Chapter Text
From the moment he was put on this Earth, Lance was born to explore. When he was just six weeks old, still frail enough that he couldn’t hold up his own head, he was wiggling around in his crib trying to discover every nook and cranny beneath the sheets his grandmother had hand sewed for him. The videos his mother took showcased him moving about as if he were a worm rather than a boy, and everytime he found something new there was always this squeak of wonder that would ring out, as if that was why he did it. That the discovery was enough to make all the wiggling worth it.
By the time he could crawl his parents had to invest in a child playpen to keep him within the confines of the living room where they could safely eye him. Everytime he wasn’t within the confines of that child prison he was moving. And when he finally learned to walk? Well then all bets were off. Lance learning to walk was the McClain family signing up for a never ending game of hide and seek tag. They couldn’t take their eyes off him for a second or he’d be gone. No longer could toys be enough to quench his thirst for the unknown, now he sought new faces and places. He wouldn’t be satiated until he sat on top of a mountain and had the whole world presented to him on a silver platter.
When Lance was 3 he was taken to the ocean. His mother describes that first experience as almost comical. The way his eyes lit up and danced along with the light glistening against the waves. How he’d taken two steps into the sand and immediately lost his balance face planting into the ground. But he got back up immediately, and even despite sand in his eyes and his siblings chasing to catch him he rammed into the salty ocean water. And suddenly Lance had a new spectacle to behold. The deep blue then consumed his every waking thought. He ran around the beach after school, dangled his legs off the pier to watch the sunrise, and swam whenever there was no excuse to stay dry. That was how he lived his life. Moving.
Lance just moved, it was what he did. He had to move to breath, to just stay afloat in life. The world moved around other people but Lance McClain liked to think he moved around the world. Movement kept life steady and paced… and then the accident hit.
Lance wished he could say he didn’t remember it. He wished desperately he could say that it didn’t haunt his thoughts every time he so much as closed his eyes, but he did remember. He could still here the sounds. The sound of metal clashing and crumpling upon collision, the sound of glass shattering, of horns honking, people screaming, someone crying, blood rushing, sirens blaring-... he could remember it. There wasn’t much in terms of sight however, just garbled flash frames of the car spiraling around between him clenching his eyes shut in fear. There was one point where blood had dripped into his eye and for a minute everything he saw was stained red including- her. He remembered the other car, barely even a scratch on the driver who had done it. The smoke, the destruction, the Death. Death followed him like a stench through the hospital, she sat at the edge of his gurnee during his rushed surgery, and she held his hand all night long while he waited for her to finally take him away.
The next couple weeks were the steepest learning curve he’d ever had to through himself at. Like a cliff but he was terrified to take the jump. Suddenly he couldn’t move. Suddenly the boy who’d spent his whole life moving was trapped- a bird in a cage, a fish in a tank, a dog in a crate. Bound to a chair twenty four hours a day seven days a week, he felt helpless. He couldn’t even go to the bathroom without needing to have someone help him onto the seat. His legs may have still been attached but it didn’t feel that way. It felt like half of him had been ripped from himself and he was nothing but a broken shell of empty promises and lost potential. And he knew he shouldn’t feel that way, that this was nothing but a freak accident and that bad things happen all the time. He knew that handicapped people could still do the things he loved to do, but the trappings of one's own mind after a traumatic event are much like that of a spider's web; deceptively beautiful, intricate and impossible to escape.
It had taken weeks for Lance to find the energy to get out of bed and eat something, now always finding the task of moving difficult and cumbersome. Needing help constantly and being drown in feelings of burdening, he sunk. Eventually however he seemed to find some sort of footing, likely around the same time he got the good news that his paralysis was not permanent. That with time and patience he would one day be able move once more and return to the life he so wished he could grasp.
“Dr. Kogane? You’re 2:15 is here, Lance McClain. He’s in room 113.”
“Alright, I’ll be there in a minute.”, Keith Kogane, nurse practitioner turn best physical therapist in New York state. A title which he’d garnered only three years after taking the job. Now at age 27 he stood as the youngest head of facilities that Marmora clinic has ever seen. And as such, he was a hot commodity among those in need of a physical therapist.
He wasn’t particularly exstatic about his profession but it wasn’t the worst thing he could be doing. His original goal had been to become a brain surgeon, however late into his first year of medical school his brother suffered an awful injury while serving overseas for the military. He lost his arm and had to go through massive amounts of PT to regain most of his mobility. Keith couldn’t see him go through that alone. So he changed course and became a physical therapist. He became someone who could help his brother and those who have suffered similar traumas, and yeah- it was no brain surgery, but he made a difference to people. And that felt good.
“Mr. McClain?”, Keith asked knocking on the door and looking down at the chart he was given of Lance’s medical history, “I’m Dr. Kogane, it’s nice to meet yo-”, Looking up Keith was met with possibly the cutest boy he’d ever seen. Tan skin and piercing blue eyes all wrapped up in a light blue way too big hoodie with a sunshine smile for the bow on top. God Keith was such a disaster gay, ‘Get it together Keith, he’s your patient’, “N-nice to meet you.”, He recovered smoothly holding his hand out for a shake.
Lance’s smile grew slightly as he returned the offered hand, his skin smooth against Keith’s calluses, “Nice to meet you. And call me Lance, Mr. McClain sounds super formal.”, And at with that there was the telltale droop in the tone of his voice that Keith had heard from most everyone of his patients. The slight low point that cracked. The smile that didn’t hide the fog behind eyes. The breathing that seemed unsteady and nervous.
“Alright Lance.”, He said. The name Lance suited him, Keith had thought. A elegant and regal name that smoothed off the tongue, “Well this is just going to be a quick session so I can better understand what we’re working with and I can start planning a treatment plan that will work best.”, He explained.
“Whatever will get me walking again.”, Lance grinned, he was practically bouncing in his chair, eager and ready.
Keith pulled out his computer and sat down at the table pulling up Lance’s online file along with the report he was sent from Lance’s primary physician and he began to probe questions about the accuracy of the information he was given before he started to actually perform a few tests. He’d helped Lance onto the bed and instructed him to lay on his back before holding his ankle and pushing his knee up and towards his body, “I’d like you to let me know if you start to feel any sort of muscle stretch below your hips.”, Keith kept pushing until he hit Lance’s stomach, “Anything?”
“N-no. Nothing.”, And despite trying to hide the crack in his voice it was clear that he was on the verge of breaking.
“That’s okay. Doesn’t mean anything bad, just that it’s going to take a little more work.”, Keith assured, he may be bad at feelings but injury was something he was used to. He was used to dealing with people feeling like it was hopeless, he’d had to drag his brother from the edge of nothing and back when he lost his arm. So he could do that with Lance. Though he did have to admit, Lance’s case did seem to be one of his harder ones, it was very rare for someone suffering from parapalegery to ever make a recovery, and a full recovery was damn near unheard of. Even once Lance started to walk again, it was unlikely he’d be able to go at the pace he once could. But this was just a first visit, so Lance didn’t need to hear about that yet.
After about an hour they were done and Lance’s mother and older sister showed up to take him home and while Veronica was taking Lance to the car his mother stayed behind to talk with Keith, “So?”, She asked
“It’s… unlikely.”, Keith sighed, “But not impossible. I’m going to recommend he starts by coming in three times a week and as he starts to improve we can take it from there.”