Hush, Hush

[Matthew Rowland]

He loved the library here. Ignoring the fact that he was a reader, it was quiet. It was the one place in all of Montana he could have his power on and not be flooded with various people's interpretations of sounds. Here, everyone at least tried to be quiet. Sure, there was the occasional ^pitte_{r p}atter and clunk, but he could deal with that. There were no Zzzzzzzooooooommmmm's from passing planes or ^HAHA_HAHA^HAHAA_HAHA from every other person. It was truly quiet.

Matthew smiled and walked through rows and rows of books. He didn't really have any intention on reading any of them at the moment -- his list was long enough already -- but it was a good time waster. After a few minutes, Matthew picked a table and sat down with a few random books. He mostly picked them up because of their titles; they seemed catchy and he hoped would give him some inspiration.

Art supplies were taken out of his bookbag and placed onto the table. He was going to work on sketching another panel or two of his comic. It wasn't amazing artwork, but decent. He enjoyed his work, and was mostly just for him anyway. Matthew was working on comic called Closed Captioning. You know, where the Deaf kid is the star. He hadn't thought up much of a plot yet, but he was excited. A few panels were done on the first page and he went to work sketching another. The star, Terrence, was seen walking through a cityscape... That's as far as he'd gotten, really. And while not the most obvious, the star was definitely modeled after Matthew. I mean, who didn't want to be the main character?

Shuffleshuffle

Matthew looked up from his art... Oh shit, it's him, he thought. The crush that was in the appropriate age range. What the hell is he doing here? Play it cool, Matt. Play. It. Cool.

[Isaac Reid]

Isaac walked into the library. Ever since he was a kid he had been really into books. It was a given considering he was stuck in a hospital for most of his childhood. He never got the chance to get into play video games, for a variety of reasons one of those reasons was the fact that his father didn’t have the money to give him a gaming station. And Isaac never asked for one because he always felt like he had been enough of a burden. Now however, while he does have an xbox one in his dorm room currently he rarely ever plays it. There has just been too much stuff for him to do; there is never enough time for him to do everything. With that being said he much rather read a good book than play video games, it was what he grew up with therefore it was more comfortable for him.

Walking down the different isles of the library he tried searching for a good book to read. He didn’t come here with the intentions of finding a certain book he more or less just wanted to rummage around and see what he could find. Maybe he could even ask one of the other students here if they recommend a book. As of right now he had just been browsing on his own. He started in the fantasy aisle, because who didn’t like fantasy novels? Then moved to Syfi, and then moved to the next genre on his list. The boy had wasted a few hours just browsing shelves upon shelves of books finding something that really peaked his interest. Every once in awhile he would pick up a book read the prologue than put the book back because it wasn’t as interesting as he thought it would be.

Hands in pockets he walked to the area of the library where the tables were. Now would be the time to ask for recommendations because he was determined to find at least one book to read even if it meant being here all day. Going toward no one in particular he walked toward one of the few people who wasn’t reading a book. “Excuse me? Could I ask you for a recommendation on a book? I’m having trouble finding a good book to read.” Maybe his issue was that he read too many books. The boy hadn’t realized the other boy in front of him was deaf and mute, it was kind of hard to tell those things just from looks. Granted, Isaac was the type of person to still go up and talk to them because in his mind there had to be a way for them to communicate.

[Matthew Rowland]

Play.
It.
Cool.

Matthew saw Isaac approach and felt his own heart beat quicken. If someone had his powers, they'd have seen a few ^{thump thump}s. Luckily (that's subjective) he was alone with this 'burden.' Aaaaand of course he spoke. Meaning, he had no idea who he was. Which is fine, really. No, really. It's fine. Totally fine. Just gre-- Matthew stopped that train of thought. Why would anyone in particular know him already? Chill the fuck out. Just respond. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

He watched the captions float from Isaac's mouth. It was strong, ever-so-slightly bold, some kind of sans-serif font, perhaps? People's captions always expressed how they viewed themselves; needless to say, Matthew liked the font choice for Isaac.

Oh my god, stop it, Matthew. RESPOND.

Matthew grabbed one of the random books he had picked up earlier and flipped it to the dedication page. It was short and simple, something like 'To my beloved' blah blah blah. If Isaac didn't know he was deaf, then he more than likely didn't know of his abilities, either.

He flipped the open book around 180 degrees and handed it to the other, pointing to the dedication.

Or, what should have been the dedication, anyway. It no longer said what Matthew had just read. Along with being able to see sounds, Matthew could also "ghostwrite," as he called it. The dedication page now read:

"What kind of books do you like?"

Short and simple. 

[Isaac Reid]

Unfortunately the school was just too big to know every single person. Isaac would love to say he knew everyone in the school, and was friends with all of them but he would be lying if he said that. It also didn’t help that Isaac had just transferred to Bellefonte in December; he hasn’t had a whole lot of time to really meet people and get to know them. He has been trying though, he’s never been the type of person to be afraid to walk up to someone and talk to them. Isaac did realize however, that there were several people in the school who knew him, which he chalked up to him being on the football team.

Isaac gave the boy a small smirk, hoping Matt wasn’t upset that he had disrupted his drawing, at least what Isaac thought he was doing before he asked his question. The quarterback would have felt really bad if he knew the boy had disabilities and he was just standing there not giving it a second thought.

He watched as the boy took the book, Isaac’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, what exactly was the boy doing? A part of him wondered if he should just leave the boy alone, he wasn’t sure if this was his way of saying he didn’t want to be bothered or something similar. Tilted his head at the book that was being offered to him it took it in his own hand and looked at it. He wondered if this was a book the boy was recommending he read. Then he saw the words change, it was at this point Isaac sat down at the table across from the other boy. “Well, that’s interesting…” He mumbled to himself. Looking at Matthew in confusion he couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t just say the question.

It was at this point Isaac now realized might not be able to talk, or didn’t want to talk. He nodded, he did not want to be rude by asking about it so he over looked it. “I like anything and everything. I’m kind of a book enthusiast.” He spoke to the boy, not really thinking he was deaf because he obviously could hear him, right? Why else would he have responded? “Sorry, I know that doesn’t really help you at all I’m sure…” He rubbed the back is his neck, “Oh I’m Isaac by the way.”

[Matthew Rowland]

Oh my god, he's sitting down. 

Matthew tried to keep his composure. Why exactly was he stressing out so much over Isaac? I mean, yeah, he was totally gorgeous, and he was tall, and the hair, and the bo-- 

Dumb question.

He smiled to himself. Matthew noticed the captions for ^{Well, that's interesting...}. Oh. Right. Duh. He hadn't explained what was going on yet. Before he could fill in the gaps, Isaac continued, responding to the question posed to him in the book. Oh my god, the jock can read. And he apparently likes it. Matthew looked up to the ceiling -- almost looking past it -- and just thinking Thank you! as loud as he could. Attention back on Isaac, Matthew smiled again. 

He flipped the pages a few times, looking for a suitable chunk of text to change. A limit to the ghostwriting was that he couldn't change it too much. The words? Easy, required no thought, really. But how they presented itself? That required a bit more work and it was just easier on Matthew if he didn't try to turn an entire page full of text into a single paragraph.

He couldn't find anything suitable. That sucked, a lot. But he had a back up plan. Matthew held up a finger, hopefully signaling 'wait a minute' and he rummaged through his book bag to pull out a Spiderman comic book. Matthew opened it up to the first page of dialog he could find and turned it to face Isaac. A bit of a dyslexic affect would occur if Isaac decided to watch Matthew ghostwrite. Either way, the speech in the dialog bubbles would soon begin reading:

"I'm deaf, and mute. But..."

"As long as you can hear yourself, I'm fine."

"I can see what you say. Kind of like this." Matthew pointed to the panel for that speech bubble, drawing attention to the sound effects drawn into the scene.

"I'm Matthew. Nice to meet you. So, a book enthusiast, huh?" And he held out his hand.

[Isaac Reid]

Isaac hadn’t gotten used to people having crushes on him. While most of the guys on the football team always gossiped about the new person who had a crush on them, Isaac tended to stay away from those conversations. The boy believed he was too new to the school to be granted that type of popularity. Though he did believe he had the looks to have everyone swoon over him, and yes his ego was that big to believe it.

Isaac watched Matthew closely; there was something about the boy that seemed different. It wasn’t him being mute, or even deaf. Isaac tilted his head to the side, there was something; he just couldn’t put his finger on it. The other boy was quite attractive; Isaac personality had a thing for people with brown eyes. Brown eyes never got the full attention they deserved.

Isaac’s lips pursed and his eyebrows furrowed once again when he saw Matthew pull out the comic. He watched as the words formed on the comic, he wondered what the difference was between the comic and the actual book. He didn’t quite understand the power, but he figured he didn’t have to understand it to know it worked.

Isaac nodded at the boy, “That’s kind of cool how your power works with your situation. All I can do is turn in to kitty cats, and actually talk while in cat form.” The latter was actually the most impressive part of his powers. “So… I’m assuming you do the sign language right? Could you teach like.. someone?” There was something about the boy that made Isaac want to get to know him more, and what better way to do that then by having scheduled lessons?

Isaac took the other boy’s hand in his, and when he had Isaac’s heart felt like it skipped a beat. He couldn’t help but noticed the boy’s hand was quite smooth and soft, it was nice. “It’s nice to meet you too. Yeah, I spent a lot of my childhood reading books… It had been my escape from reality when I need it.”

[Matthew Rowland]

His font. His hands. His lips. His power -- Wait, so he can turn into a talking cat? His book affinity. His lips. His skin. His lips. His lips on hi-- Isaac hadn't expected any of this to happen, especially not to this degree. Yeah, Isaac was all that, a bag of chips, and a Slim Jim from the Ice Cream truck, but fawning over him as if he hadn't ever had sex before? He was going to need to cool down...

Oh, after he showed off a bit, though. They shook hands and he felt his own heart do a thing. It was already going at an irregular pace, this handshake just made it worse. Not to mention he was quite sure someone turned the heat in the library up.

Matthew pointed to those same comic book panels, the text going all dyslexic before settling.

"I can totally teach you sign language."

"Not too many people here know it."

"Would be nice to have someone to talk to without my powers."

He waited until the other seemed to have gotten down the page before pointing to the last panel. The text read "This is how you say Isaac." Matthew drew attention to his hands and fingerspelled 'Isaac' for him. He was going to have to come up with a name sign at some point for him.

Ask him why he needed an escape. Ask him why he needed an escape. No, no. It's too soon, right? We're just meeting. He's just passing through. Maybe he only talked to you because you were the only one here? Am I the only one here? No. I see other sound effects. Someone's chewing gum, loudly. Focus. Isaac.

Matthew pointed to the first panel. "And this is the sign for cat."

[Isaac Reid]

Isaac had noticed that they had been shaking hands for a little longer than normal; however, he didn’t completely mind it. There was still something he still couldn’t quite put his finger on; Isaac was starting to believe that he was starting to feel some attraction to the other boy. There had always been that question on if he was more than straight, and maybe now he was starting to realize he was. Isaac was beginning to think the boy was quite handsome the more he sat here and kept looking at the boy.

Isaac gave Matthew his ‘famous’ smile, “That would be awesome. I kind of always wanted to learn another language.” He hoped that wasn’t offensive, he knew sign language was a lot different than say Spanish. “I think it’s because it’s not taught as a class. People don’t seem to want to learn things outside of classes, or what they already know from their childhood.” It was more of a generalize statement from his own experiences with people, than it was as a generalized ‘most people are like this’ type of statement.

Giving a small smirk Isaac winked at Matthew, “Well I can’t promise I would learn it quickly, but sooner or later we will be able to have conversations without you having to use your powers. I promise.” And Isaac didn’t like to break his promises.

Isaac followed the boy’s hand and finger movements to spell his name and did the same with his hands and fingers, “Is there a shorter way of saying names? How do you sign your name?” Isaac was going to learn sign language from watching youtube as well, just because he was now determined to be able to talk to the other boy in a way that was more comfortable for him. He then did the movements for a cat, “Sorry, not to be offensive but it feels a little goofy to do this sign…” While it didn’t matter to Isaac whether it felt goofy or not, he would still do it.

[Matthew Rowland]

And we're adding 'his smile' to that ever growing list.

Matthew smiled back and nodded his head at Isaac's statement towards learning things outside of classrooms. He'd noticed that had been the case for a lot of things. Wasn't always a bad thing, exactly, but it was always nice when people put in time to learn when they didn't really have to.

And we're adding smirk. Aaaaand a wink. It's official, Isaac had to have been doing this on purpose. Or something. He composed himself -- not that he had a choice, really -- as he pondered on 'shorter names.' Matthew smiled again. It was a common thing for most hearing people to ask. Matt had been signing since he could figure out how, and fingerspelling was second nature, so names weren't really an issue. Especially since there were no signs for certain words so they had to be spelled out. He was going to have to think hard about what to give Isaac. It had to fit him.

He pointed to the first panel. "lol yes there is."

"Someone from the Deaf community can give you a name sign."

"It's a shortened version of your name."

"Often, it'll be descriptive of you. I'll try to think up one for you." He smiled. He was going to have fun with that.

He pointed to the first panel again, then began signing. "This is Matthew." Matthew caught Isaac's eyes as he signed. He genuinely looked interested. What stars aligned or what curse was lifted that allowed this to happen? His body was tingling, his temperature rising. This had to be a dream.

He stood up and closed the comic book. If he stayed any longer he was going to accidentally kiss him, or caress his hand, or start at him lovingly and awkwardly, or something that Isaac -- he's STRAIGHT, Matthew, he scolded himself -- would find uncomfortable. He thought about just running off like Cinderalla.

But he needed to leave something.

Matthew fished around his pockets. He knew making these was a good idea. Multi-functional, too. He handed Isaac a personal business card. The side facing Isaac had a small quote on it, "In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. - M.L.K". It suddenly shifted to simply say "I have to go. But text me when you're ready for lessons." Flipping to the other side would reveal Matt's contact info.