"You gotta meet this kid, man. He's fucking ridiculous."
"And who is he again?" John asked, his voice sounding flat and slightly grainy from my phone's speakers as we FaceTimed. "I didn't see him today. I had to work on some stuff with Mr. H during lunch."
"He's just this new kid, I guess," I said as I rolled up to the fridge. I propped it open on the back of my chair and stretched up to get the apple juice. "But he's, like, amazing."
"Wow. 'Amazing.' Sounds like a real compliment, coming from you. What, are you, like, in love with him or something?"
"Maybe," I said, picking up my phone so I could wiggle my eyebrows at John.
John smirked ever so slightly, his brilliantly blue eyes crinkling a bit at the edges. "What's so 'amazing' about him, then?"
"Well, for one, he's like barely five feet and he's 16," I said, pouring myself a cup of juice and starting to wheel back to my room. "I've never met anyone that short and that old who wasn't in a wheelchair or something."
"Woah, really?" John chuckled lightly. "Five foot?"
"Yeah. He's tiny. He kept trying to convince me he was five one, but he's a dirty fucking liar." I paused to push open my bedroom door. "And he gets so angry about the smallest things. It's hilarious."
"Sounds like just your type," John said from my lap.
"Yeah," I said as I hoisted myself up onto my bed. "And he's kinda cute, too."
John snorted softly. "Now who sounds like a twelve year old girl?"
"Shut up. At least Karkat's actually cute. Unlike Vriska."
"Ok, that was freshman year. Can't you just shut up about that already?" John looked down, his cheeks turning bright red.
"Yeah, but you wouldn't stop talking about her until last year." I sat back, putting my phone on my chest. "And even now I can see the way you still look at her."
John sighed, but didn't say anything else. "So what else about this Karkat kid's so amazing?"
"Well, he's tiny."
"Yeah, we already covered that."
"And he's, like..." I shook my head. "I don't even know, man. Just... everything about him's so, like, tiny and adorable. Like, he's got perhaps the smallest and cutest nose in the world. And his eyes, for some reason, are fucking huge and they're really round and pretty and he's got these ridiculously long eyelashes--he almost looks like a girl--and his eyes themselves are this, like, nice, reddish-auburn wine color, and they're so pretty--"
"Dave."
"--which, I know is kinda weird to hear coming from me, but it's all totally true. Oh, a-and he's got a whole bunch of freckles across his nose, like, not as many as me, no way, but I swear to god, they're all so fucking cute and I don't even know why--"
"Dave."
"--And he blushes, like, really, really easily, probably more than you, if that's even possible, and every time I tease him he gets this frozen, shocked look on his face, and he like freezes up and it's just so hilarious I can't even--"
"Dave!"
"What?"
"Are you done rambling about your future husband?" John asked with a chuckle. "You've been ranting about him for, like, the past 5 minutes."
"H-have I?" I mumbled, my cheeks burning dully.
"Yeah. I'm not judging you, but at least tell me you're gonna tell him how much you like him."
"Oh. Y-yeah, totally," I said, looking over at the wall.
John knit his eyebrows together. "Dave."
I kept my gaze towards the wall, my neck starting to tingle.
"Dave, I can tell when you're lying."
"I'm not lying!" I said quickly. "I just... I-I need to make sure he... likes me too first."
John snorted softly. "Really? You, of all people, getting all shy and nervous over a kid you like?"
"Shut up," I muttered, taking a sip of my juice. "I just... I don't even know if I really even like him. Maybe he's just another one of my little obsessions. I don't know."
"Well, I think you should go for it," John offered. "He seems pretty cool. And it seems like you really like him."
"I guess..." I lay back on my bed and sighed softly. "I don't know."
"Stop saying that. Listen, don't go anywhere. I'm coming over and we're gonna sort this out."
"Nah, don't," I said, sitting up again and picking up my phone. "I gotta go to the doctor tonight. You'd just be leaving as soon as you get here."
"What're you doing there? Is something up?"
"No. It's just a routine checkup or whatever," I said, drinking the rest of my juice and setting the cup on my night stand. "They're gonna look at my legs and see whether or not I can walk."
"Wait, but aren't you--"
I looked at John and quirked an eyebrow as I sat down in my wheelchair.
"Oh."
"Yeah. Kinda pointless, but you never know." I wheeled out into the living room. "It's been a few months, maybe this time they'll work."
John laughed, a soft, giggly, almost childlike sound. "You're ridiculous."
"Yeah, I know," I said, the corner of my mouth lifting into a half smile despite myself. "I try my best."
"Well, have fun finding out you still can't walk."
"Thanks. See you later."
"Bye."
John hung up the FaceTime call and I slid my phone into my pocket. Almost as soon as I got there, Dirk walked in as well.
"Oh, I see you're finally done jerking off?" He said casually, stepping past me to open the fridge.
"Bullshit. You know my dick doesn't work," I said.
Dirk shrugged, cracking open a can of soda. "Who knows? Maybe you like it in the ass, too. Or maybe it's some kind of complicated nipple thing."
I rolled my eyes. "Well, it's not. I wasn't doing anything."
Dirk quirked an eyebrow and smirked behind his soda can."You sure? I heard the way you were talking about that kid, that Car Cart or whatever."
"It's Karkat, and why were you even eavesdropping on me in the first place?"
"I wasn't eavesdropping, I was being the doting parental figure I'm supposed to be, and I just so happened to overhear it. Your voice is not soft." Dirk leaned against the counter, his shoulder crackling as he did. "But I agree with John. I think you should tell him. I bet you two would be cute together."
"First of all, listening to someone else's conversation without their knowledge is eavesdropping. Second of all, fuck you. And third of all, I literally just met him today. I'm not even 100% sure he's gay."
"One:," Dirk said, holding up his finger, "I'm your legal guardian, so I'm allowed to eavesdrop on you to a certain degree before it's creepy. Two: I didn't think you were into incest. Third: the way you described him, he seems pretty fuckin' gay."
"So did John 'I'm Not a Homosexual' Egbert, and look where that went," I muttered.
"In both of your defenses, two horny, sexually confused 13-year-olds, one of whom was freshly disabled and low-key suicidal while the other was very aggressively denying his own sexuality, do not a good relationship make." Dirk took another sip of his soda. "Don't let that deter you from doing anything."
I rolled my eyes. "I just... I don't know. I might. I'm not sure."
"You should." Dirk crunched his now empty can flat against the counter with his hand. "All these weird, like, one night stand-ish flings you've been having for the past like three years are bad and unsettling and as your quote-unquote 'dad' I feel the need to urge you to pursue a long-term relationship." Dirk walked over to his bag and picked it up along with the car keys. "Get your stuff, we're going."
"You don't know me," I said as I followed Dirk to the car. "I could have an entire harem of scrawny little gay boys who felt bad that I'm disabled and gay. Does that count as a 'long term relationship?'"
Dirk paused for a moment, thinking. "...Yes. But only if I can meet them all, and you can prove that they're all yours."
"Do used condoms count as proof? 'Cause that's about all I have."
"Well, that depends. Whose jizz is in 'em? Front seat or back?"
"Front, and if I say it's mine, will you leave it alone?"
"Sure," Dirk said. "So long as my little bro's not a bottom."
"Well then," I said, grunting as I hoisted myself into the passenger seat. "Have I got news for you, my man."
Dirk shook his head, picking up my wheelchair and folding it up and putting it in the back. "What a disgrace. I ought to take you back to the orphanage."
"You can't. You're past the 30-day return limit. You'd have to bring in your receipt."
"Damn," he said as he slid into the driver's seat. "I shoulda taken you back when I had the chance."
"Even though I didn't come from an orphanage?"
"Yes. I would have taken you back somewhere. Gone back to the dirty Austin alleyway I found you in and left you in a cardboard box with a letter pinned to your sleeve," he said as he pulled out of the driveway. "Surely some homeless coke addict would have taken you in, shown you the ways of a vagabond."
"What about selling me into child slavery? That's an economy that could always use a boost. Plus you woulda gotten a little money, too."
"You make a valid point." Dirk looked over and me and shrugged. "But I think I missed my window. You're a little overdone now. I'm not sure there's much of a market for crippled 16-year-olds, even among the kinkiest of circles."
"You never know," I said, sitting back and shrugging. "Some people are into some weird shit. Surely there's at least one middle aged sex freak who's looking to get a nice young sex slave to settle down with for the remainder of their perpetually-kink-shamed life."
"What about your harem of twinks? What will become of them once you go off and become kinky Donald Trump's live-in boy toy?"
"Ahh, they'll be fine," I said, waving it off as Dirk pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. "Surely they can hold some kind of sexy Battle Royale-esque orgy amongst themselves to determine my successor. Shouldn't be too hard for them. My money's on Egbert."
"Ah, so he's in the harem, too," Dirk said, pulling into a parking spot and turning the car off.
"Of course. He was the first one."
"So is he your favorite?" Dirk asked as he unfolded my wheelchair.
"Nah. He's only in like my top five. Favorite's probably this kid Andrew. Way into horses, kind of orange for some reason. You wouldn't know him. But his ass?" I clicked my tongue. "A+."
"Great to know you value him for his personality," Dirk said flatly as he picked me up.
"Who ever said I didn't? I mean, he's... probably a nice person. Maybe. He would be better if he didn't fucking love horses so much. It's fucking weird."
"Stop being mean," Dirk said as he lowered me into my wheelchair.
"I'm not. Horses are weird animals. Have you ever seen a horse? Looks fuckin' weird. Plus, if you break one of its legs, you have to shoot it. That's fucking weird. If I was a horse, I'd be long dead by now."
"If only," Dirk muttered, slamming the car door shut and starting towards the office building.
"I heard that. That's no way to talk to a crippled kid," I said, rolling after him. "I almost died once. I might find that triggering."
"Except I know that you don't."
I stuck my tongue out at Dirk, but didn't say anything else. I looked up at the shiny, mirror plated windows of my physical therapist's office. I didn't really mind coming here very much. I didn't really mind most hospitals or hospital related places. Mostly because they always had ramps, but also because most of my doctors were pretty chill and the nurses put up with me. But there were still a handful of things there that would give me flashbacks if I wasn't careful, so I was still guarded as we entered the building.
When we got inside, Dr. Scratch was still working with another patient, so we had to wait in the waiting room for a bit. It was half full of people, all with varying degrees of disability. A couple people had crutches or walkers or braces, but I was the only person in a wheelchair. At one point, someone walked in with their arm in a sling and once they saw me, spent a good 30 seconds looking from my face to my legs and back. I waved the tips of my fingers at them, and they turned pink. They sat down just as a nurse came out and called my name.
"This is what happens when you don't exercise," I said to them as I followed the nurse to the examination rooms.
"Dave," Dirk said warningly.
"What? It's true. I wasn't exercising that much before it happened and now look." I looked up at the nurse. "I'm crippled forever. Right?"
The nurse's ears turned a little pink. "That's not necessarily--"
"See? Direct correlation." I shrugged. "I'm only spreading the truth."
"Sorry," Dirk said the nurse. "He's... like this. All the time."
"Hey, I am only regurgitating what people have told me over the years," I said as I got up on the exam table. "Someone said I should have exercised more. Maybe she was right."
"She wasn't," the nurse said flatly as she took my temperature and blood pressure.
"She wasn't? Aw, shit. Well, looks like we gotta find that bleached blond, quinoa-munching yoga freak again and set her straight, then. Wouldn't want her lying to any more crippled kids."
The nurse frowned a little, but didn't say anything. When she left, she almost seemed to glare at me.
"I think she liked me," I said to Dirk once she'd all but slammed the door.
"Do you always have to be this difficult?"
"Yes," I said, moving my legs over so that I could lie down. "It's who I am. I'm either gonna be nice to people or I'm gonna be disabled. You can't have both."
"That's a lie."
"Is it, though?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "Was I this much of a little shit when I could walk? I don't think I was. I'm putting too much of my energy now into not being able to walk to try and be polite."
"Y'know, one day someone's gotta get offended by something you say," Dirk said wearily. "And they're gonna get mad at you."
I shrugged. "Today doesn't seem to be that day."
Dirk frowned at me, and as he did, Dr. Scratch came in, clad in his usual mint green lab coat and rainbow eight ball tie.
"Give it to me straight, doc," I said. "Will I ever walk again?"
"It's nice to see you, too, David," Dr. Scratch muttered as he pulled out his laptop and set down the files he was carrying. "How have you been?"
"Well, I haven't been able to really walk lately. Oh, and for some reason I can't feel my legs. Should I be worried?"
Dr. Scratch looked at me and frowned a little. To Dirk, he asked, "What were you coming in for again? Was it a checkup or something else? I seem to recall you had an x-ray scheduled some time soon."
"I think it was the x-ray," Dirk said. "Or at the very least a follow up consultation."
"Oh, yes. For the surgery, correct?"
"Yes."
I swallowed hard and shifted, looking towards the wall. Oh yeah. That. Apparently, a couple months ago they found some kind of problematic mass in one of my legs that was causing some issues with a couple of the veins or whatever as a result of all the scar tissue from all my other surgeries, and now they wanted my go-ahead to go in and clear it out. It wasn't really the worst thing in the world, but I was still a little apprehensive about it. They'd told me that it was pretty close to some important arteries and nerves and whatnot and that there was a pretty good chance that they'd end up damaging something else. And I personally wasn't all too keen on them fucking up my legs even more, so I was holding out on giving them the ok for as long as I could.
"Alright. I'm sending you to the main hospital for the x-ray. They'll probably keep it overnight and give you a call in the morning if they find anything," Dr. Scratch said, scribbling something down on a piece of paper and handing it to Dirk. "We might have a follow up appointment if there is anything of notable significance on it."
Dirk nodded, skimming the paper then looking over at me. "You gonna get down?"
I pretended to scowl at him and scooted over and got into my wheelchair. We left, and went across the parking lot to the giant, sprawling main hospital, where I'd stayed after the accident and had all my surgeries. It wasn't necessarily my favorite place--too many difficult memories--but it was alright. In the elevator up to Radiology, Dirk kept glancing over at me. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he ultimately kept his mouth shut. We got out, and once we got there one of the nurses made me change into a hospital gown and then plopped me down into one of the hospital's rickety old bleach-scented wheelchairs and wheeled me into the x-ray room. I let her, watching the almost painfully familiar tile floors roll past. Briefly, an image of my legs back then, mangled and scrawny and encased by giant metal femur splints, flashed before my eyes and I groaned softly, pressing my fingers to my forehead. Just great.
They took me into the room, as usual, made me lie down and then draped a heavy vest over my chest and shins, as usual, and took the x-ray. They gave me back my clothes and my wheelchair, and then we were on our way, a fresh new imaging of my horrendously mangled hips and thighs on its way to Houston's best and brightest doctors and surgeons. Should have been simple, really: out of sight, out of mind, at least until the next appointment. Except... Even as we went to the car I couldn't stop wondering what was going to be on that x-ray. Part of me wanted there to be nothing, for the problem to have fixed itself like they sometimes did, or for it all to have been a mistake. For them to say, "Oops, we got it wrong. You're fine." But at the same time, another part of me was genuinely worried that whatever it was was going to be a problem, and was anxious to see whether or not they could do the surgery and fix it. Either way, I was not super stoked to have to wait until next Monday for the results. Dirk must have noticed how I was acting, because in the elevator he finally spoke up.
"You alright?" he asked. "You seem kinda quiet."
I shook my head. "No, I'm fine. I was just... thinking, I guess."
"Wanna tell me what about?"
"The... um... x-ray." I looked over at the wall and sighed softly. "I don't know what they're gonna find."
"Well, neither do any of us," Dirk said, leaning against the handrail.
"I know, but I just..." I looked down and sighed softly. "I don't know what to expect. Or what I want to expect."
"Is it because of the surgery?"
I didn't say anything, my neck already burning enough to show what I thought.
"You don't have to be scared, y'know. You've done this before," Dirk said gently.
"I know," I mumbled.
"And you don't have to be worried about what it's going to be. If it was something big, they probably would have caught it before."
"I know, but I just..." I looked down at my lap and sighed. "I don't know."
"Don't worry," Dirk said as the elevator doors opened. "You're gonna be ok."
I only sighed. As Dirk checked us out, I crossed my arms on the counter, pulling at one of the flowers in the vase there. I wanted to believe him, but I just couldn't shake the anxiety I felt toward it. In the car, I could tell Dirk wanted to say more, but thankfully he left it alone. I ate my dinner in my room later that night, texting John.
JOHN: so are you still crippled? :B
DAVE: nah man havent you heard? im getting brand new never before tested robotic legs. theyre great. got em fresh from some evil corporation's rejected invention pile.
JOHN: haha dave what the fuck
DAVE: nah nah i kid i kid. my nerves are are still shot to all hell and now they want my approval to cut my legs open again.
JOHN: oh man really? is it anything serious?
DAVE: i dont think so. not really. its probably just something minor. dont worry about it.
JOHN: oh ok. when's it scheduled for?
DAVE: if everything goes as planned probably sometime around february or march.
JOHN: cool. are you ~scared~ at all? :BB
DAVE: well seeing as this will be about the sixth surgery ive had in as many years
DAVE: two of which i nearly died during
DAVE: no. not really. its not that big a deal.
JOHN: oh ok.
DAVE: i dont know. i guess im a little worried. dont really know what theyre gonna find. thats stressing me out a little bit.
JOHN: i bet it'll be fine. i mean it's not like they can mess them up any more than they are, right?
I frowned a little bit. John didn't know it, but that part of what was keeping me from just saying yes already. It'd taken a lot of time and patience and healing for my legs to get as unfucked up as they were now, lax as that term may be. I wasn't necessarily jumping at the chance to throw that away.
DAVE: ha. yeah. totally.
JOHN: fuck. shit. was that insensitive? sorry. i didn't mean it.
DAVE: nah dont worry about it man. youre right i guess.
DAVE: hey i gotta go now talk to you later
JOHN: no, really dave. im sorry, i didnt mean to offend you.
DAVE: dude its been six years.
DAVE: the time for me to get offended by jokes about my legs has passed.
DAVE: see you tomorrow.
JOHN: g'night
I clicked out of the texting app and reset my alarms then locked my phone and set it on my nightstand. I sat back and sighed softly. There was no need for him to get worked up over me being paranoid, too. He didn't need to know. He'd be fine. I'd be fine. Everything would be fine.
Everything would be fine.
* * *