Chapter Text
.01.
*Josh’s POV*
In middle school, most people go through the dreaded 7th grade emo phase. A fringe, eyeliner, and a constant ‘fuck you’ attitude to everything that moved. They would sulk around, thinking the world hated them and that they hated everything. Sometimes, they stop talking for a day or two, to show everyone how much they hated the world.
Most people snapped out of that phase after a few weeks or months, then look back on it years later and cringe.
Josh would’ve given anything to have snapped out of his ‘no-talking’ phase.
-
It was the first day of Josh’s senior year of high school, and, like any good fanfiction character in a high school AU, he was dreading it. There was the cliché reasons like ‘I have no friends’ and ‘_____ is just going to beat me up even more now because I still don’t have any friends’, but then there was the fact that Josh was at a new school once again. Another year full of trying to explain why he didn’t speak, and enduring the teasing and name calling, with no way to retaliate. I mean, it wasn’t like Josh could just shout back at them, now could he?
The answer is no.
Josh was currently sat in his car – well, his dad’s car, really, but that’s irrelevant – in the parking lot of Stonebridge High School. It was the largest high school in the county, yet it only held 2000 students. Last year, back in Cleveland, his school had over 5000 students, so this was a major step down.
Gazing at the building, Josh could see that the student population wasn’t the only thing that had decreased; so had the quality of the facility.
Bricks were crumbling in the corners and there was broken glass scattered across the lawn. Josh made a mental note to not stand near the edges of the building, and prayed that when he got beat up, he wasn’t thrown into the grass.
With Josh, it wasn’t an ‘if I get beat up’, it was a ‘when I get beat up’.
Because really, was there an easier target?
Once again, the answer is no.
Sighing, Josh reached over and unbuckled his seatbelt, effectively making a fool of himself when the clip hit him in the face as it retracted. Sighing again, he looked around the slowly filling lot, hoping no one had seen.
There were no large football players with cheerleaders on their arms laughing at him, yet.
Yet.
With a third and painfully overdramatic sigh, Josh climbed out of his car and retrieved his bag from the back seat. Making sure he had both his cell phone and his keys in hand, he locked the car and began the painstaking journey to the front office to retrieve his schedule.
-
Josh made it without incident to the main desk, pushing his way through the throngs of people to get there. He had gotten a few grumbled warnings, but no major death threats yet.
Seated at the counter was an ancient looking woman with her white hair pulled into a bun. She had reading glasses settled on the bridge of her nose, and she was sifting through a stack of papers seemingly as large as her sat on the floor. Josh cleared his throat, and she looked up at him instantly. Her eyes were clouded over with age, but held no animosity or anger.
“How can I help you, darling?” she asked in a gravelly voice.
Josh almost began signing out what he needed, but realized that this old woman didn’t know sign language. Instead, he motioned writing on paper with his hand.
After a moment, the woman realized what he meant, and bent down beneath the desk. She reappeared a moment later with a pen and a sheet of paper.
Josh accepted the materials with a thankful smile and quickly wrote out his situation.
‘Hi, my name is Joshua Dun. I enrolled here about a week ago and never received a schedule. Did I come to the correct place?’
He handed the paper to the woman once more, clutching to the pen still.
She read over the note once, twice, and a third time, then nodded.
“I’m going to send you to the principal's office, they have your schedule as well as a translator there,” she explained, standing up. “You can just follow me, sweetie.”
Josh hiked his bag a bit farther up his bag and followed the elderly lady down a short hallway. She then ushered him into a small office. It was roughly half the size of his bedroom, and held only a bookshelf and a desk with two chairs.
The woman shut the door behind her with no explanation to the man behind the desk, whom looked up at Josh in surprise.
“Can I help you?”
Josh panicked for a moment, not knowing what to say. Or rather, write. Not that he had anything to write on.
‘I’m Joshua Dun,’ he signed slowly.
The man cocked his head to the side slightly, frowning. “Can you do that again please?”
Josh repeated his movements, blushing fiercely.
“Hi Joshua, it’s nice to meet you. I apologize, my sign language is rather rusty and to be honest, I wasn’t expecting it,” he said afterwards. “You can take a seat right there, I’ll find your schedule. It’s in here…somewhere…”
As Josh sat in the chair opposite the man, he rifled through a drawer in his desk.
“Forgive me Joshua, I’m usually more organized than this, but it’s the beginning of the year, and I was just married, and things are a bit hectic,” the man said sheepishly.
‘It’s alright,’ Josh signed when the man made eye contact with him again.
“Oh, I forgot to ask, forgive me if I seem out of place, but you aren’t er, deaf, right? I feel as though I should’ve asked before I went on talking.”
Josh shook his head before replying. ‘I can hear, I just don’t speak.’
The man nodded before returning to rummaging through his desk.
“Ah, here we go,” he finally said, handing a sheet of paper to Josh. On it held his student ID, locker and combination, and classes for the rest of the year. Scanning the classes, Josh frowned, pointing to the fifth period class.
“Hmm?” the man asked at his confusion.
‘I didn’t sign up for music. I asked for a work experience period.’
“Oh, yes, about that,” the man trailed off. “We had too many students leaving campus for work experience already, and with your late enrollment… well, fifth period music has only six other students in the class. If you ask the teacher nicely, I’m sure he’ll let you leave for work experience.” He paused, smiling. “But shh, you didn’t hear that from me.”
Josh frowned again. What kind of school was this, with a principal that encouraged students to leave campus without permission?
“Oh, forgive my horrid manners, I’m Mr. Urie, but you can call me Brendon if you’d like. Most people do, and those that don’t just make fun of my last name. You can’t imagine the amount of times that I’ve been called Mr. Urinal,” he added, shuddering.
‘I’ll stick with Brendon.’
“Good choice. Now, there are a few students here that know ASL, if you’d like me to change one of their schedules to coincide with yours, it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Josh was shaking my head before he finished. ‘I don’t want to be a bother. I can write out responses if worse comes to worse.’
“Are you sure?” Brendon asked, a line appearing between his eyebrows.
He nodded again as the first bell of the day rang.
“Alright. I’ll be here all day if you need me. Have a good day, Joshua.”
‘You too.’
Josh stood up and readjusted his backpack, then set off to find the science wing for AP Physics.