Chapter Text
Michael has been hanging out with the Lost Boys for a week when it happens.
David takes a step across the room and goes crashing to the ground, breath knocked out of him in a sharp exhale that would have sounded almost annoyed, if Michael had been paying attention instead of swearing.
"Fuck! David?" He sits upright from the slouched position he was in and makes to stand but Marko's hand on his arm pulls him back down onto their shared couch. Michael looks over at him but Marko doesn't look concerned, just holds out the joint in his other hand with a questioning tilt of his head. "Wha—"
"Don't worry, Michael, these things happen sometimes. Davey's fine, he'll get annoyed if you make a fuss. Go on, take it." Marko leans in to pass it over without letting go of his arm, speaking quieter than Michael has heard from the curly blonde in the last week of bonding and shenanigans.
Michael takes the joint and curls his fingers around it before looking back across the room. Dwayne had stood from his own seat next to Laddie and was giving David a hand up, although it looked to Michael like Dwayne was doing most of the work of hoisting the other boy off the ground. He can hear low muttering but can't make out the words as David wraps an arm around his friend's shoulders and moves slowly towards his usual seat in the hotel.
Toward a wheelchair.
He had never thought to wonder why there would be a wheelchair in the sunken hotel. How it would have gotten down there in the first place, why the boys would have brought it during the scavenging and decorating trips they had been telling Michael about.
But he's seen David walk. Plenty of times!
Now he's thinking about it as Dwayne settles back down with Laddie, the young boy half-asleep and shifting his head back against Dwayne's side, his eyes scanning over the rest of the group as he takes a hit of the joint. Star has been reading for the last hour on another couch, and Michael wasn't sure if she had even looked up at the sound of David falling. Paul, always sifting through music next to his 'rock box', catches Michael's eye with a twitch of a shrug and a crooked smirk before he returns to finding the next album to play.
He's seen David walk! But he's also seen David give orders to Marko from his wheeled throne, to grab food or drinks or to 'go for a ride' around the room.
Michael has watched as the other boys flank him closely when they stand as a group, but in all their roughhousing have never moved near enough to knock into him. He remembers David walking in a straight, careful line down the train tracks while the boys behind them switch positions and tustle with each other as they banter away, remembers David slinging an arm around his own shoulders before turning them both to watch the others jump into the lake below.
The blonde has a penchant for leaning in a disinterested fashion against the nearest wall or fence on the boardwalk, and moves between the carousal horses with a gloved hand out on the nearest pole or horse. Although to be fair, all of the Lost Boys enjoy lurking on the boardwalk, and Michael himself has to occasionally catch his balance on the moving carousal.
He's never seen David jump up onto the fountain's rim the way Paul and Dwayne and Laddie do.
Nimble fingers steal the joint back, and Michael turns to give Marko another questioning glance as he grins and takes a hit of his own. "Don't worry, Mikey." He repeats again, but Michael can't help but look back over at David, now reading a magazine from the stack near his chair with one leg stretched out lazily in front of him. "It always looks worse than it is."
"What's — I mean, um. Why…" Michael doesn't even know what he's trying to ask.
"Not my story to tell, dude. He'll tell you some day, if he wants to. Hell, maybe even sooner if you bat those pretty eyelashes at him." Marko blinks at him several times in an exaggerated manner and Michael rolls his own eyes, shoving him lightly and taking the joint in the same movement. "Hey! Thief!"
Everyone around the room except the sleeping Laddie laughs as Marko whines dramatically, and a tension breaks that Michael hadn't even noticed was there until it had dissipated. Star shakes her head at their antics as Marko tries to take back the joint and Michael holds him off long enough to take another hit. As he blows the smoke out, he catches David's eye and sees the slight grin that graces his features, almost thinks he imagines the way his shoulders seem to settle slightly.
Michael grins back at him as Marko finally snatches the joint away with a crow of triumph.
David is fine. He has his boys around him, and Star, and Laddie.
And Michael now, too, even though he might not know the full story. Even though he's only been friends with this group of family for a week.
The Lost Boys always take care of their own.