Free Hand (Irons and Works Book 1) Read online

  Free Hand

  Irons and Works: Book One

  By E.M. Lindsey

  Free Hand

  E.M. Lindsey

  Copyright © 2019

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any events, places, or people portrayed in the book have been used in a manner of fiction and are not intended to represent reality. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  As I’m wont to do when I deal with sensitive information or subject matter, I wanted to give a preface for people who might need it. This book deals with some delicate topics which can be hard for some people to read, and the last thing in the world I want is for people looking for sweet, fluffy entertainment to stumble on to unsuspecting situations that might be upsetting.

  In this book, I deal with the realities of PTSD, the effects of childhood trauma, and the very real oppression and stereotyping that Deaf and disabled people go through in their everyday lives. This book uses some rough, ableist language by antagonists, and portrays thoughts, emotions, and reactions of being an adult and providing end-of-life care for an abusive parent.

  It’s important to remember that not everyone with a disability, panic attacks, PTSD, or abuse survivors have the same experience—this is simply one portrayal of those things and is not meant to represent those things as a whole.

  As per my usual request, if these situations are too difficult for you to read, please feel free to pass on this book, as I would rather you all put your mental health and happiness before anything else. You all have my undying love and gratitude for all your support, and I appreciate each and every one of you for getting this far.

  Before I end this, I want to just make familiar to some people some terms that you’ll see used in this book.

  1- Deaf (capital D)- a person who belongs to the Deaf Community. 2- deaf- a person who is considered medically deaf. 3- HOH- a person considered medically hard of hearing, but may also consider themselves Deaf. 4- CODA- a person who is the child of deaf parents. Hearing CODAs are often either considered part of the Deaf Community or considered allies depending on the specific community they belong to. Some CODAs are also deaf or HOH.

  The second thing I want to clarify is Basil’s writing. Most D/deaf children are taught standard English grammar at school, even at a deaf school where most of the curriculum is in sign, however switching from sign to English can be exhausting, and there is a specific syntax and language that a lot of D/deaf people, who are predominantly signers, use when writing or texting. I, myself, tend to use what most people consider ‘bad grammar’ when I’m chatting to people or texting and I’ve been signing for most of the day simply because it’s easier not to swap my brain over. It doesn’t mean that D/deaf people don’t understand, are less intelligent, or are incapable of using English grammar, it’s simply part of the culture and I’ve chosen to portray that with Basil in this book. Thank you for coming to my TED talk …honestly, I’m joking, but I just wanted to clear that up before the book begins so anyone who doesn’t have experience with Deaf Culture or Community will know some basic info before they start.

  I hope those of you who continue on past this foreword enjoy the story and look forward to the remaining books in the series.

  All my best,

  E.M. Lindsey

  Free Hand

  Book one of Irons and Works

  The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.

  -Viktor E. Frankl

  1.

  “I’m surprised you took your boyfriend’s cock out of your mouth long enough to check up on your old man.” The cruelty in the voice didn’t faze Derek much anymore, though tonight his defenses were low. He’d woken up late, took a bad spill in the shop hallway, and work hadn’t been great. A client from the week before came in on a rampage because someone had made fun of her new ink—something she’d printed off the internet and asked him to trace onto her skin in spite of his warnings that it would be better for him to design something based on the image rather than copy the image itself. She’d insisted however, that he provide, and so he did. Because that was his job. And when it didn’t pan out, it was also his fault. The insults spilling from her lips had echoed around his head the same way his father’s often did, and it was just…a lot. “What the fuck you doin’ anyway, boy?”

  Derek dragged a hand down his face, squinting at the way his window started to fog up. The rain was getting heavier as he tried to navigate the streets toward the bank. “I uh…I’m just heading to the bank. Dad, you get your meds today?”

  “Fuck you, you little shit. What gives you the right to ask me questions? Who the fuck do you think you are? You prance around in your little pride parade like a goddamn homo and they come knocking on my door asking why I have a faggot son goin’ straight to hell inna handbask—”

  “Mr. Osbourne?” came a softer voice after his father was cut off.

  Derek pulled into the parking lot of the bank and took a breath before he answered the nurse. “He get his meds tonight?”

  “They were a little late. I’m really sorry, I didn’t know until after he’d dialed,” she told him.

  Derek let out a tiny sigh. “It’s fine. Trust me, I’ve heard worse.”

  “This can happen in the late stages of cirrhosis. I’m sure the doctor explained it. They’re just…not themselves.”

  Except Derek’s father was very much himself, and it seemed like the old man would be the angry, hateful, bigoted old dickhead until his liver finally gave out and he took his last breath. But that would probably be years away. This was Derek’s personal hell, knowing that he’d suffer these calls weekly, unable to escape this fate in spite of having chosen it. When the hospital asked both Derek and his brother to act as caregivers, Sage had simply laughed and hung up on them. Derek, for whatever reason, couldn’t bring himself to say no. Call it self-hatred, call him a martyr, he accepted it was his fate and ran with it. It wasn’t like the old man could do any more damage as it was.

  “Just call me if he gets any worse,” Derek told her. “And I’ll talk to the doctor in the morning and let him know about the slip with the meds.”

  “Sounds good, Mr. Osbourne. You have a good night.”

  “You too.” Derek hung up, then let his phone drop to the empty passenger seat.

  He stared at the waterfall of rain beating down on his window. The bank was less than twenty feet away, but that was twenty feet of torrential downpour, which frankly would put the cherry on the cake of this fucking day. His arm still ached from where he’d landed when Kat had forgotten to lay down the wet floor sign, and the echo of his angry father’s voice would sound in his ears all night when he let himself have even a moment of silence. He desperately needed to make his deposit so the auto-debits from his account to pay monthly bills wouldn’t cost him a shit-ton in over-draft fees, but the prospect of getting drenched for it was almost worth the repeated thirty-five bucks the bank would level at him for taking too long.

  He sighed, pressing his forehead to the wheel, murmuring out a few curses and a couple prayers. “Alright, Osbourne,” he said aloud, last-naming himself in hopes of providing some sort of external motivation, “just get your ass out of the fucking car. You can dry off
later, and even eat half that tub of Ben and Jerry’s waiting for you in the freezer.”

  It wasn’t ideal, but it was enough. He grabbed his keys, grabbed the envelope which he shoved under his shirt, then bolted. Halfway through the drenching rain, he remembered he’d left his phone in the car, but it wasn’t going to take long. A quick stack of cash shoved into the ATM hole and then he could kiss his shit-ass day goodbye.

  The room where the little ATM kiosk sat tucked away in a corner was at least warm. The bank gods smiled on him enough to keep him from going hypothermic as his trembling hands pushed into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Though his fingers were stiff, he managed to withdraw his card and shove it into the slot.

  The machine clicked, and at the exact same time, the door swung open and he was blasted by a sudden wave of icy-cold air. Derek glanced over his shoulder at the man who entered, shaking his umbrella as he hovered near the now-closed door. Derek was rarely intimidated by other people. Hell, he was usually the guy in the room everyone else was afraid of. Six-two, two-ten, both arms covered in tattoos. His ears were gauged, his face in a permanent resting-murder face, though that was hardly his own fault. He was one of the nicer guys with a stall at Irons and Works, he just didn’t always look like it.

  The man didn’t really seem to notice him though, his face tipped down toward his phone as he waited a polite distance for Derek to finish up. He took a deep breath as he went through the steps, punching in his code and shoving the cash into the machine before the stranger got any ideas about trying to rob him—it was late, after all, and the street corner was shady as fuck. The machine chirped out what he imagined to be a thank you, then coughed up his receipt. He shoved it into his pocket, fumbling with his card as he awkwardly stepped away from the ATM to give the other guy some room.

  He got a better look at him in the dim overhead light and was immediately startled by how attractive he was. The guy was wrapped up in a thick coat, but his face above his high collar was round, full of soft edges and a natural smile. His dark eyes flitted up to meet Derek’s for just a second, and when a trail of rainwater dripped down the side of his neck, Derek had the inexplicable urge to reach out and swipe it away with his thumb.

  What the fuck was wrong with him?

  Shaking his head to try and get some of his damn sense back, he turned to reach for the door.

  It all sort of happened at once, then. There was lightning, and immediate thunder which was strong enough to rattle the windows and rumble the floor beneath their feet. The lights flickered and then plunged them into almost total darkness. The only thing Derek could see was the faint glow of the man’s phone, and the only sound was the rushing heartbeat of panic in his ears.

  He was half a foot away from the front door, so he reached for it, giving the door a tug. When it didn’t budge, he tried again—pushing and pulling and falling into damn-near hysteria because apparently the automatic locks had engaged, and he was stuck.

  Claustrophobia wasn’t exactly one of Derek’s secrets. When he first started at Irons and Works, James had tried to haze him a little by locking him in the supply cupboard. Derek’s PTSD had been at an all-time high, and to this day, he couldn’t entirely remember what happened apart from blanking out with his hand against the door and coming to in Antonio’s office with a cool cloth on the back of his neck and Katherine murmuring something soft and comforting into his ear.

  James’ black eye was apparently his fault, but the guy was contrite and overly-apologetic which likely meant Antonio explained a little bit about Derek’s past to the guy. It never happened again, and everyone at that point knew that the back room doors needed to stay open if Derek was in there looking for supplies, and that Derek always—always—got the stall closest to the front desk.

  In that moment, Derek immediately walked himself through the steps his therapist taught him. Mostly because he was in a strange place with a strange man, and the last thing that guy needed was to watch Derek completely fall apart. He didn’t always get violent, but he couldn’t control what happened if he totally lost it, and he didn’t want to add assault charges to his already-shit day.

  “Ten,” he murmured to himself, pressing both palms to the glass door. “Nine. Eight. Seven…” He swallowed thickly as his throat began to grow tight and his fingers began to shake. “Six. Please, god,” he whispered. He didn’t often invoke a deity he hadn’t believed in since he was a kid, but right now it felt like a ballast. “Five…”

  His voice faded to silence when a hand touched his arm, and then a bright light was in his face. No, not a bright light, a phone screen. It was a notepad app and one short sentence was written there. You OK?

  Derek shook his head. “No. Fuck, I’m sorry, I’m super not okay. I can’t…we’re stuck, and I feel like I’m about to lose my goddamn mind and I don’t…”

  The stranger interrupted him with an impatient noise, pulled the phone away for a second, and he could hear the faint sound of the default iPhone keyboard clicking as the guy typed. After what felt like a short forever, the phone returned. Sorry, can’t understand. Deaf. I’m Basil. Please type. Help you, OK?

  Derek stared at the words, trying to make them make sense in his scrambled-eggs processing, but he couldn’t seem to figure out what to do next. His hands stayed pressed against the window, and his breathing got tighter. Squeezing his eyes shut, he felt an all-too familiar wave of dizziness and the room felt tilted.

  Then, just when he thought he would lose all sense of reason, a hand pressed itself to his sternum. He was gently turned from the window, and the man—Basil—took his right hand and laid it on his sternum. Derek couldn’t begin to understand, but after a beat, he felt the guy’s chest rising and falling with a slow, steady breath. Basil was counting off a rhythm with a tap on his forearm.

  One. Two. Three.

  One. Two. Three.

  Derek let himself release the air in his lungs, drew in another when Basil’s chest expanded, then held it for one, two, three. He released it the same time as the stranger in front of him—the man he’d never met before, but who was somehow keeping him from falling apart.

  One. Two. Three.

  His head began to clear, bit by bit, and the room began to still. He was hit by a sudden wave of humiliation at the way he’d just fallen apart. He was still trapped, the electricity was still out, and the storm was still raging, but he was calming down and reality began to set in.

  “Shit,” he said aloud, “I’m so sorry.” Then he stopped, remembering what the guy had typed on his phone. In the very faint glow of the phone, he could make out the guy’s frown of confusion.

  There was another moment he could see Basil typing, then he handed the phone back to Derek and took a step back. Panic attack? I have before. Your name what?

  Derek frowned at the wording and deeply wished he had bothered to learn more sign. He knew a handful of words, all of them baby related since Antonio and Katherine had been taking beginner’s classes once their daughter had been diagnosed with hearing loss. The entire crew knew enough to make Jasmine laugh and understand when she wanted her bottle or her parents, or a cookie. But that was about it. Tony and Kat had been on them about starting up in the beginner’s ASL, but all of them had been dragging ass, which was now coming back to bite him.

  At a loss for any other way to respond, he tapped the return button a few times, then typed his response. My name’s Derek. I’m claustrophobic and being in a closed space unexpected gives me panic attacks. I’m really sorry if I freaked you out.

  He handed the phone back, watching Basil’s expression soften a little as he read the message. When he looked up, he waved off Derek’s apology, then pointed to the ground near the door and made a sign Derek did recognize. ‘Sit.’ When Derek nodded and moved to sit, Basil looked surprised. In the light of the phone, he saw Basil make a series of signs, but only recognized two. ‘Sign, you?’

  Derek made grabby hands for the phone. My boss’ baby girl has hearing loss
and I know a few words, but not a lot. When he handed the phone back for Basil to read, he demonstrated. ‘Milk, cookie, mom, dad, sit, no.’

  At the last one, Basil laughed, a low sound, coming straight from his chest which Derek found fitting for some reason. He grinned back, hating that he couldn’t see the guy properly, but it was still comforting to have him close by. The fact that he was trapped in a closed space was awful, but not being alone was helping. The storm was still raging outside, with no signs of slowing, but they couldn’t be trapped forever.

  At some point, tomorrow morning, the bank would open. Or security would come by and see them. Something. Hell, he could use Basil’s phone to call the cops if it got dire. For now, he was safe. He was drying, and the air was still warm, and nothing in there could kill him.

  Derek’s thoughts were interrupted when Basil made an inquiring noise, then touched his arm, then handed the phone over. Tattoo? What meaning?

  Derek glanced down at his left arm, curled over both crooked knees, which he’d drawn to his chest as a way of comforting himself. He was asked that question a lot, and the funny thing was, there wasn’t some deep meaning behind most of his ink. They were a flood of images he just liked, things he saw and wanted on his body in a permanent way. Some of them were cover-ups from younger days of bad line work and piss-poor shading and a few stick-and-pokes. Some of them were new and still bright, and some had faded into something soft and quiet.

  Their real meaning was rebellion. Was taking charge of his own body after having spent years and years taking abuse from the people who were supposed to love him. And his twin brother, Sage, had grown up the sons of a military-rigid politician whose idea of spare the rod meant literally taking a rod to them any time they stepped out of line. He didn’t like closed spaces because he’d spent the majority of his formative years being locked in a tiny shed for hours upon hours until his father felt he had ‘learned his lesson’.