The aggressive beep of the alarm on my phone wakes me, piercing through the shroud of my dream and stirring me awake. I groan softly, pressing the heels of my palms gently against my eyes. I sit for a moment, bathe in the red, shrieking sound drilling into my ears for a tired moment. After a minute, I sigh and heave myself over to grope for my phone. My hand brushes against it and my polaroid camera off the nightstand, and I fumble to catch both before they fall and shatter on the hardwood floor. I put the camera beside me on the bed and slide my thumb across the screen of my phone, putting it on snooze for a few precious minutes. I close my eyes, rubbing the sleep from my face and sighing.
I sit up slowly. I pick up my phone again and squint at bright screen to see the time. 5:30. The sky is still pitch black out my window. The air in my room is motionless and cold. I ruffle a hand through my messy hair and stretch, reaching my arms to the ceiling and bending backwards to crack my back. I throw the blanket back and turn, pushing my legs to let them hang off the bed.
I take a slow breath. "Dirk!" I shout. "I'm up!" In another time I would've sat patiently and waited for him to drag himself out of his room to come and help me, but this was now. I'd started getting increasingly better at everything after a few months, and now it was almost easier to do it on my own. Plus, he almost never woke up at the same time as me anyway. I'd be sitting there for hours.
I drag my wheelchair closer to my bed and unfold it. I carefully lowered myself into it, readjusting my legs as I reach to grab my camera and nestle it in my lap. I unlock my wheels and roll myself to the bathroom, stopping by Dirk's room to bang my fist on the door. Carer or not, he's a helplessly heavy sleeper as well as the only one in the house who can drive. In the time it takes me to piss, brush my teeth, and wash my face, Dirk is just stumbling from his room, hair sticking out in every direction and mumbling to himself. His eyes are still closed as he gropes for the wall to shuffle to the bathroom.
"Hm." I raise my camera and slowly depress the shutter. Click.
Dirk jerks back at the flash and glares at me, his amber eyes flying open tiredly and burning into me weakly. He swats feebly at me as I grin, ripping off the negative the camera spits out and waving it in the air. "Stop. It's too early for that."
"Y'know, it doesn't reflect very well on you when the crippled kid can get ready faster than you," I call over my shoulder as I wheel back to my room.
Needless to say a lot has changed for Dirk and I since that accident. A hell of a lot can happen in 6 years. I'm no longer 11 years old, for one. At the well meaning suggestion of a warm therapist at a hospital I don't remember, I'm now obsessed with photography. It was just a hobby way back when but now I try to take pictures of whatever I can whenever I can, both as a means to piss off Dirk and to cement physically the things I care about. So that I don't get all dark and angry and fatalistic inside like I was back then. You understand. I'm a junior in high school now, steadily marching towards a future of uncertain independence. What else? Oh. My legs never got better. It turns out whatever hell God unleashed on me in that accident utterly destroyed the majority of the "walking and standing" related anatomy of my lower limbs. So, now I'm in a wheelchair. I have been for the past 6 years.
From the day they wheeled me out of the ICU and poured me into the used minivan Dirk had gotten for $2000, this was our life: extra wide door frames and handicapped parking tags and always looking out for where there are ramps and trying to strategize what to do where there aren't (Which, surprisingly, is a lot of goddamn buildings. What's up with you abled people and making everything with stairs? Do y'all have some kind of vendetta against people who can't walk?); the occasional drole jab at my legs or Dirk's arms or either of the fat pale scars littering both of our faces to make sure neither of us sank under the sheer pressure of everything again. Dirk's shoulder still sounded like a bag full of sticks being stepped on when he moved it and sent shooting pain up his neck about half the time he used it, and I haven't been able to feel anything less than someone stabbing me in the femur for about a sixth of my life. It was what it was. You get used to it.
And, please, don't start getting all sad and pitying about the fact that I can't walk anymore--I've gotten enough of that to last a thousand crippled lifetimes. The first thing I learned about being a kid in a wheelchair is how absolutely irritating it is to be someone's inspiration porn. I don't care. Not anymore, at least. I certainly don't prefer this life over one where I can, say, walk up a flight stairs, but I'm not bitter or angry or depressed about it anymore. It's been half a decade. At some point, you learn to just suck it up and accept that your legs don't work anymore, and probably won't ever again, and just move on with your life. Feeling sorry for yourself doesn't help anything. Trust me.
But anyways.
By the time Dirk comes into the living room, grumbling and scratching his back, I've already gotten dressed (which even after 6 years is not as easy as it sounds) and eaten a bowl and a half of cereal (which after 6 years is not as easy as it sounds). My backpack and my camera sit on my lap and I look over at Dirk expectantly as he walked in.
"Why, good morning, Princess," I say as he walks over to the messy kitchen counter, searching for his keys. "Did you get enough beauty sleep?"
"Fuck you," Dirk mutters.
"Now is that any way to speak to your dear ol' baby brother? Not to mention I couldn't feel a second of it."
Dirk looks up and frowns at me. I smile. He narrows his eyes. "Get your crippled ass outside."
"Love you, too, brother dear," I call as I wheel out the front door. Does Dirk genuinely want to wheel me into a river? Probably. But I like to chalk it up to him just really not being a morning person. He comes out of the house a few minutes later, keys and a mug of coffee in hand. He comes around to my side of the car and opens the door for me while I toss my backpack inside and hoist myself into the passenger side seat. I drag my legs under the glove compartment, my breath catching ever so slightly in my throat as I do Sitting there still roused a tiny bit of fear in me, even after so long. PTSD sure is a hell of a thing. I wait, fiddling with the radio a bit, as Dirk folds my wheelchair and put it in the backseat. When he finally got back in, I turn towards him and snap another picture of him before he can blink or throw his hand up. He doesn't say anything, only smirks softly. As we drove to school, I take a couple more, of fire hydrants, overturned trash can, a dog shivering on someone's front step, tearing each one off and stashing it in my bag.
I don't know if you're extremely aware, but losing the ability to walk at 11 years old in the most traumatic way possible can really fuck with your head. It sure fucked with mine. The therapists at the hospital couldn't really find anything to offer me to keep me from wanting to rip open my legs, except for photography. I'd tried to get into a years before, and in my childish fervor had even splurged to buy a functioning vintage polaroid from an antique shop in town ("I splurged." That's not true. I stole a hundred bucks from John's dad's and Dirk's wallets and told Dirk I'd been saving up my allowance for a couple weeks. He bought it. I don't know, I guess he was stupid then, too). They suggested it to help me ground myself if I started having flashbacks, so that I could take pictures of what was around me and remind my brain that no, I wasn't strapped into a burning car anymore, and I'd clung to it ever since. I've been almost compulsively taking pictures of everything and everyone ever since. And I've gotten pretty decent at it, too. They even let me be the "official" school photographer these past couple of years, which even though I knew it meant sitting on the sidelines absolutely bored out of my mind, taking crappy pictures of the players at the basketball games with a $60 digital camera from Walmart, I still felt a sense of pride in.
Dirk pulls up to the school and puts the car in park. I watch him unfold himself from the car and unfold my wheelchair back into a functional shape, then open my door to let me out. As he does, I take one more quick picture of him leaning down to move my wheelchair.
"Je––" he says with a quiet laugh, flinching softly at the flash. "You ever gonna get tired of that thing?"
I reach over and wrap my arms around his neck. He puts his arms under my knees and lifts me out, he did, his shoulder cracked right in my ear as he moves. Internally, I wince, shrink away. I always do; I don't like the fear it always sends crawling through my stomach, but I can't help it. I hate the way it sounds. It reminds me of the crunch of glass underfoot.
Dirk lowers me into my wheelchair and stands back for a moment to let me readjust myself. Once I'm settled enough, he hands me my bag and camera.
"You good?"
"Yeah, but just one more thing." I hold up my camera to my face. "Say 'cheese.'"
Dirk rolls his eyes but fakes a smile for me anyways. I rip the picture from the camera and hold it to the light.
"Nice." I stuff my camera into my bag with one hand and offer him the polaroid with the other. "For ya troubles."
I feel him take it from my hand. "See you."
I wheel up onto the curb and into the throng of students flowing into the school. I've gotten here a little early, so there aren't tons of people, but I still have to clear my throat or say 'excuse me' a couple times to muscle through when people won't move. I take a few lazy pictures, mostly of tired looking kids and one of a couple sitting together on a bench. I get inside, say empty "Hello"s to a couple of people, drop off some athletics photos at the front desk, then go to my locker. That was where my obsession with photography was most evident. For a while, tons of polaroids would fall out whenever I opened it––I used to just shove them in the slits every passing period––but now they're all neatly pinned to a miniature magnetic cork board. Most of them are, admittedly, of Dirk (both because he's the person I most often find myself physically beside but also because all the humor in the world can't mask that he's one of the most important people in my life), but I have a few boring nature shots, and a few of my friends. After Dirk, John shows up there the most. He was probably the first person I could call my best friend, and he'd really helped me when I was learning how to cope with everything.
I pull out the new pictures I've taken and after looking over them for a moment, choose the one of Dirk leaning over my wheelchair. I take down an old photo from a few months ago, of him grabbing for my camera as he's brushing his teeth, and replace it with the new one. I look up at it and smile a bit. Nice. I shove the rest of my stuff into my locker then continue on my way to my first period class. Nothing too notable happens, at least not at first. Halfway through third period, one of the secretaries from the office comes in. She scans the room, eyes squinting behind her cateye glasses before she sees me and smiles gently.
"Dave Strider?" she asks. "Could I talk to you in the hallway?"
I put my things down and go out to meet her outside the door. "What's wrong? Is something the matter?"
"Nothing bad. We have a new student and since you're one of our student helpers, we'd like you to show him around for today, since he didn't come in for orientation before. Would that be alright?"
"Yeah. Sure. Of course. No problem."
The secretary smiles graciously. "Thank you so much. None of our other student helpers were here today. His name's Karkat Vantas, and he's waiting for you down at the front office whenever you're ready to go."
I nod and she turns to leave. I take a moment to shove my things back into my backpack and leave to go down to the front office. It's mostly empty, as usual, but there's a kid I don't recognize standing by the front desk. He has his arms crossed defensively across his chest and his face is already tight and hard, stuck in this adorable (adorable?) little pout, his eyebrows knit together and his mouth scrunched up close to his tiny button nose. Freckles are sprinkled across the bridge of his nose and his cheeks, standing out like dirt against his cinnamon toned skin. He's got fluffy black hair that stuck out in every direction and curled over into his eyes. He's barely half as tall as the trophy case he's standing next to. He looks like a little kid, quite frankly. But he has that distinct look of fear that all new kids have, so it must be him. I start wheeling towards him. He doesn't look up until I speak.
"Hey. Are you Karkat Vantas?"
* * * *
A/N: hey guys.
so!! chapter 1's finally here. sorry it took so long. i made the wonderful decision to start chapter 2 before chapter 1 so i kinda had to rush to get a plot fleshed out and written. but hey!! at least its here now ((thats a terrible excuse im sorry))
this has made me realize that i should warn you that this fic is for sure going to take a whole lot longer to get up than N.O.R.U. because this one is not prewritten ((at least as of now its not)) so if youve gotten used to 1-2 week intervals, please dont expect that for this fic. ill try my hardest to get it up in as little time as possible, but know that if it takes three weeks or more, thats why.
anyways.
chapter 2 should be up in a week or so ((an actual week this time)) because as i said, i have most of it already written. all i need to do is clean up some parts and add a little more to it and itll be fine. so yeah. look forward to that.
as im writing this ((10/15/15)) N.O.R.U. isnt finished yet, but its very close. im excited for that, but also know that im excited to start this journey, too. should be fun.
see you next chapter.