#skateboarding is cheaper than therapy trust me guys

[lex-jots]

From a Taste for Danger (Charlie/Reader)

Charlie remembered the fight he and his parents had when he broke the news that he was failing one of his classes. “How could the same kid who spent hours practicing kickflips—” his dad spat the word, and Charlie winced, “—go on to fail English 101?”

For Charlie, it's a perfect night for a good old-fashioned pity party. Lucky for him, Casper arrives just in time to break up the wallowing.

AO3

Charlie didn’t consider himself a risk-taker. Just… mildly rebellious.

He’d been having a beef stroganoff dinner with his folks in the beige-themed dining room. There was a plastic floral centerpiece on the table. It was normal. His Pop asked him about his day (fine, apart from the feisty old lady with the Coke bottle glasses, whose shrill voice he could still hear in his head after messing up her order), and how Pete was (also fine, if cranky due to the shrill old lady). His mom went on about what’s-her-face from Human Resources, and how she was a bitch sometimes but she was going through an ugly divorce so his mom was trying to lend her some grace, and Charlie hummed and nodded along to her rant. His dad not-so-subtly brought up juco, and Charlie not-so-subtly excused himself from the conversation and the table to wash dishes.

It was a nice, normal dinner, and he was grateful for it, he thought as he paced impatiently around his acid green-painted room.

After a few minutes of pacing, Charlie scrubbed at his face. He didn’t get why he couldn’t just be happy. It had been this way since he was young, too. There was something about sitting in that beige dining room and gossiping like a normal, Hallmark middle class family that was like sandpaper on his skin. Or… under his skin? Like that scene in Nightmare Before Christmas where the burlap sack guy was really just a bunch of bugs pretending to be a person. Sitting at the table made the bugs under his skin crawl.

Was that a weird thought? That was probably a weird thought.

Maybe it was a comparison thing. His mom and pop had respectable jobs, college degrees, and success, versus him, the oddball, fuck-up kid who worked at a pizza joint and smoked dope sometimes and schmoozed off their generosity.

Charlie stopped pacing. No, he thought sternly. He was working an honest job, just like them. Charlie might not have had much to brag about, but at least he had that much. It was something. He nodded to himself and continued pacing.

He really did feel like an oddball, though. Like a puzzle piece that never quite fit into his parents’ perfect picture. Always a little too loud, or a little too quiet; always caring too much about stuff that didn’t matter, or too little about stuff that did.

Charlie remembered the fight when he broke it to them at that very dinner table that he was failing one of his classes.

His dad had rubbed the bridge of his nose. “How could the same kid who spent hours practicing kickflips—” he spat the word, and Charlie winced, “—go on to fail English 101?”

Charlie’s face had burned, but he crossed his arms in silence while his mom said with infuriating gentleness, “Obviously he’s not incapable of being dedicated, it’s just…” She had trailed off.

He’d only been thinking about it, but the pity in her voice made him decide that night: he was going to drop out, find another way to make it. His own way.

Charlie forced himself out of his trance, massaging the back of his neck. That one was still sore. And it could go deep, too, if he let it. He must have been in a self-pitying mood.

Charlie liked to imagine all his thoughts as shoe boxes. He put that memory in a box, carefully shut it, then put it down. Not tonight, he thought. He had a mental rule about pity parties after nine o’clock. He didn’t always follow it, of course, but wallowing too much could really, really suck.

Maybe those moments of stark normalcy bugged him so much because now he knew what the alternative could be: chewing on ice cubes to stave off the gnawing in his belly because he had exactly four bucks in his pocket and still needed to pay up the next day, somehow; laying under a park bench while he racked his brains for “friends” he could cash in a favor with so he could crash on their couch for a day or two; bleeding in a seedy alley, waiting for his tunnel vision to close in—

Charlie snapped that mental box shut and dropped it in a dark corner.

Man, he really was in a self-pitying mood. He needed to snap out of it or he’d just be a sad little rodent curled up in his room all night. What was that saying? Count your blessings or whatever?

Charlie held up a finger for each blessing. A home. A bed. Parents who gave a shit. A job. Pocket money. Food. Plumbing. Threads. Casper. Hey—Casper!

Charlie pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped them a message, knowing damn well they were nearly nocturnal: you up??

There was something about Casper. They were like a magic cure for that oddball, sandpapery, bugs-wearing-human-skin feeling he sometimes got with his family.

Their response was immediate: duh lol.

wanna hang?

omw

He blinked; he hadn’t even asked if they wanted to hang at his (parents’) place or theirs. They were like that sometimes, though: once they got an idea in their head, they just… went for it. It was admirable. And pretty hot. Especially when they got that determined glitter in their eye…

Charlie grinned as he put his phone back in his pocket and laid on his bed, hands behind his head.

Not five minutes later, something knocked loudly on his window, and Charlie jumped almost a full foot in the air. Sure enough, Cas was at the window, a bit sweaty and waving innocently.

“Jesus, Cas,” Charlie gasped as he opened the window. “You can’t knock that loud or one of these days I’m gonna have to change my pants, and that’ll be embarrassin’.” They laughed, and so did he, adding, “You got here quick.”

“I was in the area,” they said, holding up their board.

 So he had interrupted their night skate session, and they’d dropped what they were doing just to come see him? Charlie felt his face bend into a dopey smile.

“And you hurried over here for me? D’aww. C’mere.” They leaned forward and he kissed them, not minding the saltiness one bit. “So, are you comin’ in or am I comin’ out?”

“You’re coming out.” They gestured behind themself. “I found a great spot for hill bombing. I’ll even let you borrow my pads so you don’t break anything important.”

Charlie laughed, grabbing his beanie from the pile of clothes on his bed. “Well, aren’t you a sweetheart tonight?” He hoisted his board into the crook of his arm, then clambered out the window as carefully as possible so his arm didn’t get shredded by grip tape. “So long as I’m not exceeding, like, twenty miles an hour, I think I’ll be good.”

When he planted his feet on the lawn, Cas grinned at him in that way they liked to when they picked on him. “Congratulations.”

“Huh? On what?”

“On coming out.” They were fighting laughter.

Charlie blinked stupidly until it hit him. Then he hit them on the shoulder, and they threw their head back laughing.

“Yeah, yeah, you little shit,” he grumbled with fake annoyance, but the twisting in his lip was a dead giveaway of how much he actually enjoyed being picked on. “I’m not even gonna ask how long you’ve been sittin’ on that one. But, hey, I respect your commitment to the bit.”

“Oh, c’mon.” Casper swaggered across Charlie’s (parents’) lawn. “You love it.”

“Yeah, I do,” Charlie said, following them.

Casper visibly paused, eyes wide and starstruck. It was Charlie’s turn to laugh; for some reason (one he never pried too much about), they always seemed shocked at how easy it was for him to just admit how much he adored them.

“You should see your face when I talk all sweet to you,” he said, imitating a chef’s kiss. “Price-less.”

“Shut up, man.” But there was no barb to their words, only a sheepish smile.

Charlie took a second to just… bask. In them. In the uncomplicated, guiltless joy. In how normal and right he felt, and how they felt to him. They were so good at pulling him out of those cycles of wallowing, even when they were kids. Like it was effortless. Did they know what they were doing? He hoped so. They deserved to.

“Hey, Cas?” Charlie slowed almost to a stop. They slowed with him.

“Hm?”

“Thank you. For comin’ over. I mean it.” He reached for their hand and they took it, nodding once, brows drawing together with understanding. “I was thinkin’ about stuff, and I got to thinkin’ too much, so… it really means a lot to me.”

“Anytime.” They squeezed his hand. “And I mean anytime.”

Charlie took a breath, soaking in the gravity of anytime. They had all the time in the world, now. There was no one he would rather spend it with. And knowing that they felt the same…

“Thanks, babe.” He swallowed back emotions. “Thank you.”

Cas smiled, held up their twined hands, and kissed his knuckles. Their lips were chapped, but gentle. “Anytime.” They swung their hands back and forth. “Now let’s go show that hill who’s boss.”

They held hands as they jaywalked in front of his parents’ house.