I always wondered what it would be like if any of our favorite demigods was disabled...this is what came from that. I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus, Big Bang Theory, of the Hunger Games. My birthday is coming up soon though! Well...it's in March but...ooh! No, get me ownership for Christmas please!
Thanks to everyone who have read my other two stories, Crippled by Mere Memories and Bang Bang.
Connor Stoll didn't want to be sent to a place for people like him. He just wanted to be as great as his brother. Travis was the star, the prankster, the one who got the best grades, the one who was captain of the football team. Not Connor. No, Connor was the half-deaf one, the special one, the one who couldn't hear much of anything you said without his hearing aids. He always felt like an old person when he put those in, like he should be sitting in a retirement home playing golf, not a 14-year old boy just wanting to fit in.
Connor Stoll didn't want to be half-deaf.
But he was.
And he hated it.
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So here Connor stood, in front of Dr. Brunner's desk. He had explained to the disabled doctor about why he was here and Dr. Brunner didn't speak ridiculously loudly like some people did when they found out Connor was deaf. He just nodded, handed Connor a room key, and welcomed Connor to The Yancy Facility for the Disabled. Connor made his way down the winding hallways and made it to what was supposed to be his room. 14-E. It wasn't much, just a cot, a night table, a corkboard, and a dresser, but it was okay. A bathroom was connected to it through a door.
Connor sat his small rucksack down on the cot and left the room, locking the door as he went. He glanced at the map and the schedule that Dr. Brunner had given him. It was time for lunch, apparently. He made his way to the Mess Hall and was alarmed by how many people were there. People with seeing-eye dogs, people in wheelchairs, people talking to themselves and even people who looked completely normal. Connor wondered why they were here.
"Hi," A voice from behind brought him out of his wonderings. A boy with cloudy blind eyes, and a golden retriever was standing behind Connor. "It's not nice to stare."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," Connor apologized. They stood in silence for a minute. "So, what's your name?"
"My name's Ethan Nakumara. Patient at Yancy etc. etc. blind etc... who're you?"
"I'm Connor Stoll. I... um... I am, uh... deaf, mostly."
"Oh, so you can't hear me? Are you reading my lips?" Ethan asked, moving out of the doorway. His dog pulled him to one side then the other.
"Er, no. I'm not completely deaf. I have hearing aids." Connor flushed. A kid from the tables called Ethan over. Ethan nodded and led his dog lead him towards the boy. Apparently Ethan wanted Connor to follow him because he made vague follow me movements with his free hand. Connor felt all eyes gravitate towards him as he self consciously walked over to the table. He sat in the empty seat next to Ethan and studied the teenagers around him.
There was a boy in a wheelchair pulled up to the edge of the table, a blond girl talking to another, redheaded girl with sign language, and another boy with a prosthetic arm. Ethan beamed as he introduced me. The boy in the wheelchair was Percy, he was paralyzed from the waist down. The redhead's name was Rachel, who was completely deaf, and she rapidly signed hello to me. I signed it back to her.
The blond haired girl was Annabeth. She was mute. She was supposed to be like, a childhood prodigy, but she often got frustrated because she couldn't express her ideas well enough. She seemed to be good friends with the boy who had one arm, Luke. Ethan finally took the time to introduce me to his golden retriever. "And this good girl here, this is Mrs. O'Leary. She used to belong to Dr. Quintus, but he was transferred to another facility after a few months. No one really knows why."
I nodded. Rachel and Annabeth turned to me and we started a conversation that basically went like this:
Annabeth: So, is this your first time at a "special" place?
Me: Yeah. I really didn't want to go.
Rachel: My dad made me. He's the top dog in Dare Industries. He couldn't have his deaf kid ruining his image. What's your story?
Me: Nothing much. My twin brothers Mr. Popular at my school while I get kicked to the curb because I wear hearing aids. Not much fun.
Annabeth: I like this place better than home, at least. My stepmom wasn't the nicest. Liked her own kids infinitely more than me and I was the scrapegoat of the house. Got abused while my dad was at work. Got spiders placed in my room everyday to freak me out. My stepmom hated me so much that she actually tried to get rid of me. Didn't work obviously, but when she tried to strangle me she damaged my vocal chords so that I can't speak.
Me: That's horrible! Your stepmom is a monster!
"Yeah, Earth to girlfriend, I'm still here." Percy spoke, poking Annabeth(they were dating?) on the shoulder. Annabeth turned and formed the letters ILY on one hand.
Cute.
Luke rolled his eyes and drummed his (real)fingers on the table. He turned away from the couple and began to sign to Rachel. Ethan asked me if I ever watched Big Bang Theory.
"What?"
"Oh, sorry."
"No, I heard you, but I have no idea what it is."
"It's a show Annabeth and Rachel watch all the time. You know, The whole universe was in a hot dense state? I can't watch it, obviously but Rachel does, with subtitles, obviously. They say it's really funny." Ethan rambled on. I noticed people begin to stand and walk(or wheel or limp) over to a steadily growing line in front of what seemed to be a buffet table. A sign hung above the table. Only take one plate or one bowl. This means you, Leo!
A boy sauntered up to the buffet table and smiled cheekily at the sign. He looked kind of like...like a latino santa elf. Connor knew that description was a little weird but it sure fit well. The boy grabbed a plate and a bowl, loading them with as much food as he could. Connor then determined that this was Leo. Leo walked back to his table and gave the bowl to another girl who nodded shyly in thanks.
Percy wheeled over to the table. "Come on, guys. If Leo makes another pass I won't get enough food!"
Annabeth sighed and shook her head. He's the only one here allowed to take extra food. Apparently his metabolism runs so fast he has to eat a lot. At least, that's what he tells us. I swear he eats like six times a day. Huge portions.
Connor watched Percy pile his plate full of pizza and a completely random heap of blueberries, while he only took a few food items. Percy balanced the plate on his knees like a pro and slowly made his way back to the table.
Connor let his gaze travel to Leo's table on his way back. The girl Leo gave the bowl to was glaring at him. Her voice carried over. "Don't...don't do that! I didn't steal those diamonds and Piper didn't steal that car, and you know it!"
Right...whatever happened there, Connor didn't want to get into it. He sat back down at the table and was met by another boy, one with blond hair and an odd scar just above his lip. He sat down across from Percy and stole a piece of pizza from his plate.
"Hey, I need that, Jason! Required nutrition!"
Jason chewed his stolen pizza thoughtfully. "Uh huh. That's what you always say," Jason realized I was there and he turned to me. "New here? You look sort of familiar. Maybe I've seen you before?"
"Yeah, I mean, yeah I'm new here. My name is Connor Stoll. Maybe you're thinking about my brother, Travis. Everybody thinks I'm him when they first see me."
Percy was smiling slightly. "Jason thinks he's seen everyone before. He got in here for a huge case of amnesia. Couldn't even remember his name. It's like he brought the amnesia around though, I fell out of my wheelchair a few weeks after he came and hit my head. We were in the same boat for a while. My memories came back pretty fast though, it's been taking Jason months."
"Wow...that must be hard, living with that."
Jason shrugged, grinning, the scar over his lip curling into a crescent. "It's good. I've started to remember. There's just a few times that I wish I didn't do certain things..."
Jason trailed off, glancing at Leo's table.
Annabeth and Rachel came back to the table.
Discussing Jason's amnesia? Annabeth asked.
Yeah.
Rachel followed Jason's gaze and frowned at the sight of Leo and the two girls, one native american, one slightly spanish looking as well. Another, stockier boy had walked over, smiling and wrapping his arm around the spanish girl. Leo looked mildly put out at that but continued his conversation with the native american girl.
That's Piper, Leo, Frank, and Hazel. Leo is apparently a pyromaniac, Piper and Hazel are kleptomaniacs, and Frank is mentally unstable. Says he turned into an eagle and flew away to a glacier. Weird, right? Anyway, when Jason first got here Piper convinced Jason that she was his girlfriend, even though he had a kind of-sort of-maybe relationship at home named Reyna. They began to date and on their first kiss Jason remembered Reyna and freaked Piper out. Now Jason is extremely guilty because he actually likes Piper but he doesn't know who he should choose when he gets home. Rachel ran her hands through her bright red hair when she was finished. We sat in silence when the table was shaken and what sounded like what you hear when you stab a tree with a knife was heard. I mean, come on, we've all gotten angry before. I've sure stabbed a tree or two.
Turns out it was Annabeth, back from the buffet table, who had really stabbed the wooden table with a kitchen knife. I wondered if it even safe to have a knife like that in a room full of disabled and mentally unstable teenagers.
I also wondered why someone yelled, "THAT WAS MAHOGANY! MAHOGANY!" because that looked a lot like plywood with wood patterns printed on top to me.
That's just about the only way I can get your guys' attention now, isn't it? Annabeth smirked as she pulled the knife from the table. She stuffed it back into the sleeve of her jacket, glancing around to make sure that nobody noticed. Well, I just wanted you to stop staring at Piper's quartet of oddities. Any longer and you might've started to drool.
"Sorry," I muttered, dipping my head. Surely Piper and her friends couldn't be that weird.
Jason voiced my thoughts. "They're not are odd. They're different, just like us."