A/N Hi guys :D this is my first Homestuck fic :)
It is AU, and school, yeah i know overused ;)
At first this was only supposed to be a little nice fic, but in the end it turned out to be a big story in my head.
The first few chapters will be short, while the later ones will be big.
I just want to get somewhere with this :P
Summary: Tavros has moved to a new town. After being accepted rather quickly at school he thinks life will be perfect, but what will he do between two crushes, fighting parents and a shadow from his past that is keen on continueing her evil plan?
And what does all of this have to do with a certain other past and a promise that had been made, years ago?
Disclaimer: i don't own anything
„You ready champ?"
Tavros Nitram, a boy of fifteen years gulped and nodded at his father, who patted his shoulder encouragingly.
Absentmindedly, Tavros brushed his hand over his spiky dark Mohawk, hoping that the fear and horror inside of his stomach would cease over time.
It was not like this was his first time, changing schools, but this was high school now. And they had moved and now it was a completely different state.
He would stand out with his unusual tan and his strange southern accent…
And of course, his wheel chair.
He had been cuffed to this godawful piece of metal ever since… an accident five years ago.
Even before the incident, he had been a shy and rather secluded boy, but at least he had been able to run away from the bullies…
Now, his legs were useless…
Though to be honest, Tavros was happy that he didn't have stumps, they were simply completely and utterly numb.
It had been a fracture of his spine that had rendered them useless.
But even without being paraplegic, he would have had trouble fitting in, somehow, no matter what he did, no one ever seemed to like him.
It was not like they hated him, though some had picked on him, it was more like he was pretty invisible…
"Come on, Tavros, we need to get your wheels inside the car" his father called, chuckling at the spaced out expression on his son's face.
Blushing a bit, Tavros made to roll over to his dad's car, his purple backpack on his lap.
He easily made it inside the car, and let his dad fold the wheel chair, before loading it into the back of the car.
This was going to be the only time Tav'd be able to go to school with his dad's car.
After that, he'd have to go alone.
It was not like school was far away, and Tavros liked to be independent, but at the moment, he was extremely glad to have his chatty father by his side.
And when he stood at the very beginning of the lively hallway, he really wished to be back inside the car.
People brushed by him, bumping into him and glaring at him while doing so.
He tried to move out of the way, but somehow he had to get to the director's office, which was proving to be harder than expected.
The school building was pretty small, but with a lot of students…
Slowly and carefully, Tavros tried to navigate through the crowd, feeling anger and desperation forming a lump in his throat.
He cursed those stupid looks and the situation that showed just how helpless he was, even after five years of practice.
God, why couldn't he just have functioning legs?
Suddenly, Tav was ripped out of his frustrated thoughts, when a huge brute bumped into him hard, and nearly threw him out of his wheel chair.
Tav yelped and tried to regain balance, hearing the brute apologize before running off.
"GOD DAMMIT!" Tav heard someone yell, just behind his back, before he was pulled away, hearing several curses.
Startled, he turned around, looking up into a pale face.
It was a guy, about his age, maybe older, with dark grey eyes and tousled black hair.
As mentioned before, he was really pale with dark shadows under his eyes, making him look extremely grumpy.
But he was short…
Really short to be honest.
"DUDE!" the guy practically yelled at Tavros, making him flinch.
Immediately, some kind of embarrassment flashed over the guys face, and his scowl softened a bit.
"It's dangerous to charge in like this" he continued.
"These FUCKASSES" he gestured to the crowd "won't look out for you and simply trample over you like a fucking horde of idiotic and stupid elephants!"
Wow, Tavros thought, this guy sure was loud and a bit choleric even. But hey, he was nice.
"Uh, t-thank you" Tavros stuttered, another problem he had.
For a short moment, the guy looked happy, but it changed instantly, leaving behind the usual scowl.
"Whatever. Hey, I've never seen you around. I mean not that I know everyone, it's just, a kid in a wheel chair would get noticed I think. All the freaks are famous around here."
Hurt, Tavros started fidgeting with his hands. That had really hurt.
"God damn, KK!"
Both turned to see another young man making his way through the crowd, smiling a smug smile.
He looked pretty peculiar, but from the looks the girls gave him, he was pretty popular.
Instead of normal glasses, his eyes were hidden by completely untransparant red and blue glasses.
Somehow everything about him screamed sexy nerd with some kind of dual complex.
His shirt carried the zodiac sign of Gemini and his shoes were two different colours, black and white, while he wore wristbands on both wrists, also black and white.
His black hair was tousled a bit, but still looked perfectly in place somehow.
Before the guy named KK could react, the – let's call him twin-guy for now – smacked KK's shoulder and completely ignored Tavros.
"Don't be tho mean to the guy, heth new, obviouthly."
Okay, twin-guy had an awful lisp…
"Yeah?" KK hissed "How'd you know, Sollux?"
Sollux finally turned to Tavros and smiled.
"Aradia told me to go look for him. the ith going to take care of him."
"oh, if that's so" KK said, patting Tavro's shoulder "have fun."
Without wasting another second, KK stalked off, sprinting after a girl that looked as if she was about to walk into a locker, but stopped just in time, giggling to herself.
"Tho" Sollux said, gesturing along the now less crowded hallway.
"Like you probably heard, I am Thollux, thith guy jutht now wath Karkat. He can be really nithe, but he ith a douthe when it cometh to wordth. He didn't mean it that way."
It was a bit hard to really understand the words, but Tavros gave his best and smiled up at Sollux, who patiently walked beside him until they reached a beautiful girl with long black hair, kept out of her face with two little hair clips, shaped like frogs.
Sollux stalked over and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, smiling at her. Even if his eyes were completely invisible, Tavros could picture the affection in his eyes, and it somehow made him feel a lot worse…
He had never been in love, or loved for that matter.
Though there had been one time, a girl… but he didn't want to think about her now.
"Thanks Sollux" The girl, probably Aradia, said.
"Now, I'll show you around."
After having a little tour of the school with Aradia and Sollux, who both turned out to be really nice and friendly, Tavros decided that maybe this time, school wouldn't suck so bad. He had been told, that there were others like him, not paraplegics, but there was the blind girl and also other people who had some physical limitations.
So no one would really bully him, of course, there were groups that kept to themselves and sometimes there were clashes, but most of the time, the school was pretty peaceful.
The groups were the usual, the jocks, the artists, the hipsters, the pretty girls, the nerds and the misfits.
Trough the whole day, Tavros had tried to place people that passed him by into those groups.
Karkat would probably be with either the nerds or the misfits, he guessed, while Sollux was definitely a nerd and Aradia was… well she was pretty and all, but not an airhead. She was rather intelligent and calm…
The bulky guy that had almost ran him over, was probably a jock.
Now, Tavros sat in the cafeteria, between Karkat and Sollux, in the middle of a loud and cheerful group.
While taking a bite out of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, he looked around and tried to remember all of their names.
First, the two guys that sat on both his sides, Karkat and Sollux, easy enough.
Then there was Aradia that sat on Sollux' left side, being glared at from across the table by a girl… wait… Feferi! Who was in turn being longingly looked at by a hipster, which had loudly claimed to only sit here because he pitied Fef to sit with the losers, called Eridan.
To Karkat's left, the blind but definitely not helpless girl sat, Terezi.
She was a bit strange, but since she had treated Tav nicely, he had decided that he liked her.
Just before, a girl had stopped by, wearing a funny blue hat with cat ears, and introduced herself to Tav as Nepeta.
To be honest, it was pretty hard to get used to the different personalities, but he felt welcome and enjoyed being with the group, something he had never really experienced before.
Even if he only seldom spoke and rather listened to the others, Tavros felt really happy and comfortable.
During class, Tavros smiled to himself.
The lesson was pretty easy, since he had studied almost the whole summer, not being able to play outside and all…
Allowing himself to space out a bit, though allowing may be the wrong word… since he always kind of lost himself in his fantasies and daydreams, Tav stared out of the window, watching the autumn leaves whirl around and gently float back on the ground.
He imagined running through these leaves, laughing and taking off to fly, just like them, wings spreading wide and his heart leaping with the freedom that fulfilled his soul. He'd join the birds in the sky and look down on the people, seeing their surprise and feel free.
Simply free and happy.
No one could judge him, no one could try to bring him down, because well, he was way up high, too high for them to reach him.
Just when he almost completely lost himself in the daydream, a man ran into his field of vision, kicking up the leaves.
The guy laughed out loud, obviously happy and let himself fall into a pile of dried leaves.
Something in the way the guy had laughed made him wonder…
He looked older than Tav, so wasn't he embarrassed to act like this? Playing in the leaves, laughing like a child?
While watching the guy playing in the leaves, chasing pigeons and scaring little kids by making weird faces at them, Tav suddenly realized that he was jealous…
He wanted to turn away, when the guy started waving, smiling widely.
Surprised, Tavros looked around, before pointing at himself, a questioning look on his face.
The guy nodded and waved again.
Hesitantly, Tavros waved back, feeling the corners of his lips slowly forming a smile.
The guy really was strange.
Curly, messy, black hair hung into his face and ended just over his shoulders.
In the light, it shimmered a bit purple, making his face even paler and his bright purple eyes even brighter.
He was dressed in a black hoodie and worn out jeans, which hung low on his skinny hips.
On his face, Tavros saw something that looked like a scar, or even three, long scars that ran from his left eyebrow over his nose.
He gestured to his own smile, and held up his thumbs.
Tavros smiled a bit more and saw him nod approvingly.
For a while, Tav simply watched him goofing around, until suddenly, the guy stopped and seemingly focused on someone that approached him from the side.
He laughed again and winked at Tav before charging off extremely fast.
Only a second after that, Tav saw Karkat running after the guy, yelling and shouting, but hopelessly slower with his short legs.
Tav chuckled and almost laughed out loud when he saw the two chasing each other around the area.
It was so amusing, that he hadn't even noticed the ringing of the bell, until he felt a hand on his shoulders and Aradia smiled down at him.
"So, how was your first day?" she asked, and helped him pack his stuff.
They would have to wait a bit, so that the crowd could disperse a bit before Tavros could get to his locker, and Tavros used that time to tell Aradia about his day.
The people here were really nice and the teachers all seemed to simply accept the fact that he was paraplegic instead of fussing over him the whole time, something he really appreciated.
Once they finally got into the hallway, Sollux joined them and together they made their way to Tavros' locker, where the couple and Tav said their goodbys.
Humming happily, Tavros put all of his books inside and for once in his entire school life, he looked forward to the next day.
Sollux and Aradia had already introduced him to some of their friends, so being alone was probably out of the question now, and that sole thought was enough to make him feel giddy and excited about the rest of his school life here.
But that feeling instantly vanished and was replaced with the cold feeling of horror creeping up Tavros' back when he closed the locker and saw a flicker of black and blue from the corner of his eye.
He whirled around on his chair, seeing a girl from afar, talking on the phone and grinning maliciously.
She hadn't spotted him, so he took the chance to study her, making sure whether she really was the one he thought she was.
But without a doubt, she was the one.
Long black hair, pale skin and blue eyes that made even the strongest guys cower in fear.
Insanity was reflected in them, as the blue orbs darted around.
Unconsciously, Tav began to tremble and shake.
He mustered all of his strength and hurried out of school.
It had been five years ever since he had seen her, five years since the last time he had felt his legs.
And today, he had seen her, and suddenly his legs began to hurt like they had never before.
It was as if they reacted to her, and it brought tears to his eyes.
After having gotten some distance between him and school, Tavros stopped and navigated his wheel chair away from the street and onto an empty playground.
When he made sure no one was around, he let the tears flow and the sobs shake his body, dropping his head onto his lap and clutching the useless, numb limbs desperately, trying to stop the pain and the terror.
He was suddenly interrupted by a cold wet snout sniffing at his hand and a hot tongue began to lick it.
Tav jumped a little and stared into the unusually green eyes of a huge, white dog.
From the green collar that hung around his neck, dangled a matching leash, but no owner was in sight.
"Bec!" he heard a girl shouting, and soon he saw a cute girl with long black hair, green eyes and glasses run towards them.
Quickly, she snatched the leash of the floor and dragged the dog called Bec away from Tavros.
"Naughty dog, you shouldn't pester other…"
She eyed him carefully, noticing his tears.
"Hey, are you okay?"
Flushing, Tavros wiped away the tears quickly, and tried to keep his voice from shaking to much, but failed miserably.
"Y-yeah… uuh… sorry, I guess"
The girl still looked at him, concern in her eyes.
"What are you apologizing for" she said, her voice soft and calm.
"Uhh, f-for the d-dog. I, uuh…"
Laughing softly, the girl patted the dog's head before holding out a hand.
"You didn't do anything wrong, I am Jade Harley, what's your name?"
Hesitating a bit, Tavros took her hand eventually.
"T-Tavros Nitram" he replied, smiling as well.
"Nice to meet you Tavros, you are new here, right?"
Tavros nodded and started fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.
Smiling, Jade pulled a little pen and a scrap of paper out of a little backpack that hung from her shoulders and started scribbling something onto it.
"So about before, I don't mean to pry, but if you need help, I am offering."
She handed the scrap of paper to Tavros and he saw that it was a phone number.
"Why…"
"Because I think you need it. Don't ask why, just a feeling. And I am bored most of my time, so call or message me whenever you need to."
Before Tavros could even respond or react, Jade was already dragged off by Bec, laughing loudly.
"Wow" Tavros said to himself.
That was weird…
Gently he traced the digits with his finger, feeling a strange warm feeling in his stomach.
Weird, but nice.
Sooo, this was the first one :) did you like it? Is there something you want me to do better? please tell me :)