AN: Okay so I haven't updated in forever BUT I have a good excuse because I will be in New York within the next few hours and I've been crazy busy lately, but I wanted to get this done so here it is! This was requested by CrippleIsBetter and it was so much fun it practically wrote itself (pun intended). So I'm going to shut up now and let you guys actually read this.
Charlie (her real name was Charlotte but she hated it, so she went by Charlie) lay in the fetal position in some alleyway or another, trying to catch her breath. Things like this always seemed to happen to her. She'd finally mustered up the courage to get up and run away from her parents, who beat her on a regular basis, and within a half hour of her escape she'd been jumped by two boys who had seemed to have been looking for a fight. She hadn't expected any self-respecting man to be willing to hit a girl, but apparently those two weren't self-respecting men, because they'd tried to mug her, and once they found she had nothing they wanted, they'd proceeded to beat her senseless. It normally wouldn't have bothered her too much, but these new wounds on top of the still fresh injuries she'd gotten from home were pretty painful. Her whole body ached as she pushed herself up to a sitting a position. She leaned against a wall and groaned softly. She had no idea what she was doing, she didn't have anywhere to go, she didn't know anybody she could stay with. She supposed her best option would be to wander around the city and hope she didn't end up at a brothel. She slowly pushed herself up to a standing position, but as soon as she tried to walk away, her right ankle gave way and she fell back onto the hard ground with a cry of pain. She grit her teeth and sat up before pushing herself against the wall once again. She wouldn't let a little pain stop her, she'd just have to be more careful.
"Hey, are you okay?" Her head snapped up and she found herself staring into the face of a boy with sandy colored hair and green eyes and... a wooden crutch, she noticed. One of those would be helpful right now.
"I'm fine." She said, ignoring the sharp pain in her ribs and the throbbing of her ankle.
"You don't look fine."
"I'm perfectly alright." To prove her point, she took a step forward, more carefully this time, but she still underestimated the pain and swore as she stumbled. She prepared herself to hit the ground again, but that never happened and she looked up to see the boy steadying her with his arm.
"You ain't fine."
"No..." She gave in. "I guess not."
"C'mon." He put her arm around his shoulders and she stared at him.
"What are you doing?"
"You'se coming with me, and we're gonna get you fixed up."
"I really don't need -"
"Yeah you do. Come on, lean on me and we'll get going." Charlie was a little tentative about putting all her wait on this boy, and he grinned at her.
"I'd carry you if I could, but just cause I got a crutch don't mean you can't use me as your crutch." She sighed before putting her weight on him, and was relieved to find that he didn't topple over.
"Who are you then?"
"Everyone calls me Crutchie." The smile hadn't left his face.
"Fitting."
"That's what most people say when I tell them." They limped along in silence for a few minutes, going much more slowly than Crutchie was used to, but of course he didn't mind. After a while, Charlie tentatively spoke again.
"What happened? To your leg?" His demeanor immediately became serious and she regretted asking. "I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me."
"It's fine." He shook his head. "I... I got polio when I was a kid, we got it treated but the leg never got better." Charlie nodded silently, and the rest of their trip to... wherever it was they were going was filled with awkward silence. After a while, Crutchie came to a stop in front of a tall, brick building.
