I thought I couldn't hate anything more than I hated the summer but when autumn rolled around I found myself proven wrong. The hot season had actually been the most exciting thing that had happened to me in years so when the usually long awaited return to school came around I was surprised to find myself disappointed. I had thought things might be different this time, but nothing had changed.

I didn't wear the braces that had been designed for my legs. I was still as unsteady on them as a new colt and I wanted to avoid the embarrassment that would come from landing on my face every few minutes. I practiced with them at home though, grateful for the emptiness of the apartment for it meant there was no one to see me fail. I was eager for the day I could walk into school on my own two feet. It would be the biggest shock they'd ever experienced. It would be a mother fucking miracle as one of my friends would say. He would be the only one who wouldn't snicker if I fell. Too bad he wasn't around to make school bearable anymore.

I saw Equius once, on the first day of school. He'd been standing tall and proud near the entrance, an excitable Nepeta at his side like always. His dark glasses found me and I'd waved but he'd just looked away. My heart sank as I realized that he was probably unwilling to be seen with me. Right. Here in these walls I was the lowest of the low, the chair bound kid who was nothing but a pathetic bore. I should have known. Silently I chided myself for the foolish thought. Not even Rufio could raise my spirits. Probably because he was just another reminder of how childish I really was.

Knowing how much of an idiot I was didn't stop me from watching Equius from the corner of my eye whenever I saw him. Maybe that kiss had meant nothing of substance to him but the memory of it still made my heart flutter.

A month into classes with no contact with the strange boy another surprise walked into my life and I wasn't sure it was one I even wanted.

"Knock knock motherfucker."

The front door was wide open, the light that streamed in outlining a tall and familiar shadow.

"… Gamzee."

Gamzee had been my closest friend after the accident, he was the only one who hadn't treated me any differently after I lost the use of my legs. A few years ago it had been him that had first made my heart beat like a tiny bird and he was the one to steal my first kiss. Everything had seemed like it was going to be perfect until something changed in his brain. He'd gotten off the drugs that had unfortunately addled him and in doing so the less stable parts of his brain started to take hold. He got angry, he got vicious, and he liked the madness that it all wrought. One day he'd gone too far, I remember trying to stop him, holding him back as best as I could from my chair. After the blow I took to my head I don't remember anything but the black of the night sky as he hospitalized a classmate.

He'd been put in a hospital in the hopes of finding a way to fix whatever had broken in his head that night. The goofy smile on his lips, the tangled mess of his hair, all of it was the Gamzee I knew from back then. Even the slight smell of something too sweet that wafted over to me was the same. But my lips couldn't curl into a matching grin, my eyes not alive with mirth as they once would have been. I didn't have drugs to blur the blue and purple face that he'd left behind.

"Tavbro, you're standing. That's motherfucking miraculous."

I was saved from having to spend any time with him by the well timed arrival of my father. It was the first time in a long time I was happy to see him. Even the brief visit from my past was enough to make my heart ache and my stomach to twist into confusing knots. That night I sat down and did something I hadn't done in the year since Gamzee's departure, I wrote.

Gamzee's unexpected arrival had been on Monday, through my friends and their gossip grapevine I'd learned that he wasn't going to be back at school for at least another month. I didn't care about any of that or at least I told myself I didn't. Even with all of that to distract me I still found myself looking for Equius in crowds. He never returned my gaze. For some reason that shattered my heart more than Gamzee ever had. When Thursday rolled around I startled myself by wheeling myself into my english classroom after the final bell.

Poetry club. I'd stopped coming when Gamzee was expelled. I'd stopped writing altogether then. With everything in my life spiralling into chaotic shadows this was an old routine that offered some semblance of stability. I was the last to arrive, they hadn't been expecting me, the expressions on the handful of members a mixture of shock and welcoming. The final face was just as unexpected to me as I was to it. Equius. Had he ever attended these meetings in the past? I slid my wheelchair into the only gap in their circle, next to the dark boy who'd taken up occupation in my brain. When it came time to pass a poem of choice to someone next to us I was left with Equius as a partner by default.

I chewed my lower lip as a read the stanza he passed me. I didn't understand it, not fully, but his passions and his emotions were clearer here in black and white than they had ever been when vocalized. There were depths hinted at and alluded to that I would have never suspected to lay beneath his dark exterior. My face grew hot as I realized that the creature of such raw emotion was reading my shallow attempts at the same time. The heat deepened when it was time for discussion but no words were said, he wouldn't look at me, dark lenses pointed at the page. We were the last two left, the other members drifted out to leave us in silence.

"I uh, really liked your poem." My voice trembled as I tried to stave off the tension that had formed. "It was really, um, emotional." I'd always been bad at critics, in the past it had always been Gamzee's works that I had read and most of those weren't meant to mean anything beyond their syrupy surface. Clearly this held far more meaning for Equius than that.

"Thank you." The low rumble of his voice echoed in my chest, I hadn't realized how much I had missed it. "I also enjoyed your poem."

"…sorry." The word was barely squeaked as I passed him back the page he'd poured his soul out on.

"What is your apology for."' His questions never sounded like questions, just statements that demanded a response.

"I uh, don't really know. What-whatever I did to make you mad."

"You did not make me mad. I assumed you were unhappy with me as you have not been using the legs I created. Since you did not explain to me what was wrong with them, I assumed you did not wish to speak with me." I cursed the sunglasses he always wore, it was impossible for me to read the blank expression on his face with them in place.

"Uh, they're still great. I just um, can't walk very well yet." I fidgeted, zipping closed my backpack and making my way over to the door. I had clearly done something that offended the older boy and I was ready to get out of his hair and stop causing him problems. "I'm still just really weak."

"Tavros." My named stopped me halfway through the doorframe.

"Uh, yes?"

"How many times do I have to tell you that you are not weak. You are strong, so much stronger than the rest." A weight on the back of my chair turned me around, though I was still unwilling to look right at him. The same strong hand placed itself on my chin, tilting it up as his lips came down gently on mine. The tender kiss only lasted a moment before the slightest hint of a blush found its way to his sharp cheekbones. He guided me back to the school's entrance, parting from me after one more soft kiss.

((A/N: Hey, thank you everyone for your support~! I'm so glad there are other people who like this ship too~! So I'm going to apologize that this story seems kind of, all over the place that is because as I was writing it I realized that I really want to write out a full fic for these two. Chapters and a cohesive story and everything. That does mean I'm going to be rewriting the first few chapters to make everything flow properly. I won't put them up here, I'll be starting up a new fic specifically for it. It will probably be called Stutter or something like that. So just an FYI for you all. C: Thank you again for reading guys, I'm so glad to see people enjoying this ship as much as I do~!))