a/n Now this chapter is ACTUALLY the last chapter I have planned. After this it's just…idk…I didn't think about that…if you have anything you want to see please leave a review saying it and I'll write it if I can. Also, sorry about using Eridan. I tried to think about having it be somebody else, but it obviously could not be a girl, since Tav's gay, and—alright, shutting up. If you want an explanation for why it couldn't be Sol, KK, or Equius, let me know. Also Dave, Jake, John, and Dirk all just occurred to me. *bangs head on wall*

Aaaaand *warning* there's a bit of talking about self harm. I'm sorry if this offends or triggers anybody.

As The Years Pass

Age 16 Part 3

Tavros sat in bed, his back leaning against the excessive amount of fluffy pillows his dad had insisted on he needed. He was playing pokemon on his 3DS, another gift his father had given him in the past month, since he got home from the hospital. But he could only spend so much time on the game at one time, and he had spent the last four hours playing.

Weekends like this were always the worst. To anybody else, his set up would seem pretty great; TV in the room, Laptop in his reach, a small box of snacks and a dad who always brought his meals to him instead of making him go to the dinner table. He wanted nothing more than to move around, though.

Few notable things had happened since he got home. Mainly, Eridan approached him at school. He explained that it wasn't him, that he hadn't been texting Tavros and if he had, he wouldn't have ignored him in school or left him to wait at the pool for two hours. He asked if there was anything he could do, to help Tavros out, but Tavros denied. A moment later, Gamzee came up to Tavros and ruffled his hair, causing Eridan to mumble another apology and walk away.

Tavros smiled fondly as he thought of Gamzee. As soon as he saw Gamzee after the crash, he cried and hugged him, apologizing for being an asshole that night and begging for forgiveness. Gamzee was almost always over, now.

He'd pick Tavros up in the mornings for school and help him get from class to class as he got used to the wheelchair. At the end of the day, he'd bring him back home or take him out to get food. Once they got home, they'd hang out for a few hours on Tav's bed and do their homework together. He ate dinner with them nearly every other night, too.

On Saturdays, he'd work most of the morning, coming over a few hours before dinner, and then either stay overnight or stay until late, depending on if he was asked to work on Sunday.

The routine comforted Tavros, he loved seeing Gamzee so much. But at the same time, he wanted to do something. He felt trapped and didn't see the reason in life if he'd be spending the rest of it the way he had spent his time lately.

Gamzee distracted him from the depressing thoughts, when he was there. Just his presence made Tavros happier. But he couldn't be there all the time, and whenever Tavros got bored of his games and his mind started traveling, it took the same path.

At the start, he'd think about how things were so much more difficult now. How it took him an hour to get dressed, rather than a few minutes, a trip to the bathroom wasn't easy either. Nothing seemed easy anymore. Then he'd think about how dull life was for him, and how there was no obvious escape from boredom. He'd get stuck there for a while, before reaching to topic of romance.

He was in this chair because he had fooled himself into believing that somebody actually liked him. Now it was obvious to him that nobody could ever him. He was much too shy and boring before, and now he was disabled, too. What kind of guy would go for somebody like him?

Usually, Gamzee arrived before he could get too deep into that train of thought, but today he had to work a few extra hours, and he had decided to pick up some fast food for the two of them before heading over.

By the time he showed up, Tavros was absentmindedly pinching his legs hard enough to leave bruises up and down his thighs, trying to stimulate some sort of sensation from the limbs.

"Tavbro," Gamzee said, immediately walking to the bed and pushing his hands away, "You shouldn't be doing that."

"Why not? It's not like I can feel it anyway," Tavros sighed, not meeting Gamzee's eyes. He was ashamed to get caught pinching his legs again. While he was in the hospital, they had to restrain him at one point because he wouldn't leave them be.

Gamzee sighed, setting the food down and sitting next to him, "You know what the doctors said. I'm not your dad, so I'm not going to repeat it. But if you want me to, I can bring him in here."

"No!" Tavros's head snapped up, eyes wide and begging Gamzee not to do it. Apparently, continuously bruising himself could lead him to hurt himself worse, and there was a possibility that he might start cutting at his legs, possibly causing himself to bleed out. If Tavros's dad knew he was still doing it, they'd have Tavros seeing the grief counselor he had been seeing in the hospital, or going to a psychologist, and if there was one thing Tavros didn't want, it was that.

With a sigh, Gamzee took one of Tavros' hands in his own, "Then you need to stop," he said quietly, "Whenever I find you doing this shit, you tell me it's nothing. You should motherfucking talk about what's wrong. I'm your best bro, maybe I can help."

"You do help, you really do," Tavros said, rubbing his eyes with his free hand, "It's just…I don't want to make you feel bad, that I don't think you can help with this."

"But if I can?" Gamzee rubbed small circles on the back of his hand, not looking away from his best bro's face.

Tavros took a deep breath and stared at his legs as he spoke, trying to use his will to wiggle his toes, "I just…the whole reason I'm paralyzed is because I was convinced somebody liked me. And now I just don't understand why I thought anybody would like me, especially somebody older and richer and more popular than I am. I was never anything special, and now it's even worse because I can't do things for myself anymore. Nobody will like me, now…"

"Tavros. Shut up."

Tavros stared at him in shock. This might just be the first time in eleven years of friendship that Gamzee ever used Tavros's real name. It was certainly the first time Tavros could ever remember hearing Gamzee say his birth name. Once Gamzee was sure Tavros wouldn't start talking again, he continued.

"You're motherfucking wrong. There's somebody in this town who likes you, and has liked you for a long time. They might even motherfucking love you," At Tavros's confused expression, he started to explain, "This guy, he thinks if he could only look into one thing for the rest of his life, it'd be your eyes. He spends hours thinking of kissing every freckle on your body, and he thinks that if freckles are angel kisses then it's no motherfucking surprise that you'd have so many."

Tavros feels his cheeks heating up. "Gamzee-"

"I'm not done. This guy could be in the crappiest mood ever, and as soon as sees you, everything gets better. Just the thought of getting to spend time with you makes his heart skip a beat. When you smile he wants to kiss you in joy, and when you frown he wants to kiss that frown right off your face. The thing he dreams about more than anything else is spending the rest of his life with you, making you happy. He doesn't care if you can walk or not because if he has it his way, you'll be treated so well that you won't even need to worry about it because he'll take care of everything for you."

Once the speech was over, Tavros waited a few seconds before speaking, shaking his head slightly and looking at his lap, rubbing a leg with his free hand, "I don't think anybody could feel that way about me. I'm not special."

"You're wrong. You're so much more than you think you are, Tavbro," Gamzee said, still holding onto Tavros's hand and refusing to let go.

"How can you know, though? How do you know for sure that the guy wasn't lying to you?" Tavros looked over to him sadly, not expecting to find Gamzee's face mere inches away from his own.

Gamzee hadn't done his clown makeup yet that day. He usually did it in the bathroom of Tavros's house right after saying hello to Tavros, but the makeup could wait a little while longer. He quickly laid a kiss on Tavros's frown before pulling back.

"I'm not lying to myself. I tried to, for a while, but I gave up after the accident. I lost my shit, when I thought you were dead. Didn't know if I could motherfucking live if you had died without knowing how I felt."

Tavros couldn't think, he simply stared at Gamzee in shock. He had no clue how to even process this information. He had a crush on Gamzee for years, one that he had spent months burying in the deepest parts of his mind. So deep in fact that he had convinced himself that those feelings were nothing more than what somebody would feel for their best friend. Gamzee's kiss seemed to cause a chain reaction in his mind, though, and those feelings burst out from the hidden depth and bloomed as a flower in the sun might. As his heart swelled with joy and butterflies fluttered in his stomach, he leaned in and kissed Gamzee softly, just as he finished speaking.