Enjoy the silence

[hope]

In the local diner, Hope had pulled herself up a seat at the counter. Not literally pulled because it was one of those old timey lookin' diners that had the barstool seats next to the counter. She had visited the diner on more than one occasion. It was quaint. Plus, everyone knew her there, so they knew the routine.

They didn't know sign language, so she used other forms of communication. She used to write down what she needed to say on a pad of paper, but since her parents got her a cell phone during her teen years she uses the window for text messaging to convey her words to people.

The older waitress behind the counter wiped her hands on a dish cloth. "What can I get for ya, Hope?" She said with a touch of a southern accent.

Hope flipped open her phone and her fingers flew over the pad, typing out a message. French fries and a strawberry milkshake. She flipped the phone towards the waitress.

"Sure thing, dahlin'."

Hope closed her phone as the waitress turned her back to her and ordered her food. She couldn't hear her order it, but she knew what the woman was doing.

There was quite a few people within' the diner, but she didn't look at people too often. The bell above the door giving the annoying dinging sound, but Hope didn't look in its direction like most of the customers inside. She couldn't respond to what she couldn't hear.

A few moments later she had a small plate of fries and a strawberry milkshake in a huge glass that looked like she couldn't drink on her own, but she would. She didn't order this often, but when she did, she polished it off.

Grabbing a fry, she bit into it then grabbed her milkshake and took a sip. It was heaven. There was something about a milkshake with fries.

One fry and sip later and a vision hit her. It's crippling effect causing her to drop her head into her hands. The headache that slammed into her head, making her thoughts swim with something...someone. It wasn't quite clear yet, but her world wobbled as her equilibrium was thrown off.

[russ]

Another city, another state. This was nothing unusual for Russell, but when a guy had to eat he could always rely on there being that atmospheric diner catering to a time most of the occupants were not even alive for, much less could fondly remember. But like them, Russell could still appreciate the ambiance, especially after a boring bus ride with dodgy looking people, past endless fields. Dropped into the middle of town, Russ stretched out his arms, reaching his hands towards the sun, before shouldering his pack. Having to travel light (if you could call his oversized backpack, stereotypical of long backpacking excursions such as he was on, light), he was not the type to carry much in the nature of snacks. His stomach gave a demanding growl of hunger, and he obediently pushed open the glass door of the diner.

Glancing up as his entrance was signaled to the entire place, the matronly looking woman busy at work waved her hand dismissively. “Sit anywhere ya like, hon.” Considering he was alone, he did not intend to take up a booth all for himself. Hardly leant itself to conversational opportunities, anyhow. Not that he was making that any easier on himself with the particular woman he ventured to sit next to. Already pulling his camera off his shoulder and dumping his pack against the barstool beside her, Russ was going make introduction with one of his typically cheerful comments, when her head suddenly dropped to her hands.

He was pretty sure that she was not aware of his intensions, so could not possibly be rejecting his company already. And frankly, he thought she at least looked approachable… though not so much anymore. Already invested he asked, [white]“Are you alright?”[/white] A moment. Okay, maybe she was ignoring him. He was used to skeptical looks and being shrugged off… but to be ignored altogether? It seemed a little harsh, especially coming from what he had previously observed to be a rather sweet-faced woman.

Sitting beside her, he tried again as he adjusted his things. [white]“I’m really not a bad guy …”[/white] Turning back to her just in time to see her sway slightly, he put his hand to her shoulder instinctively. [white] “Woah, take it easy there.”[/white] He made a note to avoid the milkshakes. She looked like she had one major brain freeze. It was safe to assume now that his abhorred presence was not causing disabilitating migraines in random strangers.

[hope]

Hope was having one of her typical visions. Seeing something that she felt dirty for seeing. It was never anything good. It seemed her visions always spoke of death. It was as if she was supposed to be constantly trying to save these people, but she didn't always make it on time or sometimes it had already happened.

So lost in this vision she hadn't noticed the young man that sat next to her. She couldn't hear him when he spoke because she was almost completely deaf, but even if she could hear the vision consumed her and threw her into an alternate time. She was not fully there. Only did she notice when his arm came down on her shoulder as the room spun around her.

Her equilibrium wasn't knocked off as bad as it sometimes was. This was a mild case, so it only took her a moment to feel slightly better and it was after the vision dissipated that she started to get her bearings back, but when she did she began to sign to him, her hands shook as they moved. "Thank you." Forgetting that most people didn't know ASL, she reached for her cell phone and typed the two words on her screen for him to read.

She felt bad that some new face had to see her like that, so she tried to brighten up and introduce herself. Her fingers went back to punching something over the screen of the cell phone. My name is Hope. And, of course, she put a smiley face at the end, which matched the smile that she gave him.

Glancing at her fries and shake, she pushed it aside, not hungry anymore. Not after the vision she had. She never could stomach anything after any of her visions. The milkshakes and fries are really good here. You can have mine, unless you're afraid of germs. She offered, trying to be friendly to the young man.

After showing him the text on her phone she took the time to look this man over. He was lanky, but he was still handsome and had a sweet face about him. Oh, how she knew a sweet face didn't mean anything. She had had visions of sweet faced looking men or women doing some horrible things. It made her all very wary.

[russ]

Hand lightly lingering on her arm for a moment longer than it needed to be, Russ assured himself that it was safe to retract his gesture when it did not seem as though the woman would suffer a relapse. She looked a little shaken up, and Russ glanced skeptically at the milkshake before grinning at the silly notion that it could be responsible for this. Not that he at all suspected the truth.

While she seemed unusually quiet, it did not register immediately that she was signing to him. Russell, as he was sure was the case with most the public, was not exactly ready to encounter someone with such limitations. The ability for verbal communication was just one of those things a person took for granted in themselves and in their expectations of others.

Understanding after something like that a person would probably want to contact someone close to them, Russell’s first assumption was that he was the furthest thing from her mind. It was not until the phone crept into his vision that he glanced up blankly, then down at the cell. His brow furrowed as he read the message.

He understood it, of course, but he was not the quickest of cats – he did not immediately gather that she couldn’t speak. In fact, the first ridiculous impression he got was that there was a ‘no speaking’ policy implemented in this joint. Like it was frowned upon in a library. He shook this from his mind as his ears perceived the general chatter of the few other customers.

The phone was being held out to him again, and he read it just before she pulled it back and her hands proceeded to fly over the keyboard. With half a moment for it to dawn on him what was going on, Russ expectantly read the next message and laughed. Oh! he concluded in his head. ‘Thank you’ actually was in his limited ASL vocabulary, and his mind flashed back to the ironically tragic sign language teacher in primary school who had lost his two middle fingers to a bandsaw.

Instinctively, reaching for the cell phone in his jeans pocket, Russ spelled out his name to kill time. He was pretty sure he could still recall the alphabet from when he taught himself from a Sesame Street book as a kid, but he hoped he wasn’t telling her she was a wuss or something. Proceeding to follow Hope’s lead, he typed [white]I can tell they’re good by the way ur gobblin them down.[/white] He showed her with a friendly grin. With a slightly concerned expression stealing over his smile, he asked and signed at the same time as he had seen proper signers do. [white] “You okay?”[/white]

[hope]

The look on the guy’s face told her exactly what she had already guessed. He was looking at her like she’d gone crazy as she signed to him. It was a good thing she hadn’t forgotten her cell phone this morning. She would have had to figure out some other means of communicating to the man.

He seemed like a nice guy, making sure she was okay, but she was still very wary of him. If people had the visions that she had they would be cautious of people as well. Some of the things she saw gave her nightmares at night. Her latest visions had been about a man killing women. His face had become so etched into her brain -- his sadistic grin, that cold and calculating look in his eyes. He used the same method on all the previous women. In her eyes, he was nothing but a serial killer and she was searching for him. If her family knew they would be pissed off, but she hadn’t been telling them. Her visions kept bringing him one step closer to her. It wouldn’t be before she would catch up to him.

When he laughed, she tilt her head at him. She didn’t realize he had figured out that she was using sign language. He typed something over his phone and showed her. She smiled and nodded in greeting, waiting for whatever his fingers were typing now. Her cheeks turned bright red when she read it. She hate it when people noticed her stuffing her face. I was hungry, she replied over text.

Her brow furrowed as his expression changed and he signed, asking her if she was okay. Her hands went back to signing. You know sign language? Of course he did, if he was using it. Yes, I’m okay. I just got a really bad head rush. She lied to him, but it was easy to do because she did it so much. She did not feel it was her best interest to share with people that she had premonitions. They would think she was some sort of nut. No, thank you. She’ll just stick with the little white lies.

He never answered if he wanted any of her things and pushed her fries and shake away. Her stomach was doing some horrible flip-flops. It was hard for her not to picture the man in her vision going after that woman. The sight of all the blood, the death, it was getting hard for her to deal with. That was why she decided that she had to stop him before she went crazy with the visions.

[russ]

Russell felt a little bad about his initial reaction to figuring out what was going on here. He probably looked like a right ass. He was not the type to bring attention to someone’s disabilities. He knew how uncomfortable that could make a person. Hell, he knew how much he hated to be scrutinized and there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary with him. But then, maybe a person got used to it. She did not seem offended at all, and that came as a great relief.

Allowing himself to ease into her methods, Russ kept his phone at the ready. He didn’t do a heck of a lot of texting, so he wasn’t very fast at typing out on the little keyboard, but with the growing familiarity of conversations after this fashion, it really did not strike him as all that weird. At least, this method was the plan. It did not even occur to him that using what limited sign language he knew would suggest he was at all capable of communicating with her on that level. He thought the fact that he had taken the time to type out a response was a pretty clear sign of that. Now he was turning read, and he grimaced slightly as her hands moved in front of him meaninglessly. He thought he might have caught the meaning of one sign, but he knew it was nowhere near enough to hazard a guess at what she meant.

Without precaution to abstain from the quizzical expression contorting his face, he turned away to his phone to type away as quickly as he could to avoid this torturously long embarrassment. Feeling the tips of his ears burn, he slid his phone towards her with the message: [white]Srry, only no a little bit. Say again?[/white] He gave her a little frown to convey that he was sorry for the misunderstanding.

[hope]

Hope hadn’t realized Russell didn’t know sign language, until his face became completely puzzled. She tilted her head a little as he bent over his phone again and typed up a message. When he showed it to her, she blushed as she read it. Now she felt bad for mistaking him. However, it was an honest mistake on both of their parts.

She opened her phone back up and typed out what she had just said. I said I was okay, and that I had just gotten a really bad head rush. After showing him the message she smiled at him then brought her phone back towards her to type something else. What brings you here? It’s a small town, so I know you are a new face. Everyone in this room knows one another.

Just after she showed him that last message the waitress popped back over. “Gots ya a friend here, Hope? Did you exchange numbers yet?” She grinned then winked boldly at the girl before turning towards Russell. “What can I get ya, young man?” The older woman asked while reaching for a towel to wipe off the counter.

Hope didn’t know how to reply to the woman’s boldness. She gave a little sigh and turned back down to her phone. The thing she hated about small towns was everyone knew your business. This was definitely going to make front headlines in the paper. Hope found herself a friend, maybe something more. Yeah, yeah. She knew she didn’t have too many friends or boyfriends, for that matter, but it was kind of hard with this disability. Not everyone knew or wanted to know how to use sign language.

After the waitress got Russell’s order Hope pushed her phone out in front of him. Sorry about that. Whenever a guy talks to me everyone thinks it’s going to lead to something. They all just look out for my best interest, but it gets annoying after a while. I’m hearing impaired, not like I don’t know how to flirt.

[russ]

[I’m sorry, I totally forgot about this thread. Girl, you gotta poke me when I’m slacking.]

It did not occur to Russ that they were actually getting several looks until Hope pointed it out. With an awkward little glance, he perceived that he was actually getting the most of these looks – not all of them terribly friendly. Fortunately the waitress was not as skeptical of him, and he jumped when he looked forward again with her approach. He had already tuned the outside world out talking to Hope, and the sound of someone’s voice came very unexpectedly.

Glancing betwixt them, it occurred quickly to Russ that it was unlikely that the sociable woman was taunting her, but Russ wasn’t given a chance to ask the natural question that came to mind. The attention was on him and he realized that he hadn’t even thought about what he wanted yet. “A hamburger I guess, and a coke. Thanks.” As soon as the woman was turning away, Russ noticed the phone illuminated beneath him again and looked down.

An embarrassed blush spread through his cheeks, as he laughed at what he read. It was a little comforting that she was aware of this and was essentially giving him permission to ignore it. He was still wondering if he should have even been using his limited sign language. It was like a second language… sometimes native tongues just didn’t want to deal with your limited knowledge. So Russ decided to test out the theory he had formulated when the waitress addressed Hope. Without using his phone, he faced her, [white] “Yes, the building anticipation of texting certainly sets a guy up for the killing flirtation. Sorry, I’m assuming you can read lips.”[/white] He nodded in the general direction of where the waitress was standing previously.

[emilyparker]

Jillian Parker

[/font][/size]

Looking for some education... [/font][/center][/blockquote][/size][/b]

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Lately, Emily was traveling around the country solving cases as a hunter during the weekends; she couldn’t remember anymore when was the last time she slept in her own bed, months maybe? Other hunters were right, once you’re in, it’s nearly impossible to get out and the need to help others, in her case was turning into an obsession, seeing potential cases everytime she picked up the paper; she was a witch NOT a hunter she tried to tell herself but it wasn’t working as it used to work before.
Emily crossed the lines of that small town, she looked for a place to eat, a cheap one and she found it where obvious, the main street. Got down down of the car on the other side of the street and put the automatic lock of the key as she walked towards the diner; a few cars passing made her stop in the middle of the road and she tucked her hands on her jacket’s pocket’s, it was chilly and she need to heat up, her powers came handy on winter to keep herself warm, a shiver confirmed that she was heating up and more cars passed, the wind made some dust hit her eyes, Emily frowned and wrinkle up her nose.
As soon as she had a moment to pass, she ran, well she leaped and reached the side walk fast, pushed the door open and a little bell rang, making most costumers to turn around to look at her, she hated that, looking up, she looked for a second at the bell and really had to control the desire to fry the damn jingle. Like defying all that were looking at her, she looked back at all, evaluated the place and went to seat by the counter, where there were high stools, she left one seat empty and sat to a couple’s right, one quick look at them and she knew that she was deaf, he typed on her cell phone and he was doing his best to reply to her in ASL but, Emily looked away immediately, she knew ASL, she took two years of it when she was in high school, thinking that her calling was “teaching”; to look at them it was the same as ear’s drop and Emily was a lot of things BUT noisy.
When she sprung her head around, she was surprised by a 40 something year old woman with a permanent grin and a coffe pot on her hand
“Coffee?”
Emily didn’t return the smile but she wasn’t rude or something
“Arg…no, thanks, I’ll have a low fat strawberry milkshake though!”
“Sure thing!”
“Thanks!”
The woman sprung her heels around and walked away quickly too; Emily took took out her Ipad3 and earplugs; she was getting ready to let the world outside her bubble she was about to make around her; As a song by a Country singer rumbled in her ears, Emily took the newspaper a few inches away and began to scroll down at it.
Sighed deep and placed her left elbow on the counter, making a sort of support for her heavy head, as she looked at the paper and her feet clamped on the stool, Emily rubbed her forehead, she was visibly tired and the expected yawn came in but as soon as it ended, she felt as if she was being watched and not in a good way.

******************************************

NOTES: MAYBE HOPE SAW EMILY IN ONE OF HER PREMONITIONS? Hope you guys don't mind I burst in!
tag: Hop/Russ/Open
word count: 656
credit for the template: I did it myself
Outfit: www.polyvore.com/night_out/set?id=23597482

[hope]

((It was no problem, Russ! I didn't even think about poking you.))

Hope watched Russ as he told the waitress his order. She wasn’t in much of a mood to eat, so she decided she would keep him company, if he didn’t mind, and sip away on her strawberry milkshake, albeit small sips. She didn’t want to end up with a stomach ache.

She waited for him to read her message. When he got it, she smiled as he turned to speak to her. Her eyes brightened at his joke, which was followed by a nod to say that she could read lips. It was like second nature to her. It was funny how someone can adapt when they don’t have a particular thing in their life. “It was the first thing I learned. American Sign Language came next,” she wrote on her phone.

The ring of the bell as a new patron entered did not alert Hope in the least. However, she knew someone had entered because people’s heads were turning towards the door. She turned her head, following everyone’s gaze. Her mouth fell open slightly as she recalled seeing that woman in a vision. How could she come out and tell this woman she had a vision about her? The looks she always got when she did had her shying away from that route.

She bit her bottom lip and typed onto the screen of her phone to Russ. “I think I know that girl.” That was a good start. She could pretend she had seen her from somewhere. The girl would probably shrug about it, but at least then maybe after some time getting to know the girl she might figure out what her vision had been trying to show. Sometimes it just didn’t make sense. Other times they came through as clear as day.

After she showed him the phone, she pulled her phone back and typed out a message to the girl. “Have I met you before?” She slid the phone towards the woman to see her reaction to the message on her phone.