for Steve to hear from the kitchen, that she is the only one of her friends who does not have a brother or sister and that it would probably be a good idea to fix that.

“Hmm,” Peggy says casually, focusing on ensuring that the ornament she’s just hung isn’t too heavy for its branch. “Your father and I will have to think about that,” as if Steve hadn’t suggested something similar only two nights before.

It will never be entirely clear precisely how old Emma is. Apparently the children’s home had estimated nearly two, but she was left with only a short note with her name and an apology, so no one really knows. It’s speculated that she likely lost her hearing shortly before being left there, probably due to illness, and that her family felt that they couldn’t take care of her after that.

Peggy and Steve made it clear from their first meetings years ago that the sorts of things that might deter other couples - older age, race or ethnic background, “difficult” personality, medical issues, the circumstances of birth - don’t matter to them. And still, even the afternoon Emma is placed in their arms, the adoption caseworker lets them know that they can still change their minds.

“Why on earth,” Peggy asks, rising, Emma's eyes following her with cautious curiosity, “would we want to change our minds?”

She’s a sweet little girl, healthy now and smiling, and Steve is incredibly worried about her. He shows up at the New Jersey School for the Deaf before the adoption is even completely finalized, asking about sign language lessons. (When Howard recounts the story, Steve is always storming in and pounding on the superintendent’s door, but there was actually mostly a lot of showing off Emma in her soft, pretty dress to the school secretary, followed by polite but slightly confused conversation over tea. Generally, hearing parents who arrived looking to speak with the superintendent sought promises about perfect speech and reassurances of future employment, and had no interest in learning to sign themselves even if they were going to allow their children to do so.)

He and Peggy actually buy a second car so he and Emma can drive regularly to the Trenton home of Caroline Linzer, a Deaf former teacher from the school who had left to raise her own children. Mrs. Linzer is warm and funny and reassuring, patient with Steve as she leads him through the alphabet, numbers, basic vocabulary, and then slowly on to conversation with Emma watching all the time. He’s still scared that there might have been too much of a delay between when Emma lost her hearing and when she started learning to sign. He doesn’t know enough about brain development and childhood language acquisition, and neither does probably anyone in this time. He has another of those moments - a surprise each time - of missing the internet with all of its knowledge and answers. He wishes, in a way that he never expected to, that he could open up an email and contact the lead experts in anything, and have them eagerly respond for Captain America.

It seems to be alright, though who knows what might have been otherwise. Their dinner table is soon full of signed chatter, Emma putting together fragments of sentences with her chubby fingers, Peggy’s quickening hands admonishing Rosie for flicking food at her sister even as Rose protests in both sign and sing-song that “she likes it, Mumma!”

“The first legislation about public schools accommodations won’t be passed until the mid-seventies, I think,” Steve tells Peggy as they wash up from dinner while the girls play in the next room. By their guess, Emma isn’t even three yet, but it’s probably already too late to lay groundwork for a change before she’s ready for kindergarten. And would they even want to? The School for the Deaf is bigger and farther away, not the familiar neighborhood grade school where Rosie has been growing up, but would it be better among peers there than to be the only child in class with an interpreter, if they could even find one willing to do the job?

Steve drives Emma over to the nursery at the School for the Deaf himself, every morning. He lays to rest the image of his girls walking to school beside each other, but the reality of Emma running to greet her friends in the schoolyard, grinning and heedless with hands alive before her, is better anyway.

They have a family meeting about adopting more kids. Well, technically they have one meeting where they agree that maybe adding a brother to the family actually sounds like a good idea, and then they have a second discussion when the caseworker presents them with two files from Boystown; the state will split up siblings if it means making a sure match for one, but will certainly seize on the possibility of placing both in a home together, and how could Steve and Peggy consider taking one of these children without the other?

“Would you make us split up?” Rosie demands fiercely, clutching her sister too tightly, while Emma chants in fluid, furious sign, “Brothers should stay together! Brothers should stay together!” They don’t seem to notice that neither of their parents are actually opposing them.

“That last room can likely fit an extra bureau,” Peggy says, and Steve nods.

“Bunk beds could work.”

Their first worry is that the new additions won’t be able to pick up sign, that they will all end up divided along who in the family can communicate with who. But they watch Emma and Rosie demonstrating with patience the correct way to form letters, the facial expressions that go along with certain words, and they begin worrying instead about their oldest two. Rosie’s big sister authority has been accepted easily until now, but with another oldest sibling now in the house, one closer to her age and with a forceful personality to match hers, things are changing.

“I can’t help but think,” Peggy says, after they’ve broken up a bristling argument over whether it’s possible to cheat at The Game of Life (strangely, the opinion of both sides is yes and that the other one had done it), “that this might be a real piece of luck for Rose, finding another child who doesn’t simply allow her to have her way.”

Steve asks, not really wanting to know the answer, “But will the house be standing when she’s fully learned that lesson?”

They’re still working through that situation when Steve starts noticing something that he can’t help but focus on instead. There must have been signs earlier - dress-up clothes clung to after playtime, people examined with careful, wondering eyes as they passed in the street - but Steve first sees this: it is a Saturday, not quite turned to spring and Nathaniel is getting over one last cold, so Steve has taken the other children to try the new bakery in town, an attempt to leave the house a little quieter for him. The kids are pointing to their favorite pastries, leaving finger-smudges on the display case. Emma blinks a cookies! sort of charm up at her father. One of the bakery employees - an older woman, neat, flour-dusted apron, curled hair tied back - passes them to get back behind the counter.

“What beautiful daughters you have,” she tells Steve, smiling. He glances over, seeing what she does: three small forms still bundled in coats, hair blond, darker, and darkest peeking out from beneath knit hats, all to the chin or longer. Steve is still waiting for warmer weather to take them for spring haircuts.

“We’re two daughters and one son,” Rose corrects the woman, and as she trills, “Oh, my mistake!” before disappearing into the back, Steve watches two children return obliviously to picking treats and one turn away, sudden light suddenly dimmed, arms hugged against skinny chest, staying quiet, quiet, quiet.

The weather gets warmer, and Steve, acting on a hunch, asks who would like to get a haircut instead of simply adding it on the calendar. In the end, he goes to the barber and so does Nathaniel and that is all.

He tries to make himself as approachable as possible, says that he will answer any question, that there is no need to worry. But he wonders if the question has already been asked and harshly answered by someone else - another parent, a teacher - in a different way than Steve would.

One day, during homework time for those who have it, Rose finishes early, and then it is just two of them in the kitchen. Steve is thinking through the grocery list to the soundtrack of small feet swinging in that familiar, beloved, and entirely irritating way.

The question, when it comes, does not sound as expected.

“My first parents used to take us to church before they died.”

“We can go if you want,” Steve offers, mind still partly on the grocery list, partly on the muffins he and Emma have just put into the oven. He and Peggy haven’t really thought much about what to do if this stuff came up, though they probably should have considering the back and forth about what children they should even be allowed to be matched with in the first place based on their “mixed marriage” (Steve was down in the records as Catholic, Peggy as Anglican, which apparently counted as Protestant). But none of the other kids remember their lives with their birth parents much, not even Nathaniel who has someone to remind him, and so it hasn’t seemed much more than intellectual until now.

“No,” he hears back hurriedly, and Steve looks up to see blue eyes pointing themselves down toward the math workbook on the table. The feet have stopped their swinging. Steve goes alert, the muffins forgotten. “I just wanted to know…Do you think that people get made wrong sometimes?”

Steve is likely not really prepared for this conversation. But he supposes that he’s more prepared than he might have been.

He stands and comes over, crouches beside the chair and says carefully, “I think everyone is exactly right the way they are, including you. But if you feel like something is making you confused, you can tell me and I’ll try to help.”

A tiny headshake, nervous, tentative, which is not normal at all. Steve’s heart breaks a little. He tries something else.

“If you could pick any name for yourself, any name at all, what would you pick?”

“I already like Andrew, promise! When we looked up our names in Boy Scouts, the book said it means brave. And it’s the name my first mom and dad gave me.”

“And I’m sure that your first parents would know that if it’s not the right name for you anymore, we can change it. I know they would be happy if you picked a name that you liked better,” Steve fibs.

For a moment, Steve worries that the pencil is going to break in that little fist. Then, the voice, small and trembling and fearless: “Andrea also means brave. I checked.”

Steve smiles. “Yeah, it does.”

Peggy knows people who are gay or lesbian, “confirmed bachelors,” presumed spinsters. There are Angie’s theater friends and people she met in the war, men and women alike. Their kids call both Josie and Violet “aunt” now. None of that has ever troubled her, nor has countering ignorance or hatred in that area.

Questions of gender are something else. It isn’t something she has encountered much more than anyone else, and the things it implies in this era are almost entirely lurid and wrong. Steve remembers them discussing Christine Jorgensen a few years back when the headlines were everywhere, and how he had tried to explain how things would come to be understood later, at least as he understood them himself.

“What would you have done if this had happened...then?” she asks, waving a vaguely future-ward hand over their late night (technically, early morning) tea. He can’t tell what she thinks just yet.

The idea of Steve having had children in the future is nearly laughable. Tony, then. What would Tony have done if Morgan had come to him and said he’d been wrong about having a daughter, or at least not entirely right? Said, “Gender neutral name, Pepper’s a genius,” probably, and then protected his kid with everything in him.

“For now, we listen,” Steve says. “Later, it might mean finding a doctor, but for now we listen and see and try to make the best choices, the way we would for any of the kids.”

1963 suburban New Jersey is not exactly where and when Steve would have chosen for this, but in another way, this is what he chose, to be with his wife and his children here, as much as he wishes things could be different.

“I like to pretend that when people call me Andy, it’s really Andi, like a girl,” Steve hears one night at bedtime, whispered while Nathaniel is still brushing his teeth.

“You are Andi,” Steve whispers back, tucking the blankets in tighter. “I’m always calling you Andi.”

They have to keep it in whispers for now, and Steve hates that, because Steve has never been able to be quiet about things that are right. But this time it isn’t about him getting his face bloody in an alley in order to stand up, it’s about his child, who has friends and kind teachers and people who smile in passing in the street, and who would lose all of that and maybe more out of ignorance about the truth.

Being at home seems comfortable enough. They haven’t mentioned anything to the other kids yet; Andi says it is okay, that it would be good, but they know that Rosie especially might have a hard time not letting something slip. The ASL that they use as a family doesn’t need pronouns and Emma made a name sign that can just as easily stand for Andi. At school, though, there is a particular expectation of who Andrew Carter should be which would be dangerous to deviate from. Steve sits in uncomfortable silence with the idea that Andi doesn’t seem to even consider asking for anything to be different, with the realization that he wouldn’t be able to grant such a wish, at least not now.

(There is, he and Peggy have realized, likely only one thing to be done.)

It is already close to summer, and they pack up as soon as school is over. Howard thinks nothing of letting them take over the secluded beach house he bought in Maine. (Apparently he “picked it up” a few years ago, an idea that Steve can barely think about in reference to a carton of good ice cream, much less a whole house that its owner has apparently never used.) The kids spend most of the day running in and out of the water or building castles, while their parents lounge on the sand and occasionally call them over to eat or reapply sunscreen, such as it is. (Steve is extremely diligent about this, regardless of how effective this decade’s variety might actually be. None of his kids have his Irish skin, but they don’t have his healing, either, and he tries to help avoid sunburn and skin cancer alike.)

Andi’s dark hair, uncut for months, continues to lengthen; by the middle of July, it is a sort of thick shag and still growing. Peggy brushes it into a ponytail every morning and redoes it as the activity of the day musses it back up.

It is Peggy’s first vacation in a long while, though she leaves them for a few days every other week or so; work and responsibility is still calling and she can’t entirely forget it all. She does stand firm in her promise to avoid thinking about those sorts of problems when she’s with them, and it’s beautiful to see her glowing from the sun, relaxing with a book or loud with laughter as she chases one or another of the children down the beach. The housekeeper Howard sends over once a week agrees to stay for an evening, and Steve takes Peggy dancing. It’s only a visiting trio on stage at the local community center, just this side of the high school dance that Steve never attended, but with them, it’s always more. Among the couples, Peggy leans into his chest, sweet and upright and familiar now. She is more his partner now than he ever dared hope.

During the last week of July, it rains for days in a row, and midafternoon on the third, Steve and Peggy exchange a glance and know that it’s time to break the news to their children.

They talk to Andi first, and Steve, eagle-eyed, sees the rise and fall of those narrow young shoulders, the way they do not brace themselves but relax: a sigh, a finally, finally.

They find everyone gathered in the great room, cushions dragged into a nest on Howard’s shined, artfully rustic wooden floorboards with the kids settled in a semicircle on top of them. Books and games are scattered around, playing cards hiding at random beneath the pillows; they’re getting down to the last of the indoor entertainments, anxious for the weather to clear and allow them to break back outside. Steve seats himself on the stone ledge by the raised fireplace and Peggy sits beside him.

“We have some things to tell you all,” Steve starts.

“Is this about Mom’s work? Nate says you’ve been doing a lot of secret talking,” Rosie demands, fingers flashing, apparently having appointed herself to speak for the group. Nate has the sharpest eyes, the most acute nose, for these sorts of things, but he does not look troubled, merely curious. He has his bear sitting in his lap, as if Edward is an attentive part of the family meeting as well. “And we all know that a lot of Mom’s work is secrets,” Rose finishes keenly.

(Steve knows that Nate probably didn’t phrase it exactly that way, and not just because Rose puts her own spin on things. He and Peggy have always said that none of their children need to call them Mom or Dad until they are ready. With Emma it was barely a question, barely a thought, but it took Rosie more than a year. It hasn’t been quite that long for Nate, but he apparently still hasn’t quite settled into the idea. He mostly avoids calling them anything, which Steve admittedly prefers to the insults with which Rose once addressed him.)

“It is about my work, a bit,” Peggy says carefully. “Your father and I moved years ago because Uncle Howard and I were starting an office in New Jersey. But part of my job has always been working with our elected officials and my colleagues in Washington - that’s difficult when we don’t live nearby.”

“What Mom does is very important,” adds Steve. “When she needs to go away for meetings - I know it’s hard for all of us. And we decided that it might be easier for us to all be in Washington together.”

“We’re moving?” asks Nate, more clarification than anything.

Rose’s hands echo him explosively. “We’re moving?! What about our friends and our school? What about Nana and the aunts and uncles, everyone? I don’t want to leave our house!”

Emma looks between them all, flighty curls shivering as her head turns. She looks down at her own lap before she adds, “Everything will change if we move.”

“Some things will stay the same,” Peggy says. “You will have school and friends - new school, new friends. Our family, that will still be the same. You’ll still do chores.” That actually teases out a bit of laughter.

“But some things will be different.” Steve moves his gaze to each of them in turn. He catches Andi’s eye last. He leans forward. He’s practiced this; his ASL is still not entirely fluid, and probably won’t ever be, but he wants to be clear. “Here is something that might seem different. When babies are born, we make guesses about what kind of people they will be when they grow up. Some are right and some are wrong. But when we make guesses - we can push people to be different than they want to be. Maybe we think we’re right or maybe we forget to ask how they feel.”

“I don’t understand,” Rose says, flicking the sign beside her shaking head, mouth puckered downward. “Why is this about moving?”

“Because when we move, I am going to be a sister instead of a brother and you should all call me s-h-e. Everybody thought I was a boy and pushed me to be a boy and told me it was not allowed for me to be different but that was wrong - Dad says, and also Mom. Some people might still be mad if they find out, but when we go to Washington, I am going to be a girl named A-n-d-r-e-a .” She spells out the new name; who knows if she will keep her old name sign or take on a new one. Then she adds, shoulders firmly set but not stiff, “Everybody should call me D-r-e-a. I decided.”

Rose has questions. Emma has quieter, more hesitant ones. Peggy and Steve begin trying to answer them as best they can. Nate leans his head onto Drea’s proud shoulder, tucks Edward more tightly against his side, and lets his eyes fall shut.

The three girls make their feelings about the move apparent: Rose clearly displeased, Emma worried but with some interest, Drea boldly excited. Nate listens to the others but keeps his own counsel about how he feels. So, after days of watching him for clues, Steve simply asks him.

It is a hot morning and they are walking together into town on a few errands: dropping off some library books, picking up more tape for the boxes even now piling up back at the house. Steve waits until they are past the toy store and its many distractions before he asks, “What do you think about us moving someplace new?”

Nate tilts his head. “I don’t know yet. Maybe it will be scary, but I think it will also probably have good parts. That was what happened when Drea and me came to this home.” Steve realizes with a pang that Nate, just turned four, has already lived in three different places. He puts a hand onto Nate’s shoulder and squeezes a little. Nate looks up at him. “But we aren’t there yet, so I don’t know how it will feel.”

“It’s okay to not know,” Steve tells him as they come to the corner and wait for the cars to pass.

Nate responds, “I know that,” and laughs at his own joke. Steve laughs with him, watching that sweet, gleeful face, not caring that he is stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

“I think it’s our turn, Daddy,” Nate says, taking Steve’s hand so he will notice that the cars are stopped for them. “Daddy, look, it’s our turn to go.”

Steve swallows. He smiles. “Yes, it is,” he says, and keeps ahold of Nate’s hand as they cross the street together.

The house Peggy found in Maryland could fit their old place in twice and still have room left over. Rosie has maintained an impressive sulk through their return from Maine, all of the packing, their various goodbyes, and the drive down south, but even she drops the attitude to race through the new space and argue about who gets which room.

Steve, unpacking bags from the car, keeps glancing up to take in the bits and pieces of this new place, the things he missed in the pictures that Peggy brought back: the windows, all of them, everywhere, and their shutters; the heavy wooden door which hangs open into the summer air so that he can hear the kids screaming excitedly from room to room; the path and the lush areas of the yard which will be perfect for flowers in beds and borders.

He feels a hand on the small of his back. Peggy, who slides an arm around him and presses her mouth to the side of his neck, holding there for a moment.

“How long do you think we’ll be waiting,” she asks, “until someone comes along offering a pound cake and hoping for some gossip about the new neighbors?”

“Well,” he says, sliding an arm around her waist, “we have trees, probably a mile of driveway, and I think we are officially on the outskirts of town. So I'd say we'll have at least fifteen minutes to ourselves.”

“Sounds lovely,” she says. “Some time to settle in, just the family.”

“Just the family,” he repeats. He could mention that it’s just been the family for the two day drive from Jersey. Instead he glances at her, leans back a little to take in the house beneath the broad blue of the sky, beginning to be filled with the voices of their children, the joy and life and everything that they can bring to this place. He holds her against him. Just them, just all of them here together, here at the heart of things.

More chapters here

#Steggy #Steggy fic #Steve Rogers #Peggy Carter #the Carter crew #things left behind fic #hey it's The Kids!#despite all the edits and fiddling I think you can somewhat tell that this written earlier on #notes and sources in the AO3 posting

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nlvianne · 5 years ago

Text

My Story

I was diagnosed with moderate to severe hearing loss when I first started school at 4 years old in the year 1989. I only remember the things my family told me around that time and prior. It's a very young age to recall everything and the memory does play tricks on the mind. When I was a baby testing for hearing was just not thought of, no one's fault. It wasn't all that common. I suppose I lived like a normal small child, playing with anything that struck my imagination, running amok. In photos I looked like a happy child except when I was dressed in an outfit knitted for a boy. My Mother said I would always watch the television and not listen to her when she called for me. I'm guessing she called for me many times, explains why she's quite loud. She said she thought I just wasn't listening to her. Typical child behaviour. My hearing or lack thereof just never registered. I was playing behind the barn at my Grandparents' house and My Grandmother was yelling my name. I'm told she almost lost her mind. She told my Grandfather she lost me so they both went around searching for me. Apparently Nan said she was going to beat my ass for disappearing. Pup said she damned well wasn't because I just couldn't hear them. The teachers in school noticed almost immediately and that began the testing. The results were in and my parents were confused and a bit scared I think. The school suggested enrolling me in a school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Amherst. That was over 3 hours from my home. I was told that my Grandfather was not pleased with that idea and demanded that I stay home learning in a regular school with everyone else. I think my parents followed suit not sure what to do. My Grandfather, Pup was the best this way. Maybe it was denial. Maybe he didn't want to admit to it but he didn't seem to think hearing loss could hold anyone, least of all, his Granddaughter back. Or worse, maybe I was naive and didn’t want to know he was ashamed of this because I loved him. I never thought of those things then, just that he was my gruff hero that let me sleep on his lap in the rocking chair and steal gum from his shirt pockets. I have pictures of that. Soon I had my hands on a toy that would sit right in my ears and hook up a box called an FM transmitter so I could hear the teachers across the classroom. This was made possible by the best group we had in the school system, APSEA. APSEA assisted parents with costs of aids and funded tools like the transmitters, funded for special educators for the deaf and hard of hearing to come to the schools and assist in ways that a mainstream teacher would need extra help. The organization was a godsend. They enabled me to sit in class and learn with my peers mainstream and took me aside to learn more. With them I would practice my speech by reading. I would take extra time to write for proper grammar. I had extra practice in mathematics. Their main focus was my speech. They kept me caught up and then some. I remember my time with them fondly. I was the only kid in Milton School they came around to see at the time. I was never picked on in school about my hearing aids. In fact, they (classmates) loved the FM Transmitter. I could always let them know if the teacher was walking back into the classroom so they could quickly get back to their seats. Yeah, I was the lookout. It was hilarious and gross when they went to the bathroom. They were pretty embarrassed when I told them I heard them. Ha ha. They caught on quick and my signal was cut upon leaving the classroom. Carpets were also installed in the classrooms to prevent the chairs and desks from scraping, protecting my tender ears. That was a lovely APSEA request. My Father told me that I kept asking him what a certain noise was. It was a bird. I never heard birds before that. I don't remember this but Dad chokes up when he tells me. I remember taking a bath one time as a child and I wasn't adjusted to having hearing aids at the time. I accidentally forgot to take them out and my Mother wasn't thrilled that they fried the moment I poured water over my head. I can confirm that they indeed do not electrocute when introduced to water but they certainly do not survive it. Every year I needed to have new moulds created to attach to the aids behind my ears. Children's ears are constantly growing at a quick rate just like the rest of them. It was a strange sensation to have that cold goop squeezed in my ear. Felt like soft sticky earplugs. Before they put the silicone in they have to insert small spongy things with long strings so they have something to pull them out with when they dry. I giggle a little because it looks like I have tampon strings hanging out of my ears. My APSEA teachers tried to make me understand that in my life I would encounter people who didn't understand or were not quite as tolerant as some. They would encourage me to teach them, to spend a lot of time helping them understand. I never realized how exhausting this would be sometimes. My first assignment was to explain to my peers in front of the classroom about something that pertained to my hearing. It could be anything from the tools I use to my experiences. I chose to explain the FM Transmitter especially since so many of my peers enjoyed tracking the teachers’ movements with them. After 7 years it was time to change schools. The districts decided it was a more logical idea to consolidate all of the smaller schools. Grade 6 was spent at the Dr. John C. Wickwire Academy. It was my first and last year there. Out of all the consolidated schools there were still only 2 of us that were hard of hearing that I could recall. Even there the teachers seemed well adjusted to us. There I made new groups of friends. Some found me odd, others didn't care and a few hung out with me. Again it was never an issue or a big difference. By that point no one realized I was hard of hearing upon first meeting me. I learned just like the rest of them, I behaved similar to them. It wasn't pointed out until they saw the gear and obviously had some questions. It was never a big to do thing. In the following year I attended Junior High and met a whole slew of mates with differences from Autism to Hearing Loss to Mobility Issues. I met three wonderful people with hearing impairment/loss that I remain in touch with to this day. I learnt a little bit of sign language from them and we had a great common ground. It was pretty neat. I was in a position where I had questions for them because their experiences were so different from mine. One attended the school for the deaf and hard of hearing for the early years. We were a very lucky in the way we all were able to attend a school without much in the way of total exclusion. Yes, we had separate classes and we had special needs that teachers didn't quite know how to handle them but we always met in the middle being in the same school. I know there are experiences from others that I'm not capturing and I know they've had some not so great experiences. This is why it upsets me to see how divided we are almost 20 years into the future. We should be so far ahead but we've fallen so far backwards. It really is a crying shame. We were so, so lucky and I never realized that until the later years of my life. High School was much the same but we had yet again, more populace. High School was even better because there was an open door policy. We were permitted and encouraged to visit the special needs students, have lunch with them, even sit and do homework together. Even in this point of my life I was still never made to feel inferior with my hearing. I was only ever picked at for being a little nerdy but that was it. Okay, a lot nerdy. I liked Sci-fi. I'm sure it wasn't all fairy tales and rainbows for most. We all had our not so great moments. And there was the odd time kids would poke fun at something. And there is that good high possibility they made fun of me but I didn't hear them. They say ignorance is bliss, they haven't experienced hard of hearing. Ha ha! When I learned how my trio of HOH friends came into their world of semi silence and how others came into that I began to have questions of my own. I had them before that. It just wasn't important enough for me to ask and my parents already shared some details. (Ones I'm sure some would find rather ridiculous in this day and age!) The most prevalent explanation was that my parents had the same blood type and the family doctor speculated that was why I was born with a hearing loss. Today we know that's a very ridiculous and ignorant answer as many parents have the same blood type. But this was the reason everyone stuck with as it made some sense out of why the child didn't come out 'normal'. I'm not resentful of this particular tidbit as it was made in ignorance in a past that we didn't understand. Even now there’s still much we don’t fully understand.

In high school and much after I didn’t show much outward interest in a romantic life and when I did I brought home extremely questionable individuals. I also didn’t have a high confidence level in myself. My parents worried and considered me behind in my personal life, which I suppose I was. They always thought it was because of my hearing and I didn’t make them think otherwise. I never considered it due to my hearing loss. I suppose they did because it was something tangible they could digest. When I was older I found myself walking on eggshells around adults more than children. Even today I don’t have a high opinion of myself and I explain it off as humble.

Most of this way of dealing with the discomfort of adults has been the most baffling and occasionally it has spilled over in my workplaces. Most have been very well and extremely considerate. We’ve talked and joked about it without a hitch. But sometimes there will be that wayward thing coming from the mouths of adults that will light my fuse. Once I reached the point of contending with adults I became more sensitive and sore about things. Suddenly my hearing loss became the white elephant in the room. This is now the most challenging time for me.

In my adulthood I suspect there were things my parents shielded me from which I haven’t fully been on the receiving end of. My experiences as an adult are far different compared to my childhood. That goes without saying but it wasn’t what I was expecting. I’ve had a great life and I did quite well for myself despite my hearing loss/impairment. However, I did not expect to be brought down by a few uttered comments by family.

I was told that I had become hard of hearing because I had too many ear infections which my parents didn’t take me to the doctor soon enough. I remember having many of them and I do remember sitting in the doctor’s office waiting for antibiotics. A child never told me this. An adult in my own family did.

I was also informed that hearing aids have made me a bit lazy and not wanting to listen. Again, by an adult. Never by a child or a peer.

But the one single comment that took the ever loving fucking kick in the teeth and made me particularly ugly. “Maybe if your parents didn’t have the same blood type you wouldn’t be that way.”

My Grandmother!

My immediate family member! Not a child! Not a peer! An adult that was my own family member.

I find this ironic now seeing as My Grandmother and I now share hearing aid batteries. Some say Karma took a very good journey but that doesn’t help me to forget or feel better about that. In fact, I haven’t forgiven that and I doubt I will anytime soon.

My Hearing Loss is part of who I am and has moulded me into the individual the world sees today. In fact, I do not consider it a ‘Loss’ but a faucet which makes me unique in a sea of what we consider normal. I would not be the person I am now without it. I am just different. There’s no need to advocate my difference through the thought of ‘making it normal’. I wish the world today would stop focusing so much on fighting the good fight with their protests. We are not a political agenda to make you feel good about yourselves. All I want is understanding. That’s it. And maybe some money to pay off these overpriced hearing aids....

#hard of hearing #hearing aids #hearing specialist #unique #tolerances of differences #kindness #acceptance

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alloveroliver · 6 years ago

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Dean ✶ MC |Emilia| "Shut up And Kiss Me"

Mature: Vampire!Dean Tweedle

★ Vampire AU | Ko-Fi Event ★

Prompt: "Choke me and bite me."

WC: 2,383

Ikemen Revolution Fanfic

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At the beginning of Emilia's student teacher job, she couldn't be bothered with wearing matching socks or even styling her hair. The workload was too much for her even to take a lunch break while she assisted Dean Tweedle, the harshest teacher shes ever come across during her training period.

However, over time she found herself able to wake up earlier and earlier. Putting on makeup and making sure our outfit matched was more of a priority for her. She knew the lingering looks she gave Dean began to grow harder to break from. She'd stare at him as he taught the elementary children and, instead of taking notes, would sigh every time his eyes lit up with a smile.

He graded her just as harshly as everyone else despite her grade having far more weight. His reports back to her superior meant her entire career, whereas the children only had to worry about going to summer school instead of camp. Despite his constant over scrutinizing of her work, she pushed herself to do better instead of hanging her head in defeat.

Weeks passed as her crush on the dashing teacher grew, and she began to notice other things about him that he seemed so keen on keeping quiet. His windows were always blocked from the sun, keeping the harsh light of the fluorescence on at all times. Other teachers took their kids outside for recess, but Dean decided to keep his in to study. Odd, but it matched up with his teaching style.

These small things seemed harmless until she realized he stayed late until the sun went down to go home every evening. Or his lack of food each time lunch came around. She'd never even seen him sip a bit of water. He was strange, but nothing inherently wrong with him.

She watched herself slowly fall for him and secretly so did he, yet there was nothing either of them could do about it. No matter how harshly he judged her work, she still tried her damnedest to make sure she would excel. He was exhausting to her, but also somehow very exciting to be around. Dean was impressed, albeit silently. He'd never want her to know she was the best teacher aid he'd ever had.

Disciplinary actions were always unique for his students, and every time Emilia came to class to help, she idly wondered what kind of torture the handsome demon would put them through. Even though she only needed one more credit to graduate from her college class, Dean was still massively scrutinizing over her. He'd threatened to fail her countless times at this point, each time losing the gusto all the other threats had.

Emilia remained on her best behavior, but the last few weeks past so quickly she hadn't had the chance to assess if she was making a good grade, or was at least up to Dean's standards. His passing grazes of the arm, and lingering eyes on her when she smiled didn't help ease her mind. She knew he wouldn't pass her just because he thought she was cute, not that he thought anything like that of her.

Soon, the last days were approaching, and she felt like she learned just about everything she could about the devilish teacher. In the professional setting, however, there wasn't much more she could learn without asking personal questions that were far too inappropriate for his classroom rules.

Soon the last day arrived, and Emilia held her punch-in card in her hand, one last day for Dean to sign, one final spot to be filled.

"Did you attend college later in life?" Dean asked her without looking up from the student papers he graded.

"Um, yeah. I'm actually new to Cradle." She spoke up, hoping to see his smokey eyes meet with hers. "I realized I loved teaching and wanted to become one."

Dean snorted and set down his red pen. Pushing the marked-up paper out of his way, more red pen marked the page than black ink did, he finally looked up. He brushed his golden hair off his forehead and took in a deep breath.

"You came all the way to the Cradle to learn to be a teacher?" He sat back in his chair and eyed the card in her hand.

Emilia fiddled with the small card and nodded her head "Sort of. I really enjoy knowing that I made a difference in someone's life an-"

Dean stood abruptly. His chair rolled back and came to a stop by the chalkboard as he walked towards her. "That's admirable."

She realized he'd never asked her any of these questions before. Even when the silence stretched around them, he'd kept the small talk off the table. He reached his large hand out to take the card from her.

"Once I sign this card, you are no longer my assistant." He stated flatly.

"Oh understood." She nodded her head. "We all do things for our own reasons." She smiled. "What's your reason? Why did you start to teach?" She pushed her lips together while handing him the small time punch card, willing her mouth to stop asking so many questions.

"Why don't you take a guess." Dean smiled down at her. His face lit up for a moment before he turned away to walk back to his desk.

"Um," Emilia thought long and hard but stated the first thing that popped into her mind. "You teach because you enjoy adhering to strict guidelines and want to instill that in the youth. You may also have a kink for punishing people." Her face grew red in an instant. "I mean! Like, you really enjoy punshi-"

Dean's eyes grew wide in surprise and let out an astonished breath as he looked over his shoulder at her. He began to laugh out loud. "A kink for punishment?" He inquired, holding his chest as he chuckled. The pen he signed the paper with rolled off onto the floor.

Emilia was taken aback. She apologized a few times but they fell on deaf ears. She'd never seen him smile like this. Nothing more than a small smirk ever came to his lips, and that was when his discipline was playing out in front of him.

"You think I get off punishing people?" Dean put his hand on his head and continued chuckling.

She couldn't keep the smile off her face, seeing him so jolly for once. "Yes, I do. I won't take it back. The only times I've seen you smile are when you come up with a new cruel punishment you can't wait to dish out." She stood her ground.

"Fine, I won't deny it." He looked back over to her and shook his head. "It's a little bit nice watching someone's behavior become corrected." His eyes were unmoving from hers.

Emilia blushed under the tense gaze and shifted her feet. Thoughts of her life in the past few months flashed before her eyes. All the things she did to make him happy, how she adapted her life to follow his special rules.

"Oh my god, you've been doing that to me!" She reached out and smacked his arm. No longer his underling, she felt more relaxed to joke with him.

"You are exceptional." He leaned down to her eye level. Emilia felt compelled to move forward but remain planted in one spot. The praise he gave her almost sounded sarcastic. He obviously wasn't used to dishing out many praises, but he seemed to make an exception for her.

"Thank you?" She scrunched her brows. "What was that compliment for specifically?"

"Just you in general." He stood back up straight.

Dean reached out and pushed a piece of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. Oddly, he admired the crook of her neck before dropping his hand.

"Oh, okay thanks." She felt her whole body flush in a rush of heat at his touch. "You are, um, awesome." She smiled, thinking that returning the compliment was less rude of her.

Dean took a step toward her and Emilia looked up at him with wide eyes. His hand came down to rest on her lower back, and he smirked. "May I?" He tapped her back.

Gulping, she found her answer. "Sure."

Dean pressed his large hand to the little of her back and pulled her to him. His other hand came up and cupped her small cheek. Fingers brushed her soft skin, and he studied her face in a way that felt oddly intimate.

His pale features grew dark as his eyes dazzled her. At that moment the world froze. His face came closer to her and her heartbeat took off in a runaway beat. It was almost like the millions of daydreams she had of this man all rolled into one. Except this was better, his proximity was real this time.

By the time she melted in his arms his lips were already pressing to her neck. Everything seemed to be in a daze for a long moment. She shook her head and grasped his blazer.

"Wait!" She blurted out. Dean stopped and pulled back pensively. "You're- you are kissing me?" She gripped his jacket tighter and held him to her.

"Did I read this wrong?" He held his breath, not wanting to make her uncomfortable.

"No! No. I am just. I'm happy. I didn't think you'd want to be close to me like this…" Emilia relaxed into his embrace and hugged him closer.

"Are you blind?" He admonished, bringing his lips back down to her neck. "I've been starving for you." He murmured.

"Starving?" She squeaked when his teeth sank deep into her neck, quick and mostly painless. "Oh…" Realization rushed over her.

"Does it hurt?" Dean asked, slowly drawing her blood directly from her vein.

"Kind of, but…. I don't mind." Emilia hugged him closer, wrapping her arms around his torso. Thoughts swirled in her mind, but she knew what he had to be. Many of her friends at the Black army headquarters suffered the same fate as Dean, becoming a vampire at a young age.

Emilia held him tighter, somehow feeling closer to him knowing his secret. A sigh escaped her, relaxing further against his strong chest. Dean licked her neck around the puncture holes and sighed.

"A little masochist aren't we?" He jested and moved his lips over the now healed wound all over the column of her neck.

Dean's lips trailed up to her jaw and kissed the corner of her mouth. He kept his lips centimeters away from her and pressed his forehead into hers. "I've wanted you for a long time now, Emilia. But I thought it inappropriate since I was grading you on your performance-"

"Shut up and kiss me." She smiled, brushing her nose against his.

"As you wish," His smiling lips met hers, and they melted together in the heat of it all.

Hands moving, twinning in one another's hair, lips clashing, claiming one another as their own, and hearts beating, racing together as one. Her nerves began to melt and were replaced with passionate desires.

Dean's hand moved to her jaw squeezing to part her lush lips for his tongue to dive in. Metallic iron and a hint of the cinnamon tea he sipped daily clashed in her mouth. Euphoria raced through her veins the longer they kissed like this.

Soon his strong arms were carrying her to his desk. He sat her atop the graded papers, unconcerned for them fluttering to the ground. It was all a blur as he parted her legs to allow his body closer to hers. His lips claimed her mouth over and over again until she was drunk on his kiss alone.

Of course, she read him wrong. Dean was perceived and stoic but held passion behind his tough exterior. All the memories of the times he'd help her carry the stacks of papers, offered her an arm when going to the same place, or when he stole a glance at her during his lecture began to shine brighter than all the other thoughts. It seemed so evident to her now, silly even that he was just as smitten with her as she was with him.

"I didn't think you would be so docile," He smirked against her collarbone, kissing her shoulder as he pushed down the fabric to expose it.

"Docile?! You've caught me off guard!" She exclaimed, teasingly huffing after her statement.

"I expect you to be more of a brat, to be honest. You are so strong willed it seemed logical to come to that conclusion." Dean's voice softened the longer they intertwined. He kissed her neck, leaving extra kisses on the bite mark he left.

She ran her fingers through his hair like she'd imagined doing a hundred times. "What do you want me to say? Choke me and bite me?"

Dean let out a humorous breath, "I've already done one of those things."

Emilia stiffened when his kiss trailed down farther between her breasts. Her blouse was already haphazardly unbuttoned, and now his pointing finger was tugging at her bra in the middle to expose her further. With the end of the day, the students and other teachers would be home by now. The halls were empty and quiet, allowing them the pleasure to be unconcerned for how much sound they made.

His mouth didn't stop exploring the curves of her body. He pushed her skirt up and tugged it to slip up her waistline. Pushing the fabric out of the way, his lips met her stomach. Kissing her navel, he trailed straight down to her intimate center.

Just like how he kissed her mouth, he kissed between her legs. With passion and tongue, he pleasured her most sensitive spot until she was moaning his name into the empty classroom. A name she'd never thought would fall from her lips in such a lewd gasp, yet it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

"I-" She arched off the desk and dug her nails into his hair. "I- Ah"

"You're close?" He tried to finish her sentence, barely leaving her swollen nub to speak.

"No- I mean yes, but..." Emilia took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. "I want to see you again."

Thank you, @obsessedotomeplayer for ALL the Kofi commissions!!!

This prompt ran away from me.... sorry XD

Status of Ko-fi event at the top of my blog!

#ikemen revolution #dean tweedle #vampire!dean Tweedle #dean x mc #smut #mature #blood thirsty fics

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godess-ofthe-underworld · 6 years ago

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See You Again (A Harry Hook x reader story

Alrighty guys new part coming at you!

Pat 10

Summary: When Hadley, Daughter of the feared ruler of the Underworld Hades, is sent along with her 4 best friends to Auradon Prep she must leave behind a certain pirate who stole her heart. Will she be able to keep the promise she made to him or will it all go up in flames?

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters in Descendants. Hadley and the plot between her and Harry are mine.

The next afternoon Hadley sat doodling in rg101 not listening to a word Fairy Godmother was saying.

Towards the end of class, FG called for everyone's attention

“ As you know, this Friday is family day here at Auradon Prep, and seeing as your parents can't be here due to…uh.. distance” she laughed. “ We have arranged for a special treat.” she clapped her hands together and walked backwards towards one of the two screens at the front of the room. FG pressed a button and the screen popped to life.

Maleficent's face was obnoxiously close to the screen trying to figure out the new technology.

“ I don't see anything, nor do I hear.” Maleficent's voice booked through the speakers.

“Kids!” FG waved the five over.

They all stood, sharing glances as they made their way to the front of the classroom.

When Maleficent retreated to her spot back on the couch in between Jafar and Cruella, Hadley noticed an absence of blue fire.

“Is it.. is it.. can I please see a remote?!” Maleficent yelled.

Evil Queen handed her one from beside her.

As they kept babbling about how the thing wouldn't work, Hadley couldn't help but feel disappointed that she didn't see her father among them. Some hwo they got their screen to turn on.

“Oh Evie!it's Mommy!” EQ waved to Evie “oh look how beautiful. You know what they say, the poison apple don't fall far from the tree.” Evie blushed.

“Don't you mean the weeds?” Maleficent shot back.

“Eww! Who's the old bat!?” Cruella asked pointing to FG.

“This is Fairy Godmother.” Mal said.

“Still doing tricks with eggplants?” Maleficent laughed and the rest followed suit.

“ I turned a pumpkin into a beautiful carriage!” FG defended.

“You really couldn't give Cinderella till 1am?” Maleficent shot again “ What? Did the hamsters have to be back on their little wheels?!”

“They were mice!” FG shot back “ she turned to the five behind her. “They were mice” before leaving the frame she said it again.

“Fairy Godmother?” Hadley asked moving over to where she now stood.

“Yes dear?”

“Where is my father?” Hadley played with the sleeves of her jacket.

“Oh that's right! I'm so sorry dear but your father couldn't make it. Something came up in the Underworld that he had to take care of.” Hadley looked down understanding.

“But, one of your teachers graciously told of of some other people we could call for you”

Fairy Godmother moved around the first screen and towards the second one a few feet away. Hadley curiously followed.

When Fairy Godmother pressed the button on the keypad of the second screen Hadley's eyes lit up and she let out a small laugh.

Sitting,squished together on a battered old burgundy leather armchair, where two of Hadley's most favorite people.

Harry and CJ where both fighting over the remote to turn their screen.

“Fork it o’er ya runt!” Harry grunted trying to pull the remote from his younger sisters hand.

“No!I wanna do it! She's my friend too!” She fought back. For being only 11 she's pretty strong.

“But she was mine first!”

CJ is Harry's youngest sister she's a tall, slender girl with golden brown eyes, tanned skin and dirty blonde hair that is always tied into a heavy ponytail with blue,red and green beans braided in. CJ wore a red thigh length coat with gold embroidery, much like her father's. Her white ruffled shirt was tucked into her dark shorts with golden legging underneath. Her legging were embroidered with maps of Neverland and they were tucked into knee high high-heeled boots.

Harry was absent of his hook, long red coat and hat. His will mop of dark hair flung around and his eyes were lined by thick black liner, making them stand out more than normal against his tanned skin. He wore his ripped up white undershirt, which exposed parts of his torso from the many training sessions on the ship.

In the process of them fighting, one of them pressed the right button and their screen turned on.

They both froze when they heard Hadley laughing.

“ Do you two ever stop fighting?” Hadley asked crossing her arms.

Both rushed at the screen, almost falling off the chair.

“Hadley! We miss you” CJ shouted.

“ouch quiet down you. She ain't deaf!” Harry said rubbing his ear that she'd screamed in.

“I miss you guys too.”

“When are you comin’ home Hadie? We all miss you round here. Even Uma.”

“ Yeah I seriously doubt that.” Hadley rolled her eyes. “ But there's a big coronation coming up so maybe sometime after that.”

“When?” Harry raised an eyebrow.

“Saturday. 10am. The whole schools invite so…” Hadley gave a small smile.

“Do we really have to wait that long?” CJ whined.

“ I'm afraid so.”

There was a long pause between the three where they just looked at one another.

CJ suddenly looked behind Hadley, noticing that everyone else was leaving.

“Looks like you're friends are leaving.” She said pointing towards the back of the room.

Hadley looked behind her her face falling when she realized CJ was right.

“Guess that means I should be going to.” Hadley frowned, turning back around.

Both Harry and CJ's faces fell.

“Are ya sure haddie?” Harry asked.

“Yeah. Got a lot of homework to do.” She winked.

Harry and CJ smiled.

“I'll talk to you guys soon. Hopefully.”

“Ok haddie”

“Bye Hadley!”

“Ouch! Will ye quit screamin’?”

Hadley laughed and waved to the camera.

“Bye guys. Tell your dad I said hi”

“Will do!” CJ smiled sadly.

“Bye.”

“Bye”

Hadley clicked a button on the keypad and the screen went dark. She stared at it for a few moments before returning back to her desk and collecting her things.

“ Thank you Fairy Godmother” Hadley smiled.

“ You're welcome dear.”

When Hadley caught up to the others they were halfway down the hall.

That night the five gathered around the table in Jay and Carlos's room, Mal's sketch of the wand was placed in the center and a map of the coronation hall.

“Ok so we all know what this looks like?” Mal's asked tapping the picture. “ It will be up on the dais under the Beast's spell jar. Then we will be coming in from here, I will be in the very front. You all will be up in the balcony. Carlos?”

“I'll find our limo to break the barrier, then we'll get back on the island with the wand.”

“Perfect. Evie, you will use this to take out the driver” Mal Heald out a blue perfume bottle out to Evie. “ Two spays and he will be out like a light.”

Evei nodded her head. The five looked at each other before leaving the table.

Hadley and Evie noticed Mal looking through on of the pages in her spell book.

“M! You wanna break Ben's love spell?” Evie gasped.

Mal looked up at the two in shock.

“Yeah… you know for after.” Evie sat down next to Mal at the table and Hadley stood behind her and placed an hand on her shoulder.

“I've just been thinking, you know when the Villains finally do invade Auradon and being to loot and kick everyone out of their castles, and imprison their leaders,and destroys all that is good and beautiful… Ben still being in love with me just seems a little extra… cruel.” Mal shrugged Hadley's hand off and bolted from the room before anyone could say anything. Hadley and Evie looked to each other before linking arms and bidding goodnight to the boys.

That night Hadley had a hard time sleeping, she kept tossing and turning, her blue and white hair splayed out over her pillow in all directions.

She sighed looking up at the canopy above her four poster bed. Sitting up, Hadley threw the covers off and grabbed her notebook. She sat down at her window and opened it.

She touched the pencil tip to the paper and let her mind wander.

Hours later she looked to the alarm clock next to her bed. 4:30am flashed in red numbers across the small screen. She looked back to the drawing she made. It was the back view of two small children holding hands. One, a girl with tall fire like hair, her free hand alight with a swirling fire and dark swirls of smoke billowing at her feet. The other, a boy in a long oversized coat with a pirate hat, carrying a large hook in his other hand.

Hadley's mind had wandered to the day was left on the isle.

Flashback:

A small girl, maybe five or six, stood on the busy cobblestone streets of the surface world. Her fiery blue hair blew around with he passing people. She wore a long tattered grey dress that swirled a dark cloud around her bare feet. She rushed to the side as she tried to avoid being stepped on by the passing people. Tear tracks made their way down her dirty cheeks as she slid down a dark alleyway wall. She clutched her stuffed dog to her chest and sobbed into her knees. She was alone and scared.

After running around the Underworld with her father Hades, he sent her up to the surface after she accidentally released a few souls from the River Styx, causing a small zombie problem in Charmington. Up until that point she was raised mainly by her father's minions, Pain and Panic. The two tried as best they could to keep the girl out of trouble. Inevitably, she always found a way and everytime she got in trouble, they would too.

She sat up against the wall and sniffled gazing at the stuffed animal in her hand.

As way to try to keep her out of trouble one day, Pain and Panic suggested to make a stuffed animal with the girl.

After hours of Pain getting poked by the needle and Panic making sure the girl was out of reach of the sharp object, Cerby, the three headed stuffed likeness of the Underworld guard dog was born.

Down the alleyway at the other end a small boy of seven was lurking. He wore a long red overcoat and a small black pirates hat that hid most of his dark hair. He held in his left hand a silver hook that was far too big for him. His bright blue eyes searched high and low for shiny trinkets to swipe.

His ears perked at the sound of crying at the other end of the alley. Being a curious lad he followed the narrow alley all the way down. His eyes shifted through the darkness, landing on a small hudled form against the wall.

“Why are ye crying?” He asked. His accent was thick, something the small girl had never heard before.

The girl jumped at the sudden sound of his voice.

“ What's it to you?” She snapped wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

The boy raised his arms up.

“ Sorry, jus askin. The names Harry. Harry Hook” He extended a hand.

“Hadley.” She looked up at his hand for a moment then him before taking his hand.

“ well Hadley I ain't never seen ye around here before.”

“I live in the Underworld. At least I did.” She replied sadly.

“The Underworld? What's a lass like yourself doing down there?” He laughed.

Hadleys anger flared as the boy laughed. Her hair glowed a vibrant blue and her ice colored eyes lit up in the dark alley.

“i happen to be a goddess. I'm Hadley, goddess of the Underworld and of chaos, my father is Hades God of the Underworld.” Hadley yelled.

Harry shrunk back a few steps his blue eyes blown wide as he stared at the ball of fire before him.

“Easy there flame thrower, I didn't mean anythin by it! I was jus askin!”

Haldey calmed enough for her hair and eyes to maintain a low glow.

“Sorry, my dad just left me here. I have no idea where I am, or where I'm going to go.”

Harry thought for a moment before an idea popped into his head.

“ Why don't ye come with me back to my house?” He asked

“Why would you help me?”she snarked sitting back down against the wall.

“Cause even though I'm a villain kid, I still know when to help someone who needs it.. so what do ya say?” Harry held out his hand again.

Hadley looked up at him for a moment before grabbing his hand and nodding.

“Hey that fire trick sure can come in handy for taking things.” Harry said as they walked out of the alley and into the busy street.

Hadley and Harry walked away laughing as fire erupted from Hadley's hands and hair.

Hadley smiled at the memory looking back out the window towards the Isle.

(Hadley)

A million thoughts in my head Should I let my heart keep listening? 'Cause up 'til now I've walked the line Nothing lost but something missing I can't decide What's wrong, what's right Which way should I go? If only I knew what my heart was telling me Don't know what I'm feeling Is this just a dream? Ah oh, yeah If only I could read the signs in front of me I could find the way to who I'm meant to be Ah oh, if only If only [2x] Every step, every word With every hour I am falling in To something new, something brave To someone I—I have never been I can't decide What's wrong, what's right Which way should I go? If only I knew what my heart was telling me Don't know what I'm feeling Is this just a dream? Ah oh, yeah If only I could read the signs in front of me I could find the way to who I'm meant to be Ah oh, if only Yeah Am I crazy? Maybe we could happen Yeah Will you still be with me when the magic's all run out? If only I knew what my heart was telling me Don't know what I'm feeling Is this just a dream? Ah oh... If only I could read the signs in front of me I could find the way to who I'm meant to be Ah oh... If only, yeah [3x] If only [3x]

Slowly her eyes shut and she fell into a dreamless sleep.

I can’t believe were already at Part 10! There are only a few more parts left to this story so stay tuned cause shit is about to go down. ;)

If you liked this part and want part 11 please like, comment or reblog! this story is also on my Wattpad (@phelpsphan). if you would like to be tagged in this series to know when i update it please message me. Love ya!

Tag list: @sexyshortie-universe // @haroldhookwriter // @highladyjel

#harry hook x reader #harry hook #daughter of hades #mal jay carlos evie #disney descendants

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meowloudly15 · 6 years ago

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Stranded: Day 2 - LOZENGE BOMBARDMENT

I make my triumphant sort-of-return! Chapter updates may or may not be on schedule from here on out. If they can't be, then I'll post them as soon as they're ready. Thought you guys deserved to know ^w^

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Gwen stopped running when she saw, not too far in the distance, a large suspension bridge supported by two massive stone columns. She surveyed the area for street signs and saw one that read, "Brooklyn Bridge /|\".

There wasn't much further to go.

What would she do when she got to this town called Brooklyn?

Again, she needed to find shelter. And food, she recalled, as her stomach growled.

She would cross that metaphorical bridge when she came to it. Right now, Gwen needed to cross a literal bridge.

Was there a sidewalk running alongside it, or a maintenance walkway?

There was only one way to find out.

Gwen headed to the bridge. Sure enough, the sidewalk continued up a flight of stairs and crossed the bridge, running parallel to the road.

As she walked, Gwen tried not to think about Peter.

She couldn't help it.

Memories flooded back into her head, memories that she had tried to repress for two years.

Peter J. Parker had been Gwen's best friend since junior high, despite being a grade above her. They first met by chance: Gwen was held after school for detention (she had been caught letting Kevin Martin cheat off of her), and Peter had stayed after to attend coding club. Gwen had left the detention classroom and was on her way to the office so she could call her father for a ride, when she passed by Kevin, who was hassling Peter.

Kevin yelled at him, "What did you call me, pipsqueak? What did you call me?"

Gwen walked over to them. "Hey, Kevin! What're you bothering him for?"

"Stay out of this, blondie." Kevin grabbed Peter's shirt collar and started twisting it. Peter yelped in surprise.

Gwen stepped closer, hands on her hips. "What did he do to you?"

"He called me a… a… simple-"

"A simplistic prokaryote," squeaked out Peter. "But, you know, they both mean-"

"Let him go," demanded Gwen.

Kevin looked at her. "What did you say?"

"Are you deaf and dumb? I said let him go!"

Kevin folded his arms and pouted. "All right, fine, whatever."

Peter scampered away, and Gwen trotted after him.

They introduced themselves and started to chat. Apparently, they lived pretty close to each other. Peter had been on Gwen's bus until the bus schedules had been swapped around. They also both liked science class best (although Gwen initially claimed to prefer lunch). By the time Peter's aunt had arrived to pick him up, the two had become fast friends.

Although their paths diverged upon entering high school – Peter was fascinated by chemistry and studied it intensely, while Gwen chose to neglect her schoolwork in favour of music – the two remained close, although they never ventured beyond platonic friendship. Peter had a massive crush on Em Jay Watson, whom Gwen had admired at the time and who was considered "simultaneously the most beautiful and most rebellious girl in school". Gwen dated a couple of guys to seem cooler but was never truly interested in a relationship.

After the ill-fated field trip to Ozcorp in which Gwen was bitten by an irradiated spider, she had confided in Peter about her newfound abilities. He, of course, was extremely excited, at least at first.

"Holy cow! Holy cow! Do it again!" he yelled, eagerly hopping up and down after watching Gwen do a standing backflip in his basement. Gwen grinned, repeating the stunt. She was just as enthusiastic as he was, if not more so.

Peter jittered around for a second, then darted to his desk, grabbed a notebook and pencil, and started scribbling down notes. "Is that all you can do? Just the agility thing?"

Gwen replied, "I don't think so. That's not even the highest that I can jump."

She bent her legs and sprang up, easily placing her palm flat against the ceiling, which was around eight feet off of the ground. However, instead of coming down, she remained stuck to the ceiling.

"What the…"

Gwen panicked. She started jerking herself around, trying to unstick herself. She swung her legs up against the ceiling, bracing herself against it and pulling downward. All her efforts only made the drywall crack a bit.

"Peter! Pull me down!"

Peter obligingly rushed over and wrapped his arms around her torso. With their combined effort, they broke the plaster and freed Gwen's hand. She was left with a handful of sharp chips of plaster for her efforts.

They looked at each other.

"You can stick to things," Peter commented as Gwen asked, "Is your aunt gonna get mad that I broke your ceiling?"

They both started yelling at each other.

Eventually, after a lot more testing and just as much confusion, Gwen managed to get a handle on the extent of her powers, and Peter took it upon himself to design her a costume and a pair of web-shooters. He drew upon research from Ozcorp to develop a fluid that, upon exposure to air, would harden into a solid for a period of time and then disintegrate. Of course, he needed somebody with superpowers to be his guinea pig.

Gwen stood on the roof of her house at one in the morning for the first trial of the web-shooters. Peter watched from below, holding a stopwatch and notebook. "Whenever you're ready," he called up.

Gwen took a deep breath, stepped backward a few paces, and then ran along the ridge, firing her web-shooter at a nearby tree. She jumped into the air, grabbing hold of the webline, and plummeted to the ground as the line disintegrated in her grasp.

Peter ran over to her, saying, "Hey! Gwen! You okay?"

Gwen extracted herself from a rosebush, grumbling, "Oh, Dad's gonna be ticked off."

"I'm sorry it didn't work. Next time, I'll-"

"My dad's gonna be furious at me, and you know why? It was your bright idea to go jumping off the friggin' roof in the first place! And it was you who said we could just field-test this batch before we make any more! And now I've ruined my mom's old rosebush!"

Peter snapped. "'We'? Who's this 'we' you keep talking about? You're not the one who's taking huge chunks of time out of his schedule to help out a friend! You're not the one who spent hours slaving over Ozcorp's research papers! You're not the one who started getting Bs on all his assignments because of all the time he spent working on this, this stupid little pet project! You're the one parading around with your spider-abilities, starting impromptu arm-wrestling matches in the cafeteria to win pocket change, showing off in gym class, all because you think you're so special! Well, you're not! You're just a stupid wannabe punk kid who just happens to have superpowers and who'd be failing in algebra if it weren't for me!"

Gwen blinked, then huffed. "Go home, Parker. I'm going to bed."

It wasn't until later that night when Gwen realised how much of a jerk she had been to Peter. She had made him freak out, all because she was mad about a stupid rosebush. She should have known that Peter's confidence was as fragile as his body.

Gwen apologised to Peter, but their friendship was never quite the same after that night. Peter did perfect the web-fluid formula and gave her instructions for making more, but he stopped going out of his way to contact her. Indeed, even after stopping his web-fluid experiments, he seemed paler and more exhausted than usual.

Gwen noticed a little itch at the back of her skull, a little voice in her head whispering "GREEN MONSTER", every time she saw Peter. For the most part, she ignored it.

Gwen flinched unconsciously upon remembering these things. She wished she had listened. She wished she had reached out more.

But then again, at the time, she hadn't known about her precognition. She hadn't thought that Peter needed her friendship as much. She hadn't known what he had been planning.

Gwen finally shook herself free from her memories as she reached the end of the bridge and looked around. So this was Brooklyn.

UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY

She really needed a map, but going to a police station to fetch one was out of the question. Was there a tourist centre nearby?

Maybe she could get a better view from above.

Gwen put her mask and gloves back on and shot a webline to the top of the tallest building nearby. She leaped up and started hauling herself up the line, hand over hand, until she reached the fire escape to which her webline had attached.

LOZENGE BOMBARDMENT

Gwen furrowed her brow, tensing up, preparing herself for any sort of action, no matter what it might be.

She turned sharply upon hearing a high-pitched scream inside the brick apartment and saw a little girl standing at the half-open window in her pajamas. The girl threw a cough drop at her and beat a hasty retreat inside.

Gwen chuckled to herself. She then realised that the little girl's mother would probably be on the warpath, so she decided to climb up to the next level of the fire escape in order to survey Brooklyn.

VISION OF BROOKLYN

The message was accompanied with a persistent, very faint itch at the nape of her neck. Gwen had to slap her hand to the back of her head to make sure there wasn't a bug on her. She spotted a billboard that read, "Visions Academy. Give your child a brighter vision for their future. Enroll now."

That must have been it. That was where she needed to go.

Gwen studied the billboard more closely. Did it mention the school's location anywhere?

Sadly, it did not. Oh well. She had nothing better to do than to look for it.

Gwen had begun to absent-mindedly drum her fingers on the railing of the fire escape when she saw a middle-aged lady peek her head out from the window of the apartment below. She hurriedly pressed herself up against the brick wall.

The lady pulled her head back in and said, "There's nothing out there. No need to worry."

"But I'm telling you, I saw a ghost! It was wearing clothes and stuff, but its skin was totally white, and it had no face! And it had this big weird lump on its back!"

"That's nice, Cassie. But there's nobody out there."

"Exactly! It vanished! It's a ghost!"

Gwen chuckled. She supposed her costume did make her look a little bit like a ghost.

Anyway, she had to find that school, but first, she needed something to eat.

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#spidergwen #spider gwen #gwen stacy #ghost spider #spiderverse #into the spiderverse #spiderman into the spiderverse #fanfic #fanfiction #fic #spiderverse fanfic #spiderverse fic #writing #stranded #stranded fanfic

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myforeverforlife · 7 years ago

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a voice of your own.

It’s not that you hate being deaf. Despite all of the hardships, you’ve always managed to adapt to them with a determination and a smile all of your own. You even cherish many of the friends and memories that you’ve made along the way. But during your first year of college, you meet a hearing boy who intrigues you like no other. As the two of you get closer, you find that the old longings, your wish to be able to hear again resurfaces. How you wish you could hear his voice, his laughter, the sound of your name on his lips.

Word Count: 6,867

Masterlist

For most young children, dreams are fickle, always changing. Most children have dreamed of obtaining simple things: toys, snacks, good grades.

When you were younger, all you wished for was the ability to hear again.

A brain injury as a child in a horrific accident left you with traumatic damage and hearing loss. The doctors had explained it to your father and grandmother over and over, but they were still stuck in a state of disbelief.

“Deaf? That can’t be possible, how can she be deaf? She’ll never be able to hear again?”

After lots of testing, it was concluded that you had lost almost all of your hearing in both ears, with most of the damage affecting the temporal lobe of your brain. You could vaguely pick up on extremely loud noises, like the sounds at a construction site, but they only registered faintly in your ears. Never again would you hear the sound of water as it spewed from the faucet, of the door closing shut as your father came home, of your grandmother shuffling across the floor in her slippers.

Never again would you hear the magic of speech, of verbal communication. It didn’t help that the accident hadn’t only affected your brain’s temporal lobe. Certain areas related to language were affected as well. “Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas,” the doctors had told your father. “Leading to something called global aphasia. Your daughter is likely to have difficulty retaining or expressing language – possibly both.”

You and your family had taken notice of a change in the way you spoke after the accident, words harder for you to speak and to remember. You didn’t want to read aloud, much less laugh or speak for fear of shocking others with your voice. Forming sounds in your mouth now felt foreign to you, and the few times that you had tried to read aloud during speech therapy lessons, you had been so embarassed by the corrections that the speech-language pathologists had given you. Remembering new vocabulary was also a struggle, and you often had to work harder than others in order to remember these new words.

Left with only a few ways to communicate, your father and grandmother tried to teach you sign language. It was difficult at first, especially since you didn’t even want to attempt to learn. In your eight-year-old mind, you were content with writing out your thoughts on paper for the rest of your life. But your family knew better, and watched as you grew more and more frustrated by how much time it took to write out what you wanted to say.

The pathologists had also tried to work with you to get your speaking abilities up to par, but it was agreed that if you preferred to sign instead of speaking, it was your choice. Your memories of what things sounded like, what you had been able to hear before the accident motivated you, always calmed you down whenever you were fed up with having to go over speech and language lessons for what seemed like the hundredth time. At least you could remember what some of these words sounded like to you, long ago.

And so, you finally began to learn how to sign.

Surprisingly, you found that signing didn’t confine your ability to speak, but instead gave you new and more creative ways to communicate. Sign language even conveyed meanings of words differently than they did through speech, and you were soon actively searching out new signs, showing them to your family.

But most children at school weren’t as understanding. A lot of them stared at you from afar, murmuring about how you couldn’t hear anymore. When you thought about it, it seemed ridiculous how they would whisper about you – it’s not like you could hear them anyways, they might as well just speak like they usually did.

Staying in your classroom and keeping up with the other students was difficult, even with an instructional aide, and you were moved to a special education classroom. You would spend most of your time in the special education class, with a couple of hours each day in the general education class taking part in things like art activities and physical education for the remainder of your public school experience. That experience, however, was a short one.

Your grandmother was the one tasked with picking you up from school, and she grew increasingly worried about your changes in mood and motivation. Even with help from services provided by the school and therapy sessions, you were still struggling and never looked forward to leaving home. After about a year, you were taken out of public school altogether and placed in one for the deaf.

Despite being slow to warm up to others, you soon felt more at home in this school than you did in your previous one. You even made friends, joking with them and making up inside jokes that even the teachers couldn’t follow. You still had difficulties in certain areas, but seeing other children who had the same or similar conditions as you helped with overcoming the sense of alienation, of strangeness that you had once felt.

When prospects of college came nearer, you grew worried once again. “What if I don’t feel like I can communicate with everyone?” you asked your friend, Junmyeon. “What if people laugh at me?”

“Even if they laugh at you, it doesn’t matter,” he signed back to you, face determined as his hands moved. “It’s their loss if they don’t want to get to know you.”

A smile formed on your face involuntarily, and you were grateful for your friend’s words of comfort. “Thank you, Junmyeon,” you said, emphasizing the sign for his name. Names in sign language were tricky: you could either finger-spell a name, but that usually took too long, or come up with a sign to represent that person’s name. Junmyeon once had a sign for his name that his parents gave him, but kids at school ended up making a new one for him once they saw how well he did in class. Junmyeon’s name in sign language was the sign for “smart”, signed with a “J”.

“You’re welcome, Y/N,” he replied, signing your name just as enthusiastically, the word “happy” signed with the first initial of your name.

You burst into silent laughter, body doubling over where you sat as Junmyeon grinned down at you.

As your noiseless giggles died down, Junmyeon’s face grew wistful. “I wish I could hear laughter. I bet it would be beautiful,” he said, drawing out the sign for “beautiful”.

You felt guilty about your own worries once you remembered those of your friend’s. Junmyeon had been born deaf, had never known the sound of his own voice. It was hard for him to imagine what laughter sounded like, despite people’s attempts to describe it.

Gently, you laid a hand over his. Although you didn’t say anything, you knew that he could understand what you were trying to tell him.

“It’s okay. At least we have our signs.”

And with your signs to support you, you entered college. Ironically, as an English major.

“How will you learn?” your father had signed to your with concern on his face. “How can you do presentations if you do not speak? What if you have problems communicating with others?” When you had first expressed interest in going to college, he had thought that you would pick a school for the deaf, like the one you had been going to for years.

“I can sign!” you yelled back through your symbols, the hand movements sharp as you glared at him. “And I can write. I can write just as well as any hearing student.” It was true. If anything, your grades in writing and reading were always the highest out of all of the subjects that you took.

You saw your father’s chest heave up and down as he sighed, a hand coming up to his forehead as he kneaded it in thought. “Okay,” he finally replied. “I have faith in you.”

But even your family’s support and your burst of confidence weren’t enough to stop the shaking of your legs on your first day on campus. You had contacted the school’s special services department, and they had provided you with an aide to help you follow along in your classes. Minseok, your aide, had greeted you with a big smile when he met you at the student union before your first class.

“Hi,” he waved to you. “I’m Minseok,” he finger-spelled slowly. “But my friends use this sign instead.” He made the sign for “cat”, his hands moving to imitate whiskers on his face as a slight flush appeared on his cheeks.

“All of your friends are deaf?” you asked with a smile, hoping that he understood that you were joking. Luckily, he followed what you meant quite well.

He gave a small chuckle before shaking his head no. “Not all, but some of them. I can introduce you to them sometime if you want?”

“That would be great. Thank you.”

Having Minseok with you in class was much less nerve-wracking and frustrating than you thought it would be. Although you took notes yourself by following along with whatever was on the board, Minseok took notes as well of whatever the professor said that wasn’t included in the papers or presentation slides, making sure to sign to you anything that was said verbally. Your professors were kind enough to make sure that you knew where to access these handouts and slides online if you ever needed to go back and look at them once more.

As the two of you were eating lunch in the cafeteria, you saw a boy approach Minseok from behind, your friend still completely unaware. Before you could tap Minseok's hand to alert him, the stranger reached out and ruffled his hair.

Minseok quickly glanced up from his plate, sauce sticking to the corner of his mouth as he looked up to see who it was. Once he saw the boy, his face broke out into a grin.

The new boy’s lips started moving, and you watched him silently. “A hearing boy,” you thought to yourself. Minseok’s lips moved as well, too fast for you to guess what he was saying.

“This is Y/N, the girl I told you about,” he told Baekhyun before looking back at you. “This is my friend, Baekhyun,” he said, spelling out the last word. “We’ve known each other since high school.”

You gave the new boy, this Baekhyun, a small wave before turning back to your food and picking at the pieces there with your fork.

“She’s not much for conversation, is she?” Baekhyun asked his friend.

“She’s a little shy. I’ll catch up with you later?” Minseok didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, and he could tell by the way that you were moving the same piece of pasta around on your plate that you were anxious for Baekhyun to leave.

Baekhyun gave a tentative nod before moving the strap of his backpack higher up on his shoulder. “Okay, see you later,” he replied before walking away, looking back over his shoulder a couple of times towards you before he left the cafeteria.

“Sorry,” Minseok apologized, making sure that you could see his hands, the way they timidly signed.

“It’s okay,” you told him. “It’s just that I’ve been so used to going to a school for the deaf for so long that sometimes I forget what it’s like to be around so many hearing people.”

Minseok gave you a sympathetic look before moving his hands once more. “My cousin says the same thing. Jongin has been deaf since he was a baby, and he grew up only going to deaf schools. Even now, he goes to a high school for the deaf.”

“Is that why you decided to become a special services aide?” you asked curiously. Minseok had told you that he was a part-time student as well as working with the university, and you wondered why a student would voluntarily take on this challenge.

“Sort of,” Minseok said with a thoughtful expression. “But also because I enjoy signing. I like being able to communicate in another way, besides using my voice. Signing is beautiful, even if others can’t understand it.”

Touched by his sincere words, you could only find it in you to give him a small reply: “Thank you.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Minseok asked, one eyebrow lifting as he watched you apprehensively. It was already your second week of classes, but Minseok was still worried about you getting lost on campus.

“I’m sure. Thank you for everything, Minseok.” You decided that you wanted to check out the library after classes since you had time until your grandmother came to get you, but Minseok had some urgent matters at home that needed taking care of, and he wouldn’t be able to accompany you.

“Okay, but if you need anything, just text me.”

“I will. Bye, Minseok!”

And that’s how you found yourself wandering amongst the shelves of books on the library’s fourth floor, eyes wide as you took in what seemed like endless rows of books and tables. The signs on the walls were printed with warnings that “This is a quiet study area!”, although it’s not like you would give them any trouble.

A sudden tapping on your shoulder caught you off guard, and you turned around with your breath caught in your throat only to see that boy, the one who had greeted Minseok on your first day here.

“Hi,” you saw his lips mouth. And then they continued to move, but you couldn’t tell what he was trying to tell you.

“Crap,” he cursed to himself as he saw the confusion on your face. “You’re such a fucking dumbass, Baekhyun,” he mumbled as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, thumbs flying furiously over the screen before he turned it around to show you. “I’m Baekhyun,” it read. “The guy that you saw with Minseok before?”

You nodded, instinctively raising your hands to sign before remembering that he wouldn’t be able to understand. You pulled your own phone out, suppressing a smile when you saw Baekhyun shifting on the balls of his feet as he waited. “Such an impatient kid,” you thought. Finally, you showed him your own screen: “I remember you. I’m Y/N. Minseok’s been helping me in my classes.”

“I know!” Baekhyun replied with a grin before remembering where he was, and that you couldn’t hear him. A frown formed on his lips as he erased his previous sentences and started anew. “Can we exchange numbers? It’ll be easier than talking like this.”

Within a matter of seconds, the two of you were settled down of the carpet of the library, facing each other but with your eyes looking down at your phones.

Baekhyun: where’s Minseok?

🌸: He went home early, I’m waiting for my grandma to pick me up

Baekhyun: were you by yourself this whole time?

He looked up from his phone to stare at you in shock, mouth open in disbelief. You looked up as well, shaking your head before glancing back to your phone once more.

🌸: He left like 20 minutes ago.

Baekhyun: 😫 next time he leaves, you should text me! i’ll keep you company

He groaned aloud as he realized how strange it might have sounded before sending another text.

Baekhyun: not in a weird way i’m so sorry about that

To his surprise, your body began to shake with silent giggles, your phone in danger of falling out of your hands.

🌸: It’s okay, I get what you meant.

Baekhyun: thank GOD, minseok would’ve killed me if i scared off his new friend ☠️

You found out that Baekhyun was a first-year student as well, still undecided in his major.

Baekhyun: my mom wants me to go into business and my dad wants me to go into kinesiology but i don’t even know what to do

He rolled his eyes, a proud smirk appearing on his lips when you grinned at his reaction.

🌸: You still have time, don’t worry too much about it. Isn’t that what college is for, finding out what you want to do for the rest of your life?”

Baekhyun: i wish my parents saw it the same way as you 😣

Baekhyun: what are you majoring in?

🌸: I’m an English major.

Baekhyun: 😮 so does that mean you’re like a good writer and all that stuff?

🌸: I think I’m pretty decent. 😅

Baekhyun: can you do my essays for me?? 😄

🌸: If I didn’t know you were joking, I would’ve gotten up and left right now.

“No!” Baekhyun exclaimed out loud, ignoring the icy glares shot his way by a couple of students sittting close by.

You lifted a finger to your lips, placing it there in a shushing motion. Judging by the other students’ reactions, your new friend was quite noisy.

🌸: You’re going to get us kicked out!

Baekhyun met your gaze after reading the text on his phone, eyebrow raised as he gave you a mischievous smile.

Baekhyun: i’ll tell them it was you 😂

🌸: Of course, it was the mute, deaf girl and not the annoying boy next to her.

Baekhyun: hey! i’m not annoying 😭i just have a lot of energy

🌸: Uh huh, sure.

Baekhyun: minseok didn’t tell me you were this mean

You peeked at him from out of the corner of your eye, catching the pout on his lips but the slight smile there as well.

🌸: And he didn’t tell me you were so childish. I guess we both got tricked.

Unable to stop himself, Baekhyun burst into laughter, hand coming up to his mouth as his eyes crinkled up with joy.

Aware of all the evil looks everyone within a ten foot radius was now giving the two of you, you stood up, dragging Baekhyun outside so that you wouldn’t be reprimanded for causing a disturbance.

He was still giggling, body shaking with laughter as you pulled him to a stop under one of the streetlights outside the library. “I’m sorry,” you saw his lips form.

Shaking your head, you let go of his hand that you had been holding the entire time. “It’s nothing,” you signed back without thinking, not even realizing that you had signed instead of texted until you saw Baekhyun watching you in awe.

His fingers flew over the screen of his phone once more, a look of determination on his face.

Baekhyun: will you teach me how to sign?

You froze, sure that you had misread his text, that this was all a figment of your imagination. Slowly, you began forming a reply.

🌸: Are you sure?

Baekhyun: yeah! i want to learn, and i think it would be easier for you if we signed instead of having to text all the time

Baekhyun: i can’t promise that i’m a top-student, but i’ll work hard! 👏

It would be silly to deny that your new friend didn’t amuse you, didn’t interest you in any way at all. But still, you had your worries. It had been so long since you had formed a close relationship with someone who didn’t speak primarily in sign. Even your family, your hearing father and grandmother chose to speak only in sign at home so that you wouldn’t feel left out. What if instead of getting closer to him, you ended up feeling even more alienated? What if he realized just how different the two of you were?

“Y/N?” Baekhyun’s face grew worried, brows lifting up slightly as his lips parted, trying to figure out what to say.

Biting down on your lip, you typed out your response quickly, hoping that this sudden burst of courage swelling up inside of you would last.

🌸: Okay, I’ll teach you.

“Really?” Baekhyun said aloud, looking back up at you after reading the text. “Thank you,” you saw him mouth.

You brought one of your hands up, slowly doing the sign for “Thank you” and feeling a swell of pride when Baekhyun copied it as well. A goofy smile appeared on his face as he repeated it, over and over. "Thank you, thank you."

You had known that Baekhyun was an enthusiastic person, but you had underestimated how much effort he would throw into learning sign language.

“Hello!” he greeted you and Minseok the next afternoon when he saw both of you walking together.

“You know how to sign?” Minseok asked in surprise, both aloud and with his hands.

“I’m...” Baekhyun’s nose scrunched up as he frowned, trying to sift through the signs that he had been studying last night from the Internet. “I’m learning?”

Immediately, you burst into applause, beaming proudly while Baekhyun’s expression changed to one of relief. “You’re doing well! I’m impressed.” Minseok relayed this to Baekhyun with a look of wonder himself, unable to believe what he had seen.

"Thank you!" Baekhyun returned, a tinge of pink appearing on his cheeks as he basked in your praise.

“When do you want to start lessons?” you signed, watching as Minseok translated what you said to Baekhyun.

Baekhyun said his response aloud, eyes on yours even while he spoke to Minseok.

Minseok tapped your shoulder with a finger, drawing your attention before signing. “He said he’s free tomorrow afternoon. He has work later on today.”

You silently mouthed an “Okay” in return, holding up six fingers and making sure that Baekhyun saw them.

“Six o’clock?” You read from the movement of his lips, and you nodded.

“Don’t be late,” you signed with a teasing smile, watching with interest as Baekhyun first looked at your signs, and then to Minseok for the translation.

He burst into laughter once he understood what you had said, head thrown back as he did so. “Okay,” you saw him mouth, and then something else that you couldn’t decipher.

“He said that he’ll try not to be,” Minseok made his signs loose and casual, just like the way Baekhyun had said it verbally.

You grinned before giving Baekhyun a thumbs-up. “I’ll see you two tomorrow,” you said before giving them a wave and walking away.

Just as Baekhyun was about to ask where you were going, Minseok laid a hand on his shoulder. “She said she’ll see us tomorrow. Her grandma should be here to pick her up.”

Immediately, Baekhyun’s shoulders drooped slightly, a pout playing at his bottom lip. “Oh,” he mumbled lamely.

“You’ve never been interested in learning sign before. How come you didn’t want to learn from me?” Minseok asked, the pitch of his voice high as he grew more curious.

“You’re not her.”

Minseok groaned, pushing Baekhyun away and walking off in the opposite direction. “I should have never introduced you to her.”

“Hey, I’m grateful to you for that!” Baekhyun yelled after him, cupping his hands around his mouth as he did so.

The only indication that Minseok gave of having heard was by throwing up a middle-finger, not even looking back to see Baekhyun’s reaction.

Baekhyun chuckled to himself, checking the time on his phone and walking off to his next class. As his steps along the grounds of the campus drew him closer to his classroom, his thoughts were drawn to you. If he was being honest, his interest in you ran deeper, his curiosity driving him to figure out what it was about you that intrigued him so much. Even during your first actual conversation together, you hadn’t walked away like most people would have. Granted, you had stayed at first out of politeness, but Baekhyun remembered how genuine your smiles were, how you had beamed when he tried to copy your signs.

Your signs were special to you, that much was obvious. But Baekhyun could see that your appreciation for sign language stemmed from something with more meaning. Every motion of your hands was graceful, embodied every emotion that you felt when you signed. Although Baekhyun couldn’t understand what you had signed, he could guess the general feeling behind them. It was like you gave every sign a new meaning, a renewed vivacity that resembled your own cheerful nature.

Baekhyun wanted to truly understand what you meant, to be able to read every nuance and feeling in the way that you signed. He wanted to know the person behind the signs.

He wanted you to know all this, and more.

Baekhyun's hands ached more than they ever had before in his life, muscles tired out from the extra use over the course of his sign lessons with you. But he still wore a grin on his face when he practiced, eyes trained on your hands as he followed every distinct movement. It had only been a month, but the two of you had already met up at least a dozen times for lessons. Baekhyun's sign vocabulary was growing exponentially, and you were taken aback by how much information he was retaining in such a short period of time. There were still many signs that he didn't know, but you always made sure to fingerspell them out for him whenever you two came across a new word.

As the two of you sat across from each other at one of your campus's Starbucks, you waited patiently as Baekhyun tried to string his thoughts together into a comprehensible series of signs.

"In my class today, we had a... p-o-p q-u-i-z," he spelled out the last words with a puzzled frown on his face.

You giggled to yourself before doing the sign for "pop quiz", waiting until Baekhyun copied it to ask him a question. "Which class was it?"

Although you couldn't hear it, judging by the way he leaned back in his seat and pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth, you could tell that Baekhyun had given a groan of frustration. He raised his hands, both of them hovering before him as he hesitated before signing. "...Talking?"

"Public speaking?"

"Yes!" He signed back, gesture broad and eyes widened as he remembered which sign he had been trying to make. "Public speaking! I did okay."

"Are you sure?"

That particular string of signs was a sort of inside joke between you two. When you had first taught it to Baekhyun, he had taken any opportunity that he could to use it. He had even used it around Minseok to tease him, and the older boy had shaken his head at you.

"At least you didn't teach him swear words," he had signed to you while mumbling it aloud for Baekhyun to understand.

With a cocked eyebrow, Baekhyun waited until both you and Minseok were looking at him to reply. "Are you sure, dickwad?"

His words had sent you into a coughing fit, with Baekhyun grinning devilishly at your reaction while Minseok had looked between the two of you with an icy glare on his face. "Both of you are children," he said before getting up and stalking away.

Now in the present, Baekhyun chuckled softly to himself at your signs. "Yes, I'm sure," he replied. "The pop quiz sucked major ass."

You groaned inwardly, grateful that the people nearby couldn't understand what he was saying. "Good signing, Baekhyun," you told him sarcastically. The sign that you used for Baekhyun's name was the sign for "laugh", signed with a "B".

"Thank you," Baekhyun said smugly, shooting you a wink. "What are we learning today?"

"Honestly, I'm tired." Your shoulders slumped forward, your lips pulling downwards.

"Food?" Baekhyun asked before pulling his phone out of his pocket.

Baek: there's a really good burger place down the street!!!!! i'll drive!!!!

🌸: You just really don't want to study today, huh?

Baek: hey you're the one who brought it up first what do you say teacher? food?? please?

When you looked up from the text, you saw Baekhyun waiting for your reply with an exaggerated pout, head resting on top of his hands like a child.

"Okay," you signed. "But only for today."

"Are you sure?"

🌸: shut up before I change my mind

Baek: okay okay jeez

You and Baekhyun eagerly hopped into his brother's hand-me-down car, a particular splotch of misplaced color and a slight dent on the passenger side door catching your eye.

"Car a-c-c-i-d-e-n-t," Baekhyun explained to you when you pointed it out.

"A big one?"

“No, little. But scary.”

You nodded in acknowledgment, staying silent as Baekhyun began to back up out of the parking space. It was mutually understood that both of you would be unable to sign or text each other during the car ride, so you both enjoyed each other’s company in comfortable silence.

Although neither of you spoke, he stole glances at you every so often, and you pretended not to notice. Or at least, until you began to fear for your safety.

When you caught him looking at you briefly while he was driving across an intersection, you tapped his shoulder and nodded towards the road.

Taking the hint, Baekhyun’s head whipped back forward, stopping just in time as the car in front came to an unexpected halt.

Your hands tightened their grip from where they were clutching anxiously onto your seatbelt. You hadn’t even noticed that you had been doing that. Keeping your focus solely on the road, you were taken aback to suddenly see the car pull into the drive-thru of an In-N-Out.

“Really?” you asked Baekhyun as the car in front of you ordered.

“What?” he mouthed, staring back at you just as puzzled. “You don’t like b-u-r-g-e-r-s?”

You did the sign for “burger”, then continued on. “I do. But when you said you knew a good burger place, I didn’t think you meant In-N-Out.”

Judging by the look on his face, you had completely lost him. Maybe you had been signing too fast, or maybe there had been too many signs that he didn’t know.

“Later,” you told him, hoping he would understand.

Baekhyun nodded, but the furrow between his eyebrows was starting to worry you a bit. When you had finally gotten a bag of food settled in your lap and had driven back to the campus’s parking lot, you pulled out your phone.

🌸: I said that I didn’t think your “good burger place” was gonna be In-N-Out. Everyone knows that place, I wasn’t expecting you to hype it up like some secret hole-in-the-wall restaurant. 😂

Baek: it’s in-n-out you HAVE to hype it up 😤

🌸: Okay, okay I get it.

Baek: was it hard for you when you first started learning to sign? i thought i was doing really well until i only got like 3 words out of your last sentence

🌸: It was definitely hard for me too. It’s not something easy you can pick up immediately, don’t beat yourself up about it. You’re doing well.

Baekhyun gazed up at you hesitantly. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

He paused for a second, before stretching an arm over the car console to hold onto one of your hands. “Thank you,” he signed with his free hand.

“You’re welcome.”

Something about this exchange was different, maybe it was the serious mood that had fallen over both of you. Maybe it was the close proximity that you were in, you and Baekhyun sitting not even a foot away from each other as you both hesitated, waiting for someone to speak up.

All of a sudden, Baekhyun twitched in his seat, head turning from side to side as he scanned his surroundings worriedly. His hand slipped away from yours as he continued to look around. The bags of fast food that you had bought lay forgotten on the floor of the car as he grew more anxious.

“What? What is it?” You signed frantically, pausing only when you noticed that Baekhyun had brought his hands up to cover his ears.

He snuck a look at out the window closest to him, then back to you. “Car a-l-a-r-m,” he told you. “Noisy.”

Oh. “Are you... okay?” you asked tentatively, unsure of what to say. Had it been an ear-piercing, shrieking noise, striking out through the air? Were your memories of what car alarms sounded like still reliable enough to look back on?

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Baekhyun’s hands dropped to his chest, coming to rest over his heart as he breathed in and out. He stared ahead, eyes blown wide as he tried to calm himself from the sudden scare. When he noticed you staring at him, he flashed you a goofy smile.

You tried to mirror it, but you were too busy caught up in your own thoughts. It wasn’t often that you wished to be able to hear again - in fact, you rarely did at all. When you were younger, you used to wish for it almost daily, a hopeful, naive wish of a child. You thought that you were past that stage of your life, that you were finally comfortable with who you were and what your circumstances were as well.

But one little car alarm had managed to unravel you, to have you wondering once again what it would be like to hear, to be like Baekhyun.

The boy in question waved his hands in front of your face, brows drawn upwards as he tried to get your attention. “Y/N? Are you okay?” you read from his lips.

You nodded, breathing shaky as you exhaled. Maybe this doubt hadn’t been as sudden as you thought, maybe it had been festering in the back of your mind for a while. After meeting Baekhyun, you had caught yourself a couple of times imagining what it would be like to hear, to listen to his laughter, to what he had to say.

You wanted to know what your name sounded like coming from his lips.

A sudden vibration from your phone startled you, alerting you of a new message.

Baek: are u sure you’re ok?? do you need me to do anything? grab water? roll down the windows?

🌸: No, it’s fine. I was just thinking.

Baek: you looked pretty serious about it wanna talk? or not if im being too nosy just tell me and ill shut up

You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him, staring only at the screen of your phone as you hesitated. There weren’t many people that you had opened up to about your biggest worries, the thoughts that haunted you during the deep of night. Your father and grandmother tried their best to understand, but despite their deep love for you, they were still hearing people who had never had to struggle with hearing loss and brain trauma. They could sympathize with your loss and grief, but they could never truly feel what you felt. Your best friend Junmyeon understood a bit more, but since he had been deaf since birth, it was hard for him to grasp the concept of yearning for a lost ability. You were worried that Baekhyun wouldn’t understand, that he would be uncomfortable with your deepest thoughts.

But he had been understanding and kind for as long as you had known him. He had been patient, had treated your words with a kindness and genuine curiosity that you had rarely seen from others. He made an effort to understand what you thought, to speak to you in ways that were comfortable for you.

Baekhyun didn’t pretend that there wasn’t something that distinctly set you apart from others like your family did, the way they always went out of their ways to protect and keep you safe. He knew that you were different from the beginning, but instead of letting this shape his perception of you, he continued to see you for who you were.

Y/N, not just a girl with traumatic brain damage, but Y/N the college student. The English major. The type of person who makes sarcastic remarks but still holds a lot of care and interest for the loved ones around her.

Baekhyun was here not because he felt pity for you, but because he truly wanted to know you. You had a lot of respect for him for that. Maybe something other than respect.

🌸: I was just thinking about what it would be like to hear again.

Baek: minseok told me that you used to be able to hear when you were little

🌸: Did he tell you everything?

Baek: no and i didn’t ask, i didn’t want to be all nosy

Baekhyun was many things: curious, playful, bright, but nosy was not one of them.

🌸: Can I tell you what happened?

Baek: Y/N only if you want to if it makes you uncomfortable to tell me you don’t have to

🌸: I want to. You’re one of my closest friends. I don’t know, do you ever get that feeling where like if you don’t tell someone something that you’ll explode?

Baek: yeah i get what you mean

🌸: For some reason, I’ve been feeling like that lately. When I was little, I was in a pretty bad accident. I don’t remember much about it, but I remember how scared I was when I couldn’t hear anything, when I realized how hard it was for me to study. Words got jumbled up in my head and the doctors told my dad that I’d probably end up having trouble with language. I guess that’s why I was so stubborn about doing well in reading and writing in school.

At first it was really hard. It was hard to keep up with my friends, to keep up with schoolwork when I felt like my life had restarted and I was learning how to live again. That was when I really wanted to hear the most. I felt like without my ability to hear and communicate with others, I was lost. I started to feel like that again recently too.

Baek: really? why?

He glanced at you out of the corner of his eye, a concerned look on his face although you didn't catch it.

🌸: Sometimes I just wish that I could listen to what you have to say, to not have to rely on texting or on Minseok to translate for me.

A few tense seconds passed before you got a new text.

Baek: is it because i'm not good at signing?

Your head shot up, pain on Baekhyun’s face and your own.

"No," you told him. "That's not it."

"Then what?" he mouthed, still slightly hurt from the misunderstanding.

You typed away more quickly than you ever had before, showing him the screen instead of waiting for the text to reach his phone.

🌸: I want to hear because I want to know what your voice sounds like. I want to know what your laugh sounds like too, especially when you laugh so hard that your sides end up hurting.

Baekhyun's pupils moved from side to side as he read through the lines of text before moving back to meet yours. "Really?"

Nodding, you did your best to ignore the overwhelming bunch of nerves starting to rise in your chest.

"Why?"

"I like you."

Baekhyun simply stared at you, and you began to worry that he had forgotten the sign for "like". That couldn't be possible, could it? I mean, he had been learning a lot and maybe you had unrealistic expectations- oh wait, hold on. Sometime during your inner meltdown, Baekhyun had started to sign.

"You... like me?"

You nodded once more, biting on the inside of your cheek as you waited for a full answer.

"Are you sure?"

You huffed out impatiently, signing a loud "YES! I like you! You make me smile every day. Whenever I see you, I don't want to say goodbye."

Baekhyun reached out to take your hands in his own, his fingers shaky as he licked his lips nervously. His thumbs ran over the backs of your hands before he removed one of his. "I like you too. Hearing, or deaf, I like you. A lot."

As soon as he finished, you gave a silent laugh of relief.

"You hear me now," he continued. "A-l-r-e-a-d-y. And I hear you. I like you a lot, a lot, a lot."

"Okay, I get it!" you signed back with a silly smile, bashful from all of this new affection.

Baekhyun brought your hands up to his lips, placing a sweet kiss on top of them before letting go and resting his hands on your hips. He pulled you closer, his lips coming to meet yours.

It was startling to realize that in those two kisses, those two simple acts of love that you could read every emotion and thought that Baekhyun was trying to tell you. Things like "I like you, I want you, I cherish you, I hear you", all understood through the slightest of touches.

And so you kissed him back, just as passionate in what you had to say. "I like you, I hear you."

"I understand you."

A/N: okay I feel like I say this for every new fic but I SWEAR this time, this is my favorite fic that I’ve put on here. For one of my classes last year, we studied special education and I wanted to incorporate this into my writing somehow. There are some really good books out there about figures in the deaf community, I’d definitely recommend looking into them if you’re interested! Also, if I got something wrong about traumatic brain damage/special education/etc. please tell me so I can correct it! I tried my best to use class notes and the internet to make sure I was using factual information (trying to describe what type of damage there was took a lot of reading through my notes and I’m still worried I’ve messed up something lol)

#kpoptrashtag #exo #baekhyun #baekhyun scenario #baekhyun fanfic #exo scenario #writings

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imamotherfuckingstar-lord · 7 years ago

Text

His Raven, part 1

Killian Jones x Reader

Warnings: None.

A/N: Changed few things from the canon story to fit my own. This will be a few parts. Story commissioned by the lovely @chabertlacey.

Summary: Storybrooke was a small, quiet town - a perfect little haven. It had been your only home for, well, as long as you could remember. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened, in fact, the town was quiet ordinary. Except it wasn’t.But the residents of Storybrooke were oblivious to the curse that they were under and only three people knew of said spell - Mr. Gold, Mayor Mills, and Henry Mills. That is until a pirate of a famous name came sailing into the dock of the town, seeking revenge.

The pitter patter of small feet filled the hall as you stood against the wall, watching and reminding the students that there was no running in the halls. You smiled at Henry, the mayor’s son, who gave you a bright wave, until he was ushered into a classroom by Mary Margaret. The elementary school teacher was a close friend of yours and had asked you to help out in her class a few times a week. Gladly, you accepted, since that was sort of your gig. Town ‘jack of all trades’. Whether it was walking Archie’s dog, picking up shifts at Granny’s, or whatever else the folks of Storybrooke needed, you were there to help.

Mary Margaret gave you a smile and asked if you had the copies she needed for the day’s lesson, you held up the pile of papers in your hand and walked them over to her.

“What would I do without you?”

“You’re too much, M,” you teased her, peeking into the classroom. “Those children love you, you’d do just fine without me. Speaking of, I better go. I promised Archie I’d walk Pongo before noon. Do you mind?”

Mary Margaret squeezed your arm and smiled. “I’ll stop by the apartment and bring you dinner.”

“I’m at Granny’s for dinner shift, come by, we can eat together,” you said and she nodded, bidding you goodbye.

…

The Jolly Roger sailed smoothly through the portal, appearing near the dock’s of Storybrooke. Captain Hook smirked at the land in his sights, feeling the ease of revenge edging in his veins. He had waited so long and lost so much, all in the name of seeking Rumplestiltskin. The creature that had stolen the one thing he had loved the most, his beautiful raven.

Hook sailed into the dock of a small town, the smell of sea filled the air as he commanded his crew to anchor the ship. He turned to his men with a mischievous smile.

“Ay, mates. Let’s enjoy ourselves in this wretched town of piss!”

The men cheered their Captain, watching as he descended the ship, his boots hitting the ground hard. He made his way through the town, finding his way to the nearest tavern, eyeing a woman who stood outside fanning herself. She winked at him and he smirked, pushing through the door into the dimly lighted establishment.

Several people looked up in his direction, eyes lowering as he passed by, heading straight to the counter. Hook made his way to the bar, tapping his hook on the counter to get the woman’s attention who was tending the drinks.

He cleared his throat when she didn’t turn around.

“Ay, love,” he said coolly, leaning against the counter. “How about you pour a Captain a pint or two?”

….

Pongo walked in front of you, tail wagging as he stopped to sniff everything he deemed interesting. You chuckled and kneeled down beside him as he stopped to sniff a car tire. Petting his back, you glanced around and saw Red, storming off away from Granny’s. Figuring she must have had yet another fight with her grandma, you called out to her.

“Red!”

The dark hair beauty stopped in her tracks, looking around until her eyes met yours. She grinned and jogged across the street to Pongo and you.

“You two are a sight for sore, irritated eyes,” she huffed out, reaching down to pet Pongo. “What are you two doing?”

“Going for a walk, so you two fighting again?”

Red rolled her eyes and looked over her shoulder to the diner. “She just won’t give me a break! I just want a little freedom!”

“Don’t we all,” you sighed. “Do you ever feel stuck?”

“Do I...”

You chuckled and shrugged. “Maybe I need a date.”

“You do!”

Red squealed and threw an arm around you. “We should go out! Ladies night! We can invite Mary Margaret too! What do you say?”

You pretended to pout, but the idea was intriguing, granted you knew almost every man in the town.

“Sure,” you grinned widely. “Why the hell not?”

…

Your back was turned, the noise of the drunken men and women fell deaf on your ears. You were use to the musk and sins of the tavern, it was nothing new, so you went about the business of tending the bar. It was a family business, it was your grandfather’s and when your own father died, it was handed over to your uncle, who in turned allowed you to work for a fair wage. Truth be told, you grew up in the tavern and nothing felt more like home than the drafty place.

So when a sharp tapping came from behind, you ignored it, continuing to make up drinks. You were no stranger to overzealous customers and this one would learn to wait their turn. But then a voice came with the tapping, a smooth one that had you putting down a glass to turn around.

There he stood, a pirate, a man with devious nature in his eyes and like that, you were mystified. And by the look in his eyes, you knew he was too.

…

Granny’s was busy as you shuffled in between tables with a tray of plates, placing them down in front of Mayor Mills and Henry, who grinned when he saw that you had ordered him an extra side of mash potatoes. The Mayor gave you a tight smile and thanked you as you quickly placed down their plates, excusing herself when her cell went off. You watched as she walked toward the back of the diner before ruffling up Henry’s brown locks.

“Did your homework, kid?”

“Yup,” he answered. “Do you know Peter Pan?”

You gazed at the youngster in confusion. “Like the movie? Yeah, I’ve seen it. Why?”

“Just wondering,” he shrugged, shuffling his food around with a fork. He sat quietly for a second, before looking up at you. “What are your thoughts on Captain Hook?”

Laughing, you shrugged. “He was kind of a jerk. Listen, I gotta get back to work. Eat up kid.”

Henry smiled and you left him to his food, looking toward the door when it chimed opened. Mary Margaret closed the door behind her, eyes searching until they found you. She grinned and waved, so you motioned for her to take a booth and looked down at your watch. Red was due for her shift any minute, so walked over to your friend.

“I'll join you in a sec, figured we'd have the specials, roast beef and potatoes.”

“Sounds delicious, I'll just wait here,” she patted the table and you asked if she'd like some ice tea. “You know me so well.”

Giving her shoulder a squeeze, you sighed with relief when Red came rushing in, tying an apron around her waist and shooting an apology your way.

“Don't worry about it, I'm taking a meal break. Can you bring out two of the specials?”

Red nodded and rushed to the back, within seconds the bickering sounds of her and Granny came muffled from the kitchen and you laughed, telling Mary Margaret that you were going to get some drinks.

….

Hook dredged through the small town, trying to remember what the witch had told him back in the Enchanted Forest. The sky was dark as he went by every shop in town, growing more angry with each step. Until he stopped in front of a small shop, lights were off inside, except an outside street lamp. He smirked up at the sign with a deviled expression, reading the words out loud.

“Mr. Gold Pawnbroker & Antiquities Dealer...”

Hook stood there, cruel thoughts going through his mind as he remembered what the old woman had told him.

Rumple was Gold now.

….

“I'll see you tomorrow then?”

“Of course, I have the booklets you need. Worked on them last night.”

Mary Margaret and you walked out of Granny's, both full from the delicious meal.

“Do you want me to walk you home?”

You asked the school teacher and she shook her head gently.

“I'll be fine, I'll see you tomorrow.”

The two of you embraced and she watched as you took off in the opposite direction, not toward your apartment near the school, but to the docks. You wanted to relax for a bit and the water, it always felt calming. A cool breeze hit your face and you zipped up the blue coat you had on, sticking your hands into the pockets. Crossing the street, you were a few yards from the pawnshop, squinting when you saw a figure lingering near the front of the building.

Thinking it was just someone passing by or looking at something they had seen in the window, you kept moving. As you drew closer, a man’s profile came into view, the light from the street lamp lit up his face as he turned in your direction.

The hand in your left pocket clung to your cell, ready to take it out and dial 911, because you knew nearly everyone in town and this man, you had never seen his face. Never seen the sharp jawline or the darkness in his eyes that you should have been afraid of, but weren’t. Your throat dried as he moved from the door, his steps wavered as shock rose to his face.

He reached out a hand, but a shiny metal hook presented itself to you and before you could react, the man quickly withdrew it, again taking a few more steps forward. A thought quickly went back to Henry and how he asked about Captain Hook, you almost laughed, but the man cleared his throat.

His dark eyes stared into yours and the bar went quiet as you stood there, unsure of what to say or do.

The pirate recomposed himself and gave you a curious look.

“Love, a drink?’

“Right,” you laughed out, asking what he’d like.

“Anything would be fine,” he jestered, taking a seat on a wooden stool.

You nodded and whirled around, trying to calm your unexpected nerves as you rounded up a smooth whiskey, figuring it was a pirate’s drink. Your heart pounded like it had never before, feeling his eyes on your back. Feeling all sorts of things.

Wicked and good.

Taking a deep breath, you turned and presented the drink to the handsome man. “On the house.”

He grinned and shook his head. “No, love, I’ll pay. But will you fulfill a pirate’s wish?”

Leaning against the bar, you pushed the drink in front of him and chuckled. “I don’t have any buried treasure.”

“Funny,” he scoffed playfully, adjusting in his seat. “What’s your name, beautiful?”

Feeling a shift deep inside of you, in the far corners of your heart, knowing he could very well ruin you, you leaned closer.

The stranger was merely an arm’s length away and for a second, he looked familiar, he felt familiar, and then he spoke - his voice smooth as the sails of a grand ship.

“Raven.”

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angst-king · 4 years ago

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If we want a better Generation (Chp 1)

(just to let you know this wont be all about Iida, I’ll make one of these for Kami and Baku bc we all know those two are platonic sibs)

Iida was excited when he got the letter in the mail from UA, he ran to his family members and gathered them in the living room. "You got your letter Tenya?" Asked Ima sweetly, settling herself on the couch as does her husband while Tensei wheels himself in. "Yes mother, I wanted to read it to you all." "Alright then kiddo go on, open it." Kenjoshai smiles patting the young teen's back encouragingly. Carefully opening the letter Iida began to read.

'To Iida Tenya, We are very pleased to tell you that you have been accepted into UA's 1-A hero course, you've not only excelled scholastically but demonstrated leadership on the field.' Bright blue eyes lighting up as he continued to read the letter to his family. ‘We also are grateful to inform you that you have been selected as our assistants to our brand new hero course 1-R. Due to your recommendations towards the interviewers of having assistants in the special needs hero course. We've looked over your records and your answers. Your willingness to not only make the suggestion but to join the class out of pure admiration and inspiration was enough for us to make this decision. When you come to school you will come to your homeroom class 1-A, and will receive a lanyard. You will most likely not be the only assistant. You will also have small assignments to help learn about the students you will work with. We can't wait for this school year now that we have students like you in our class.'

"Oh my god Tenya honey that's great, I'm so proud of you!" Ima exclaimed, hurrying over to hug her son, Kenjoshai joins as does Tensei. "we're so proud of you son, I knew you'd get in. I didn't know they had made a special needs course though. ''Yeah they announced it at the end of the last school year but it wasn't a big one, they're trying to keep the media down" Spoke Tensei who adjusted his position in his chair. "What made you want to be an assistant to a special needs class sweetheart?" “Well I’ve always wanted to help people, and our generation needs to be better than the ones before us if we want change. To me UA being the first hero school in Japan to offer a special needs hero course is a baby steps in the right direction and. I want to be a part of that process.” “Well I’m glad you chose to do this Tenya, believe me when I say you’re gonna be such a great help to those kids.”

First day of school is always going to make anyone anxious, now the first day for a hero school oh boy that’s even worse! Looking around for their respective classes, many met up with friends of their past schools and past lives. Rejoicing in hugs, selfies, fist bumps, secret handshakes, it was welcoming. Walking into his classroom Iida noticed a seating chart displayed on the board. He quietly finds his seat and waits for more of his peers as well as the teacher to appear.

When his classmates arrive they’re a little bit chatty but find their seats setting down their bags and converse of seeing each other in the same class. The teacher soon trudges in after the bell, his shaggy black hair messily fell over his shoulders as he waited for his class to quiet down. When they did, the teacher introduced himself, seeing Tenya he gave a small smile. “Hello my name is Shota Aizaw or as some may know the underground pro hero Eraser head. I’m going to be your teacher.” He sounded tired, he looked just as he sounded, eye bags dressed above his cheeks that couldn’t hold a smile this early in the day.

“Now let's get some things straight. Some of you may have heard that there is a new hero class, and that class is called 1-R. It is a hero course for special needs students, whether they are deaf or nonverbal, or struggling with a behavioral disorder. They are considered to be in the heroes course.” The students remained attentive and silent as he spoke which Shota appreciated very much.

“There will be days that you work with them. Some of you will be working with them daily because you’ve been chosen to be an assistant. I aspect all of you to treat them with respect. If we want the next generation of heroes to be better than the last then we need to start now. It's a bit late but, better late than never and it truly starts with you. If you show them kindness and understanding you will only inspire them to do great. They will see that they can be heroes too. If I catch any of you harassing class 1-R believe me when I say I won't hesitate to suspend you or even have you expelled. Heroes aren’t heroic if they can’t uplift their peers and colleagues.” Mr Aizawa says as his hands place themselves into their pockets and his back hunches over. He continues on to explain the course and what they will learn. The students remain attentive

After a couple of pretests the class was dismissed when the bell rang signaling the first period of over. Gathering their things and putting them into their book bags the students dispersed into the hallway. Classes went on until fourth period, seeing a few peers he didn’t recognize from his first period in other classes. Fourth period was the class he was most anxious for, but also the most excited for. On his way there he bumps into a girl who seems lost, she was in his math class. She freezes up and then frantically apologizes to Iida. “I’m so so sorry, I didn’t look where I was going!” Iida gave a small smile “Hey don’t worry about it, are you lost?” The girl looked up at him, her soft chocolate brown eyes looking down in embarrassment as she nodded. “What class are you looking for?” The girl quietly hands Iida her schedule, which made him gently pat her on the shoulder. “Ah so you’re in the 1-R class, I’m headed there right now. Why don’t we walk together? We’ll get there on time, don't worry.” Iida gave her back the piece of paper and looked both ways at the number placards on the walls before going left. Waving for her to follow him, they walk down the hallway. As they stroll Iida decides that he should try and make conversation with the young lady. “So what’s your name?” “U-Uraraka Ochako, how about you?” Uraraka replied quietly while fiddling with her fingers, Iida could sense her anxiety. Usually Iida would be very strict, uptight, and formal but. Iida’s personality seemed to soften as he adjusted the strap of his bag and answered back. “I’m Iida Tenya I am an assistant student for 1-R, nice to meet you Uraraka.” Then came another question,

“So are you an assistant for class 1-R or a student?” it seemed to make Uraraka look a little ashamed.

#special needs class version of 1-a #class assistant Iida #protective aizawa

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liliannorman · 5 years ago

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Do school-shooter drills hurt students more than they help?

“My plan always was to go out the window of whatever classroom I was in,” says Aalayah Eastmond. Her elementary school had shooter drills. Her high school held drills during her freshman and sophomore years. Another drill was planned for February of her junior year. Then on February 14, 2018, a gunman entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. And all those plans went out the window.

“When you’re actually in the shooting, you don’t have time for that,” Aalayah recalls. “That’s not how it happens.” Within minutes, gunshots killed 17 students and staff members. Classmate Helena Ramsay had been passing back textbooks. Teens were supposed to use them as shields for their heads. Nick Dworet’s body covered Aalayah as she waited for the violence to end.

Six years earlier, a teen gunman opened fire in the cafeteria at Chardon High School in Ohio. Some students fled to a teacher’s lounge and blocked the door with a piano. Others stayed inside their classrooms. A football coach chased the shooter from the building. By then, six students had been shot. Three of them died. Another was paralyzed from the waist down.

Flowers left at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., showed sadness after a shooter killed 17 students and teachers there on Valentine’s Day in 2018.wellesenterprises/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus

The tragedy could have been worse, says educator April Siegel-Green. At the time, she headed up student services for the school district. “Prior to the shooting, we had started to develop safety plans,” she explains. “And we had a variety of different types of drills.” She believes the high school’s active-shooter drill “absolutely saved lives.”

More than 240 shootings have happened at U.S. schools since two teen gunmen killed 13 people in 1999 at Columbine High School in Colorado. Those shootings have touched more than 233,000 children and teens, according to a Washington Post tally. Yet school shootings remain quite rare.

“The odds of a student aged five to 18 being a victim of a homicide at school are one in 2.8 million,” says school psychologist Stephen Brock. He works at California State University, Sacramento. You’re much more likely to get hit by lightning. The U.S. National Weather Service puts your lifetime odds for that at one in 15,300. And the National Safety Council says the lifetime odds of dying in a car crash in the United States are one in 103.

Even a tiny chance of a shooting worries educators, however. More than 4 million U.S. students were in at least one lockdown during the 2017-2018 school year. That’s what the Washington Post reported in December 2018. Lockdowns can happen when there’s a threat aimed at a school or somewhere in its vicinity. Schools also want to be prepared before any threat emerges. That’s why about 19 in every 20 U.S. public schools have drills to prepare for possible shooters, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Researchers are just beginning to look at the impacts of all those drills. A few studies suggest that certain types of training might minimize the chance of shooting deaths. However, there are no clear standards on how drills should be run.

And those studies that examined drill impacts are not conclusive. Those drills can have emotional impacts on kids. But it’s not clear what those impacts always are and who is most likely to suffer from them. Much depends on the type of drill and the students’ personal situations, psychologists say. And to date, no studies show that drills actually prevent school shootings.

Being prepared

Aalayah didn’t take the possibility of a shooting seriously until she learned that a gunman shot and killed 26 first graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. “I thought if it could happen to them — little innocent children — it could definitely happen to me at any time and place,” she recalls.

Many schools have added shooter drills to routine drills for other emergencies, such as fires or earthquakes. Although schools want to keep students safe, some experts worry about the psychological impacts of drills.Bluberries/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Seven-year old Josephine Gay and six-year-old Emilie Parker were killed in that 2012 tragedy. Soon afterward, the girls’ moms founded Safe and Sound Schools. The group supports the idea of safety drills to deal with a wide range of hazards. But the drills need to be appropriate for children’s different stages of development, says Josephine’s mom, Michele Gay. And the drills should avoid scaring or possibly causing their own trauma.

“Obviously, the point is to empower people,” the former teacher says. “But the last thing we should be doing is frightening people.” She says, “We’re not focusing on some bad guy dressed up. We’re not focusing on scary sounds or smells or anything sensorial. We’re literally just talking about how we recognize when we’re in a [threat] situation, and what are the actions.”

Safe and Sound Schools recommends that schools assess their own threat risks and shape plans to their communities. Plans should be tailored to the age and maturity of the kids involved. First graders might learn that different situations call for different responses. If there’s a fire, you leave immediately. If there might be an intruder outside, you find a safe corner in a locked classroom and stay quiet. By high school, you might help with quickly locking and blocking doors.

“When people are faced with an emergency situation, we know that they might not be able to think clearly,” Gay explains. “We want all of that to be ‘pre-loaded.’ That’s why we rehearse the steps of safety.”

“Preparedness is essential,” says Amanda Nickerson. She’s a psychologist at the University at Buffalo in New York. “I think we’re beyond the point of saying let’s not do these drills anymore.” However, there are relatively few studies that point to which drills work best.

Cheryl Lero Jonson is a criminologist at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. She and her colleagues recently studied how adults performed in two situations. One was a “traditional lockdown.” People locked doors and stayed put. The other was a program taught by the ALICE Training Institute, based in Medina, Ohio. Depending on the situation, participants had to choose whether to get away, to block entry to a shelter spot and hide, or to fight to counter an attack.

For each of several cases, a shooter tried to enter a classroom and shoot plastic pellets at as many people as possible. When people could only hide, the classroom attacks lasted from 22 seconds to almost five minutes. On average, almost three in every four people got shot in those cases. When people had choices, the average time for the classroom attacks was 16 seconds, and an average of just one in every four inside got shot. Jonson’s team concluded that shootings would end sooner and have fewer injuries if drills offered choices. The study appeared in the December 2018 Journal of School Violence.

Explainer: What is a computer model?

Another recent study skipped the guns and used a computer model. Researchers at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., based their model on the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. In that attack, two teens killed 13 people and then themselves. The computer model tested cases in which everyone hid, everyone ran or everyone fought. It also tested a case in which one third ran, another third hid and the rest fought the attackers.

The model’s results showed that everyone would have been shot if they all hid. There would have been 21 victims if everyone ran. And it calculated that there would have been five victims if everyone fought. The best result was the combo scenario, with three victims.

Eric Dietz worked on the model at Purdue. The choices to run, hide or fight aren’t equally good, this computer scientist stresses. “It isn’t run or hide or fight. It’s run if you can. Hide only to get back to running again when you can. And if you can’t run or hide any more, then you’d better fight, because you’ve got no other options left.” He and others hope to minimize casualties if a shooting does take place. But, he adds, “We want to make sure we have some science to back up why we tell students to take certain actions.”

Purdue University researchers created a computer model to see whether “run, hide, fight” strategies would have saved more lives in scenarios based on a 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado.Eric Dietz/Purdue Univ.

Kenneth Trump heads National School Safety and Security Services. It’s a company in Cleveland, Ohio. He sees a big risk for bias in the study by Jonson’s group. Why? One of its authors works for the ALICE Institute, which makes money doing shooter drills and training. Jonson and the other co-author were certified trainers for the ALICE program. Plus, the study participants were already going through training at the ALICE Institute, and only a few were educators. (Jonson did say that her team took some steps to reduce bias. The “shooter” was not with the ALICE program, and instructions were very specific, for example. Yet the group studied was not a random sample.)

More generally, Trump says, options-based training for students “fails to consider age and developmental factors.” It also fails to consider other variables, such as children who might have special needs (such as being deaf or needing a wheelchair). Students may give shooters more targets if they run. And a majority of school shooters have not been subdued by citizens. Some school employees also have been injured in options-based shooter drills, he adds. In contrast, lockdowns focus on securing classrooms and avoiding more risky situations. In his view, “lockdowns work and are the gold standard in best practices for more than two decades.”

And even the scenarios with fewer victims still had some casualties. Aalayah says she hadn’t minded doing shooter drills because she likes to be prepared. “But afterward, I realized how stupid they are,” she says, “because it doesn’t save you in a real situation.”

Avoiding harm

Julia Susany, now 19, had done different types of shooter drills since first grade. She feels it helped to be prepared. Still, young students didn’t really understand why they did the drills. After the Sandy Hook shooting, that changed. “It wasn’t reassuring once I realized what we were doing,” she says. “It became more creepy.” And it felt like schools were treating shootings as something almost normal. Nonetheless, she says, “I was glad I had at least something to fall back on in case there was an emergency.”

Julia’s high school in Akron, Ohio, taught drills with options to get away, hide or fight. However, the teachers stopped short of having students actually throw things at a role-playing gunman. After all, someone could get hurt.

Several students did get bumps and bruises during a December 2019 drill in New Richmond, Ohio. The principal had acted as a shooter. The students were trying to get away. The school used the same type of program as Julia’s high school.

Some experts also worry that drills could cause emotional harm. In a 2007 study, Nickerson and a colleague looked at the short-term effects of an intruder drill. Two groups of 4th-, 5th- and 6th-grade students learned about the steps. Then they practiced the drill. Teachers locked classroom doors and shut off the lights. Students moved into corners. Everyone tried to stay quiet.

Afterward, the team gave a five-question quiz to those students and two other groups that didn’t do the drills. The groups that practiced had more knowledge about what to do for a drill. And their anxiety levels were not much different from those in kids from the other groups. The team concluded that similar drills could increase children’s short-term knowledge and give them useful skills to use in a real crisis.

Explainer: What is anxiety?

“We didn’t do long-term follow-up in our study,” Nickerson notes. “And I know of no research that has.” Her study also didn’t look at more intense drills, such as run-hide-fight programs. It’s highly unlikely that students would ever come face-to-face with an active threat. Plus, a drill that could cause mental trauma would “raise ethical concerns,” the study noted.

“Getting behind a locked door saves lives,” says school psychologist Melissa Reeves. She studies school-crisis prevention at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. Typical lockdown drills can be done calmly without raising anxiety levels in most students, she says. “We can’t promise that nothing bad is ever going to happen. But when we give students things to do, it brings a sense of control. And it brings us safety and security.”

Safe and Sound Schools supports a general all-hazards approach to safety drills for students. This page is from one of its toolkits for schools. It summarizes the Get Out-Keep Out-Hide Out approach.Safe and Sound Schools

While options-based programs can be done calmly, some school drills have been far more intense than Reeves or others would recommend. Students have cowered as alarms blared and masked “gunmen” shot blanks or starter guns. Some schools have had students play shooting victims. Teens at one charter high school in Colorado even practiced how to take down a mock gunman.

“We don’t light a fire in the hallway to practice fire drills,” Reeves says. “And we do not have to shoot off a safety gun or have screaming to simulate what it’s like to be in an active-shooter situation.” And while a drill might not be stressful for most students, it could stress some. “If your school is asking you to participate in a highly sensorial drill,” she says, “you have a right to say no if you are uncomfortable.”

Schools also should give students and parents some warning about when drills will happen. “There should never, ever be an unannounced, highly sensorial drill,” Reeves says. “There should never be an unannounced lockdown drill.” Indeed, unannounced drills have caused some kids to run from schools. Panicky 911 calls followed.

If done well, a lockdown drill can lower anxiety and teach students good, adaptive behaviors for when a bad situation arises, Brock says. And the options of evacuating or hiding also can serve other, less scary purposes. For instance, such procedures might deal with something like a strange dog on the premises.

However, Brock recommends against having armed-assailant or active-shooter drills for elementary-school students. And he’s wary about using them with students in middle school and high school. If a student has a history of trauma or is already anxious, depressed or stressed, “these drills are going to be upsetting.” Some students might have had friends or family members who were victims of gun violence.

Others may have mental-health problems, often undiagnosed or untreated. “One in five students in this country is dealing with a mental-health challenge of some sort,” he says. Of those, “only 20 percent are getting care and treatment.” Brock encourages students to talk with school counselors, parents, teachers or other trusted adults if they feel stressed or anxious.

When Chardon High School resumed drills after the 2012 shooting, there were no real gunshots, Siegel-Green says. Parents could choose to keep students home. Counselors were on hand to talk with students. Comfort dogs were also available for at least one drill after the shooting. However, not all schools offer that type of follow-up. Julia says students at her school generally knew they could see a counselor if they felt stressed. Still, it wasn’t emphasized.

“In most cases, people participate in these drills and don’t get more anxious and fearful. But that could certainly happen. And we want you to know that you’re not alone,” Nickerson says. He emphasizes that “it’s a giant strength ⎯ not weakness ⎯ that you’re able to identify a problem that you need help with.”

Beyond drills

“Engaging students in safety doesn’t just mean practicing for these worst-case scenarios,” says Gay, the Sandy Hook parent. Her group encourages students to start safety clubs. Service projects by club members can help schools spot possible dangers sooner. They also give students a voice in school safety planning. Other groups aim to decrease bullying. Some school shooters had been victims of bullying.

When it comes to school violence, “there are often warning signs,” says a February 2020 report from the Everytown Gun Safety Support Fund and teacher and student groups. Spotting those signs can help educators take action to prevent violence before it happens.

Stricter laws on gun storage also can keep firearms out of many shooters’ hands, the groups say. And often a shooter may target classmates at a school he or she attended. So, the report argues, “safety drills with students may be ineffective” because they would share preparedness steps with the people most likely to carry out a shooting.

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Parkland shooting survivor Aayalah Eastmond testified before Congress on February 6, 2019.

Other prevention efforts aim to beef up school security. Many schools have limited entry to no more than one or two doors. Many have added security cameras. Some schools also have added metal detectors and even armed staff members or regular police patrols. It’s unclear whether such measures make students much safer or just introduce extra risk. Their impacts on students also vary. A lot depends on the particular community.

A student’s’ race can make a difference too, says Bryan Warnick, an education expert at Ohio State University in Columbus.

Aalayah happens to be Black. She says her last year of high school in Parkland “was pretty uncomfortable for kids that looked like me.” The school didn’t have metal detectors, but it added some armed guards with rifle cases. “That’s really uncomfortable and triggering for people that were directly impacted by the shooting,” she says. “And also uncomfortable for students of color because we are not greeted nicely by police officers.”

In any case, she argues, extra school-security steps and shooter drills are “just a Band-Aid on the real issue.” Mass shootings at schools and other places are terrible tragedies. Yet they account for fewer than two in every 100 U.S. gun deaths, data from the Pew Research Center show. Those shootings get lots of media attention. Yet there are many more gun deaths from suicide, domestic violence and other murders.

“We don’t need active shooter drills,” Aalayah concludes. “We need actual legislation that will prevent gun violence from entering our schools and other places.”

Do school-shooter drills hurt students more than they help? published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

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iwantthedean · 8 years ago

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Take It All Back

Part Seven

Summary: Journey starts a new school year. Jensen’s excitement over the baby clouds over Journey’s concerns. Pairing: Jensen x OFC (Journey) Word Count: 1780 Warnings: Pregnancy, mild drinking.

Masterlist

Journey had never been so grateful for the start of the school year. Since she had told Jensen about the baby, his elation over the matter hadn’t seem to stop or slow. Journey figured he knew that she was still worried, and he was trying to overcome that with an abundance of optimism.

It was almost too much for Journey. She had nearly convinced herself that this baby wouldn’t make it to term either; too many good things had been happening on the tail of some really awful things. Surely life wouldn’t stay that way.

“Journey?”

She looked up from her desk to see her friend Valerie, the speech-language pathologist. “Hey, Val. What’s up?”

“You look lost in thought. Everything okay?”

Journey nodded. “Fine.”

“All right.” Valerie looked unconvinced but continued anyway. “You’ve got a new kiddo. The family is in the office.”

Journey thanked Valerie for coming to let her know. She quickly found a stopping point on her paperwork for some of her other students, then headed to the office.

“Oh, here’s our teacher of the deaf,” the principal introduced. “Journey Ackles. She works with our elementary school students. Mrs. Ackles, this is Abby, your new student.”

“Hi Abby,” Journey smiled, crouching down to the small child’s level. “I’m Ms. Journey. What grade are you in?”

The minute Journey started speaking with her hands, Abby’s demeanor changed. The small child told Journey that she was in first grade, she had loved her old school and had lots of deaf friends, but Mom got a new job, so Abby and Dad came with Mom to the new city and there was no deaf school. Few things delighted Journey more than seeing tiny little hands flying in communication.

“I’m sure that was hard, leaving all your friends. You are special Abby, you know why? Because you’re the only deaf first grader! You might be a little lonely at first, but I will be your friend, and I bet before long, all of the first graders will want to be your friend.”

Abby grinned and asked if she could see Journey’s classroom. Journey glanced at Abby’s parents, who both agreed they would like to see the deaf education classroom, and perhaps discuss some things about Journey’s philosophy of teaching deaf children.

“Our daughter is profoundly deaf,” Abby’s mother explained. “She was born that way, and we don’t know why. It’s taken some fighting with the insurance and a lot of research, but we’ve decided to look into cochlear implants for her.”

This was always a tough conversation for Journey. It was her personal opinion that implants were not an answer; too many hearing parents mistook the devices for a cure. Abby’s parents had mentioned they had done research though, so Journey put on her best smile.

“Well, we have an excellent team to help her adjust during the surgery. In the meantime, I use a more English-oriented signing modality, to help the kids with their language development. Do you have Abby’s paperwork from her old school?”

Abby’s father was quick to supply the requested information. While the young girl played, Journey spent the next hour and a half going over the information with Abby’s parents.

By the time the family left, Journey was absolutely enchanted with Abby. She wasn’t sure that the girl’s parents understood what was going on with their daughter, or if they had taken Abby’s opinion into consideration at all. Just the same, Journey couldn’t wait to start working with Abby.

She told Jensen about her new student over supper that night, chatting on and on while Jensen ate and she hardly touched her food.

“So if our kid is deaf, you wouldn’t want to get the surgery?”

Journey wasn’t ready for that question. She was content to talk about her new student, not have another reason to worry about her unborn baby.

She took a deep breath and re-focused on her plate. “Let’s get through this pregnancy first, Jay.”

Jensen nodded. “You’re right. One adventure at a time.”

Journey continued eating. She had done so well with thinking about Abby and not about the baby, but Jensen’s question had brought it all right back to the forefront of her mind.

“I told my dad today.”

“Told him what?” Journey asked, praying Jensen wasn’t talking about what she assumed he was talking about.

Jensen sighed. “You’re nine weeks, Journ. That’s when we told everyone last time.”

“And I specifically told you I wanted to wait until we were into our second trimester before telling anyone this time! That’s five more weeks, and you couldn’t wait?”

She got up with her plate and dropped it in the sink. She was so angry and hurt; how could Jensen do this to her?

“This isn’t just about you, you know,” Jensen snapped, also standing up from his chair. “This is my baby too!”

“You’re right, it is. It’s by the grace of God you and I are even in a place where this baby could come to be! Jensen, I lost our first baby so quickly – so easily – why is it so hard for you to understand that maybe this time I don’t want to include everyone if we lose this baby, too?”

“Right, you don’t want to include everyone – do you even want to include me, Journey?”

She just stared at him; in that moment, she realized that was a legitimate question. On top of her fears in general of losing this baby, too, was the fear that he would give her every reason to close off again.

Unable to communicate with her husband just then, to talk about everything that had gone wrong before, Journey walked out of the kitchen and went upstairs, locking herself in their bedroom.

Jensen threw his head back in frustration. Just when he thought that he was making headway with Journey, she pushed him away again. He was at a loss. Maybe there was something he was missing, something he didn’t know about. Looking around at the messy kitchen, their practically untouched dinner plates, and decided he needed to get out. He needed to have a drink, and there was only one person he could think of who might be able to help him understand what Journey was thinking.

Halen met him at the same bar where they had celebrated their twenty-first birthdays. It was the same bar where they had celebrated when Halen got engaged to Rachel, and again when Journey and Jensen got engaged. It was where they shared a beer after Halen announced that Rachel was pregnant.

All of those memories came to Jensen secondhand as he pulled into the parking lot. It was the same as the moment at the reunion when the memories of Journey’s miscarriage flooded into his brain. Taking some deep breaths when the memories stopped coming, Jensen put his keys in his pocket, made sure he had his wallet, then headed in to meet Halen.

“Took handing over the credit card to get Rachel not to call Journey,” Halen said when Jensen took the seat next to him. “I’ll send you her shopping bill.”

Jensen chuckled. “Well, beers are on me, then.”

“Fair enough,” Halen ceded. “So what’s going on?”

“Start us a tab, would you?” he asked the bartender when their first tall boys were set on coasters in front of them. “I’m probably going to get in trouble for telling you this, but Journey’s pregnant again.”

“Hey, congrats!” Halen smiled, clinking his glass against Jensen’s.

Jensen gave the ghost of smile. “Thanks. Journey wanted to wait until she was more like thirteen or fourteen weeks, but I’m so excited. I’m so happy about this baby, about a second chance I feel like we’re getting. A second chance I feel like I’m getting. Anyway, I told my dad because I had to tell someone.”

“And Journey freaked out,” Halen summed up for him. “She’s scared, Jay. You two have been joined at the hip since you moved onto the block. When everything else went down and she lost the first baby, Journey thought she was going to lose you, too. Even when you stayed, when you tried to make it work, she was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“I don’t know what else to do to show her that I’m not going anywhere. That all I’ve ever really wanted is this life with her.”

Halen winced. “That’s going to be tricky. I hate to tell you, but I think you’ve still got some groveling to do.”

Jensen shook his head. “I don’t know how things with me and Journ got so … I don’t know. Upside down.”

“We all make mistakes,” Halen said, finishing off his first beer and signaling the bartender for another round. “Life gets in the way. It isn’t a fairy tale, man. You and Journey were the perfect couple, right up until you weren’t. Isn’t easy to get back to that.”

Jensen knew that Halen was right. They had a couple more rounds, then decided it was best to get back home to their wives.

When Jensen got to the house, all of the lights were off. He went to the kitchen to put his keys on the hook, and saw that everything had been cleaned up. Treading carefully up to the bedroom, he saw that Journey was already in her nightgown. Her hair was braided over her shoulder.

Jensen quietly changed into his pajamas and crawled into bed. He pulled Journey against him and kissed just behind her ear.

“You’ve been out drinking,” Journey said.

Jensen couldn’t stop one end of his mouth from tugging upwards. “Thought you were sleeping.”

She reached to turn on the lamp next to the bed, and rolled to her back. “You left.”

Jensen swallowed. “I didn’t know what to do, Journey. I don’t know what to do to show you that I’m not going anywhere – that we’re going to be okay.”

“I’m really scared,” she whispered, Tears filled her eyes, spilling over when she blinked.

Jensen kissed each cheek, and then her lips. “I know you are, babe. But you’re not in this alone. I’m not going anywhere, and this baby is going to be just fine. You call tomorrow and see how soon they can get you in for a check-up, just to be on the safe side. I’ll go with you. Okay?”

Journey sniffled back her tears and nodded. “Okay.”

Jensen smoothly reached over to turn off the lamp and kissed his wife in the process. Journey’s tears turned to giggles as Jensen continued to kiss her, sneaking his hand along her bare thigh and up under her nightgown.

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