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“Maybe I should just wait in the car,” Jayce said again, fidgeting a little as he stood behind Viktor in the line in front of a white E-Z-up. “I don’t want to waste their time.”
“Jayce, what is that in your hand?” Viktor asked, patient.
“My forearm crutch,” he answered, a bit sheepish.
“And your eye?”
“Mostly blind.”
“And your ear?”
“Mostly deaf.”
“Exactly. And even if they were not, it quite literally says ‘for people of all abilities’ right there.” He pointed at the sign, which did in fact say ‘for people of all abilities’ underneath the large ‘Piltover Adaptive Sports Fair’ graphic. A woman waved Viktor over, interrupting any rebuttal Jayce may have had, and took his name.
“What size shirt do you want, sweetie?” she asked, and handed him a small upon his request before dismissing them with “have fun!” Viktor put his hand on Jayce’s arm, not moving.
“My partner is signed up as well. A participant. Jayce, last name Talis.”
“Oh, he doesn’t need-” she started to wave them off, before Jayce took a step out from behind Viktor, his forearm crutch no longer concealed behind his wheelchair. “Ah, of course,” she corrected herself, nodding and smiling understandingly, “what size would you like?” The sick feeling in Jayce’s stomach sat a little heavier. What was better, being mistaken for abled, or being acknowledged as disabled? The internalized ableism and imposter syndrome warred with each other deep in the back of his mind, while his hand worked on autopilot taking his name tag and t shirt.
Ugly shirts and bright neon backpacks full of freebies hooked over the backrest of Viktor’s chair, they made their slow way into the thick of the crowd, Jayce holding onto one of Viktor’s push handles so that he wouldn’t get pushed away. The welcome ceremony was already underway, Jayce could see Mel standing up at the front of the crowd and introducing the sports that would be occurring at the fair. Viktor paid attention while Jayce nervously looked around, finding… more people standing than he expected. There were a handful of other wheelchair users, but behind him stood a pair of older folks, one with a walker, and a gaggle of people holding white canes stood off to the side. A service dog followed a girl in fancy knee braces and a mask, and Jayce breathed a small sigh of relief that he and Viktor would not be the only ones wearing them inside of the gymnasium.
The ribbon was cut and the athletes sent on their way, and Viktor turned to Jayce, looking up at him.
“Anywhere you would like to go in particular? All I want is to make sure we go to rugby before the end of the day,” he said, smiling a little.
“No- no preference,” Jayce replied, awkwardly looking around at the crowd as it dispersed.
“Tennis, then,” Viktor decided, “because I have never done it before.” He turned, waiting for Jayce to take his place behind him, and headed in quite the wrong direction. Once they realized they were lost, they turned around, heading back towards the main area, and found the right way into the tennis courts through a narrow walkway. A group of volunteers stood around a small herd of sports wheelchairs, looking up very excitedly as the two of them came around the corner. Jayce watched another of the volunteers settling a child into a tiny sports chair, smiling despite his nerves.
“Are you interested in playing?” a man asked, to which Viktor nodded, looking over his shoulder at Jayce.
“I’ll… watch for now,” Jayce said, smiling and patting his pocket. “Someone has to take glamour shots of you for me to put as my phone background.”
Viktor let himself be shown to the chairs, appraising them until he found one that seemed to be about the right height and width. Refusing help with a transfer, he hauled himself to his feet and wobbled over to the sports chair to plop down into it. Straps tightened and legs secured, he set off to play, taking the chair for a few laps, learning how to hold the racket, and starting some drills. Jayce, true to his word, snapped some pictures and videos before leaning against the wall to watch his partner masterfully hit the ball somewhere completely random. It wasn’t until a group of four people showed up, one in a wheelchair and three standing, that Jayce’s attention was drawn from Viktor. The volunteers conversed with them for a moment, and then all four of the group came over and started going through the chairs to find one that would fit. Jayce raised his eyebrows a little, watching them sit down and wobble a little around the side of the court as they laughed and elbowed at each other for wobbling. As intently as he was watching and thinking, he didn’t notice Viktor rolling up beside him to tap his hand gently.
“I am taking a break.” His eyes followed Jayce’s gaze, and he smiled knowingly. “Abled, all three of them. Self proclaimed. I overheard them talking. Jayce, here. This one. Just try it out.”
He dragged a chair closer, gently taking Jayce’s crutch from his hand and pushing him towards it. Begrudgingly, he put a foot on the footplate and lowered himself into the chair. It sat a lot lower than the shitty wheelchair he’d been loaned after his injury, with the wheels coming to a more comfortable spot on the sides. He pushed the chair around a little, taken aback by how easy it was to maneuver. His surprise must have shown on his face because Viktor laughed, the soft one he tended towards in public, and he looked up.
“What?” he asked, unable to stop himself from smiling.
“Nothing. It looks like you are having fun. Surprised at how easy it is?”
Jayce nodded, doing a little spin and huffing a laugh reflexively. It was fun.
“Going to play a little tennis? I need to rest. My wrist does not like holding the racket and the push rim at the same time.” Viktor made his way towards his chair, unhooking the ratchet strap around his waist and pushing out of the chair to transfer to his own.
“No, I don’t think I will,” Jayce responded belatedly, following him for a few pushes before realizing what he was doing and hauling himself awkwardly out of his chair to limp after Viktor. After a bit more staring longingly at the court and the two of them having their own mobility aids restored to them, Viktor squeezed Jayce’s hand and smiled at him.
“Rugby, then? Or lunch?”
“Either is good,” he shrugged. The tennis instructor pointed them in the direction of the gymnasium that was hosting rugby and also lunch, telling Viktor to be careful on his way out, and they made their way back out of the courts, passing the dance instructors and an empty field labeled “adaptive baseball” on their way. Viktor did not comment on Jayce’s silence as they headed up the slight hill towards the gymnasium. It wasn’t like he didn’t acknowledge his own disability. He could hardly forget, what with the way his leg twinged in the cold and the atrophy of his muscles made it so Viktor had started altering his pants without even needing to be asked. But next to Viktor, who struggled to breathe even with his supplemental oxygen and who used his wheelchair more often than his crutches these days, it was hard not to feel, well, less disabled. Somehow, seeing nondisabled family members of a disabled person sit down in wheelchairs, not to mock him but to meet him where he was, had nudged a perspective shift into his brain. If they could do it, surely, he could too. Nobody would tell him he was taking resources from a ‘real’ disabled person. Nobody would scold him for faking being disabled. This space was welcoming to anyone, like they had advertised. It had been hard to believe, but seeing it in action eased his fears.
Lunch was handed to them in nice brown bags, that Viktor insisted upon folding up and putting into his bag to keep and take home, and they ate in companionable quiet on the benches out in front of the gymnasium, listening to the sounds of whistles and cheers from the rugby and basketball courts.
“Thinking more about joining me,” Viktor asked, “or are you more comfortable watching?”
“I need my photos,” Jayce joked, then looked down at his knees, tapping his fingers against them a little. “But maybe.”
“Alright,” he nodded, smiling softly as he slipped his mask on. “For what it is worth, I think you may enjoy rugby. It is very, eh, fast-paced.”
“I’ll watch a round,” he promised, “then decide.”
Again, Jayce hovered awkwardly by the bleachers as he watched Viktor pick out a chair for himself and strap himself in tightly. These chairs were a little different, the wheels covered in a solid piece and the whole chair surrounded by a metal bumper. Viktor was also strapped in at three places, over his feet, around his calves, and around his waist, and had what looked like a small battering ram in front of his feet. As soon as Jayce watched him enter the court, he understood what the battering ram was for. Clearly, it was there for running at full force into other players. Jayce watched, heart in his throat, as Viktor sped down the court with the ball in his lap, then threw it to a teammate who whooshed through the cones at the end of the court. The rules, he realized, were very simple. Get the ball through the cones without holding onto it for too long. Stop the other team from doing the same on the other side, by any means necessary. Which seemed to include physically blocking them from being able to get through the cones using your own wheelchair as an obstacle. Viktor was fast, but not very confrontational, opting to back away from clashes rather than head into them. By the end of the six minute game, he was panting, pushing back over to Jayce and pulling his sticky gloves off with shaking hands.
“Are you- do you need to lie down?”
“On the gymnasium floor? I would rather not. I will sit the next round out, though. They may be short a few players,” he said, casual but meaningful, as Jayce watched one of the volunteers who had played the last round pull herself out of the chair and jog over to them.
“Viktor, are you playing this round?” she asked, not quite reaching for his shoulder.
“I need a break, but I will probably play the next,” he replied, pulling his mask down to take a sip of water.
“I could,” Jayce offered, heart in his throat. What if he hated it? What if it was different from how sports used to be? What if he played it and realized, really realized that he would never play a normal sport again. And what if he played and he liked it? What if it was exciting and fun and he had a good time? What if-
“Alright,” she interrupted his spiraling thoughts easily, smiling at him, “Jayce, is it? Let’s get you a chair.”
It was that easy. The volunteers found him a chair, joking lightly about how tall he was, and helped him strap in and get into a matching pair of gloves to Viktor’s. After a few experimental pushes around the court, the volunteers decided that there were enough players and passed out jerseys, separating the teams and explaining the rules. Simple. Easy. Much simpler than the rugby he had played in high school, and he wasn’t upset about it. He had enough to think about as it stood.
When the whistle blew, he was immediately swept up in it. No longer was he thinking about his disability, or the vague lack of input from his blind and deaf side, or the concern about judgment from the crowd. All he could concern himself was with the ball, his teammates, the score holding steady as each team took home points. He learned some rules; not to let his wheels cross the lines, to bounce the ball before ten seconds passed, which team got the ball after it went out of bounds. Mostly, though, he learned that rugby was fun. Was he particularly good at it? No, not really. Did that matter? Not at all. His team squeaked by with a win, a tiebreaker point scored just seconds before the final whistle blow. As they high fived and made their way, panting, to the side of the court, Jayce remembered his partner and headed over to him with a huge, exhilarated smile on his face.
“You were incredible,” Viktor said, reaching his hand out to touch Jayce’s knee. It was steadier, and Jayce noticed the tubing from his oxygen concentrator tucked around his body carefully. “Did you enjoy yourself?” All he could do was nod, squeezing Viktor’s hand back and panting slightly. “Good. I loved to see you having fun.” He held up his phone, shaking it a little, his eyes squinting in a smile. “And my camera did, as well.”
“Let me see those!” Jayce protested, reaching for the phone, but Viktor leaned away, holding it out of his reach.
“No, not now. They are setting up another game, and I want to play. Come on.” He leaned in, pressing his masked nose against Jayce’s in a semblance of a kiss, and zipped over to his chair to drop off his phone before bonking Jayce’s chair from behind and jolting him towards the court.
“Both of you, this time?” the volunteer asked, smiling easily at them. “I’ll be sure to let them know to put you on the same team. Unless you’d rather compete against each other?”
So the game started with the two of them in red jerseys, teamed up with an athlete with a good amount of practice and a man with a volunteer attendant pushing his chair around the court. Viktor moved more slowly this time, but nobody seemed to notice or mind, passing him the ball, blocking him just the same, cheering when he made a point. And Jayce, too, was treated equally, even if he missed his teammate passing from his bad side and let the ball into the other team’s hands. There was no judgment. No upset, no vitriol. Just a group of players having a fun, friendly competition. They lost, this time, but it didn’t matter. The teams congratulated each other just the same, high fiving with shaky hands and patting each other on the back. Viktor was the first to abandon his rugby chair and transfer back into his own, and Jayce followed, coming to a stop next to him.
“You’re done?” he asked, going for his own seatbelt.
“I am. But you may continue to play,” he responded, touching Jayce’s arm softly.
“Nah, they’re closing up shop soon. Do you want to try anything else before we head out?” He knew full well that if the oxygen had come out, Viktor was likely tired. However, it wasn’t his choice to make, and he wouldn’t dare to presume.
“No, I think I have seen enough. Unless there is something you would like to try.”
Jayce realized that he did want to try it all, try everything, but, well, it was too late now. His hesitation held him back, at first. Now that he knew, though, he felt braver. More included. Viktor had told him that the community was welcoming, that he would find his place too, but he needed to experience it for himself to truly understand. He saw it now. Felt it. It felt good.
“Next time?” he asked, hopeful, and Viktor squeezed his hand.
“Of course. Next time,” he agreed. Next time, and the time after that, and the time after that. They had time.