Chapter Text
Born of the sole intention of raising a prodigy and savant, there was no story of love or a passion filled night with your parents. Why would there have to be when a politician and her public relations manager could just pay to have a child conceived via in vitro and born by a surrogate? It was so much less complicated that way. There was no need for your mother to take a break from her political career and no chance of growing messy emotional attachments while pregnant. You weren’t a child for loving after all. You were for molding and grooming to become the Ultimate Public Speaker.
Such expectations being placed children wasn’t actually all that an uncommon occurrence in a society that put such value in having a talent. But some cases, like yours, were more extreme than others. From the moment you were born, you were surrounded with lectures on politics and persuasion. Audio books of biographies on historical leaders stood in for bedtime stories. The closest things you’d ever received to love and encouragement were clips of inspirational speeches. And why would you have ever needed a warm embrace when your parents could just as easily keep you dressed in stuffy formal wear?
Every minute of every day was dedicated to developing your talent. More money than any taxpayer would have ever guessed was funneled and poured into your future. So, just imagine your parents utter disappointment when you turned out not only to have a stutter and lisp but, selective mutism as well. Despite your best efforts, the cold and disgusted looks they gave you never seemed to be enough to motivate your ability to speak. Not even when they became livid, screamed, and called you every name in the book did you ever manage to live up to their expectations.
Ultimate brat! Ultimate ingrate! Ultimate waste of space! Ultimate failure! ULTIMATE MISTAKE!
You’d never truly understood what it all meant at the time but, even at three-years-old, you knew it was your fault that you were being yelled at. And, no matter how much you cried, apologized, and tried to do what was being demanded of you, it never seemed to make any difference. Nothing you did was ever good enough and, as the years passed, it became clear that nothing you ever did would be. It wasn’t until the birth of your brother that your parents fully gave up on you.
What used to be angry words and livid stares suddenly turned into cold shoulders and complete isolation. You doubled down on your efforts to please; forcing out strained, messy stutters to try to garner any sort of attention. But nothing seemed to stop five-year-old you from becoming more and more invisible to the few constants in your life.
“P-p-p-p-pleeeeathh mm-mmmm-m-mmaa-mmmmammma!” you choked and hiccuped out, barely able to get your voice above a whimper as hot tears streamed down your face. “Ah-ah-ah-I th-th-thhhhyy ha-h-harrrrrr-th-th-thhheeerrr p-papaaaaaa!”
It was like they couldn’t hear or see you though. Social events, which you’d once been expected to attend all of, soon became nights of being hoisted off on your mother’s different underlings who were generally too busy with other responsibilities to pay you much mind, not your parents cared much either way. Your new brother had quickly become their world while you were tossed aside and forgotten like an old toy.
Lacking anyone to turn to, you had no idea how to cope with this new, unwanted role in life, wordless tantrums and acting out soon became the norm. Though, with no vested interest in your happiness or well-being, your parents were quick to send you off to a reformatory school, renown for not only its results but also its less than desirable methods.
Corporal punishment and long bouts of solitary confinement became the norm whenever you acted out. And, on the days that you were well behaved enough to not be the victim of such punishments, cruel words and physical torment from your peers awaited you. Being unable to speak up for yourself and lacking any prior experience with anyone around your own age, you quickly became the target of bullying. Just like at home, there was no winning no matter what you did.
Returning home each summer, you did your best to stay on your best behavior with the hope that maybe this would be the year that your parents might allow you to enroll in a different school if you were good enough. Though, as you entered your early teens, you slowly came to the realization that there was no escaping being sent back once the school year started back up. With you away from home and out of the way, your parents were completely free to devote their time to your ever improving brother and had no worry of you getting in the way or tainting his perfection.
With nothing but a bed and homework supplies available to you; you soon began occupying your summers and any free time with lonely, escape driven naps and finding yourself uninhibited by your difficulties with speech and all too eager to escape reality even while awake, you began using old notebooks to keep dream journals.
Page after page, you filled the notebooks with vivid depictions of your dreams, expanding on and revisiting their worlds to your heart’s content. You hadn’t thought much of the activity until a mandatory room search was conducted at school that anyone even knew of your pastime. Called to the the principal’s office, you sat in silence, terrified that you were about to lose access to your one pleasure in life as the man in front of you scoured through countless pages of your safe haven.
Finally looking up with a stone cold expression, the principal stared at you in silence. You looked back, scared to break eye contact or move wrong. What felt like hours passed before he finally opened his mouth to speak. “You wrote all of this?”
Timid and hesitant, you gave a small nod as you lower lip quivered at the thoughts of what punishments could possibly await you. The principal’s expression was unreadable and, while he didn’t appear particularly angry, the uncertainty of the situation scared you more than anything. You’d never meant anything wrong by recording your dreams. You’d never even thought anyone would even care what you dreamed about. If your parents had managed to succeed at anything with you, it was drilling into your head that you were absolutely worthless. So why wouldn’t that apply to your dreams as well?
Letting out an indignant huff, the principal stared at you with a dubious gleam in his eyes as he pulled out a pencil and piece of paper. “Prove it,” he said as he slid the supplies towards you and trained a scrutinous glare at you . “Write something here.”
Taken aback, you stared at the man with uncertainty. What was he trying at and what end game could he possibly possess with such a demand? Was it just some sort of elaborate scheme to further torture or humiliate you with? Afraid to invoke any further wrath though, you shakily took the pencil and scooted forward to write.
Trembling under the principal’s unwavering stare, you did your best to think back on the previous night. It’d been a nice dream, you recalled. Peaceful and serene, a place you could do anything you wanted and not be in fear of being reprimanded or punished. A world where you could find people who genuinely cared for you and wanted to see you be happy if even just for a second. Tears welling in your eyes, you found the words you wished you could speak and feel flowing onto the paper in front of you. One by one, you recorded the small moments of that world that you wished you could experience in real life. The emotion you’d felt and longed to be allowed to you in reality.
Before you knew it, you were out of writing space and the paper was being snatched away from you. Startled, you looked up and found the principal meticulously pouring over the piece of paper. Engrossed in the writing, he almost seemed to forget you were there, only acknowledging you again to order you to wait with the secretary in the office outside. It wasn't much later that you found yourself being whisked off by another teacher and taken to wait in a classroom. Hours passed, you being allowed to do nothing more than sit at a desk, confused and terrified to what could possibly be going on as the only other soul in the room shot the occasional glare at you while working through papers that needed to be given the subpar, if not flat out failing, grades they’d inevitably earn.
Finally, long after it’d become dark outside and you’d more than given up on the concept of getting dinner that night if your nerves would even allow you to keep something down, the door to the classroom swung open. Daring to look over, you were met with the shocking sight of your parents. A new sense of fear filled you, one that put any previous fear you’d felt that day to shame. Had you really screwed up so badly to have you mother and father, who usually wouldn’t have cared if you’d come to disappear completely, to come in? Truly, death would’ve been a better fate than whatever awaited you with them.
Had you been able to comprehend the expressions on their faces, you might have been surprised to see something other than utter disgust and disdain being directed at you. Where scowls and contempt usually resided, smug smirks sat. Striding over to you, your father clutched onto your arm and uttered something you never could’ve expected.
“Come on then,” he said, his tone sickly sweet. “You’re coming home, sweetie.”
Blinking, your brows furrowed at the words as you looked up and tried to gauge if your father was being serious. He wasn’t one to joke nor was he, despite the painfully tight grip he had on you, one to be this patient with you. As you caught sight of his eyes, you found something new in them. He’d held many emotions in his eyes towards you over the years. Anger… hate… disappointment… and, most commonly, disgust. But now… he seemed to be looking at you with a sense of ownership, as though he’d actually be willing to claim you as his own without a second thought.
It was a strange feeling. It still wasn’t anything close to love or even care but… it was the closest thing to pride he’d ever shown towards you. And that was more than you’d ever thought you’d get from him. So, shocked and eager to keep such a gaze from him, you quickly stood up and did your best to keep up with his quick pace as he roughly pulled you along. Reaching your mother, she stopped him and harshly grabbed your face.
“Mm, you look so malnourished darling,” she cooed as she inspected you. “We’ll stop for food on the way.”
Blinking, you looked on in shell-shocked confusion as she tightly latched onto your other arm, perfectly manicured nails carelessly digging in. As suddenly as they appeared, you found them dragging you towards their car, paying little mind to how you tripped and stumbled to keep up along the way. You weren’t even given time to grab your belongings before being thrown into the back seat and raced away from the school, learning of just what all had transpired while you’d been secluded in the classroom.
The principal had apparently been both shocked and delighted by your writing, raving that it was unlike anything he’d ever read before and had to be the most drastic turn around he’d ever witnessed within a student. Having brought up that this was something he could see leading to definite opportunities down the line, he’d already sent word and some scans your work off to an associate of his with ties to the illustrious Hope’s Peak Academy, the principal had insisted your parents come pick you up to prepare for an interview of sorts.
“To think,” your mother said with the same smile she wore when schmoozing with potential investors. “You’d be hiding such a talent within that meek demeanor of yours.”
“I knew it all along!” your father laughed smugly. “That’s why we were always so tough on you, you know. You just needed the right push to channel the untapped potential into something worthwhile.”
On and on, they continued singing your praises the entire way home as you sat, enamored by it all. As soon as you’d made it into the city limits, you were quickly hurried to the best salon around. Waited and doted upon, primped and made over to your parent’s exact instructions. And, once home, your father quickly went to work with his team to figure out the best angle for you to be presented as at your interview. Ripping through the notebooks obtained from your room, your potential title was soon revealed to be The Ultimate Dreamer.
“Dreams bring people hope ,” your father explained, preparing you for the contingency of all this attention. “You want to bring others hope don’t you?”
You weren’t sure about bringing hope to others but you were certainly desperate to keep the hope that this situation was bringing you. For the first time in your life, you were finally being seen and not despised for it. Even if you didn’t necessarily have the feelings of comfort and safety that the love in your dreams offered, it was so much more than you’d ever imagined having in real life. And, as long as you could continue giving your parents what they wanted, it would stay that way.
So, as you stood in front of your new school, you felt on top of the world. You’d managed to make it through the interview, the school boards’ panel being very accommodating toward your difficulties with speech. It seemed that reading of your dreams really did seem to have some positive affect on people as they’d admitted you with very little debate on the subject. Head held head and heart full of hope, there you stood, you walked towards the path towards your parents acceptance. Not even as everything began to spin and you felt the world begin to fall away from you did you feel that anything could possibly go wrong. You just had to make your parents proud. If you could just live up to their expectations… you just… had to… live.