Chapter Text
It’s 3am and he can’t get back to sleep. It’s August, a balmy 21 degrees Celsius, and the street light is pouring into the room, filtered by the blinds, creating stripes. Fuck, being alone with your thoughts at 3am is no good. He’s not sad; he’s just over it. School has been so stressful, his parents never understand what he’s going through, and that’s resulted in more screaming matches than usual. Nick is so understanding, but he can’t relate. His mum is really basically perfect: trusting, kind. God, what’s that like.
He unlocks his phone, Darcy is online. Of course she is. He messages her, “hey, glad it’s not just me awake.”
Darcy replies instantly. Her parents have been fighting. Again. They’re always fighting. “Come on, let’s go do something then.” “Fuck's sake, Darcy, it’s 3am.” “Big Tesco is open and I’m starving. Come on. Please come with me, I don’t want to have to go alone again.”
“You do this often?” Curious. She’s never mentioned this type of midnight adventure. Quirky, zany, completely unhinged sometimes, but there is always something hovering below the surface with Darcy.
“I’m going to need to sneak out, and if I get caught, my mum will probably kill me.”
“Good on you, Charles. Meet me there in 20.”
Charlie pulls on his skinny jeans and a borrowed hoodie. It’s a recent acquisition, still smelling a lot like Nick’s deodorant and washing powder. Carefully, he sneaks down the stairs, missing the creaky floorboards that will give him away. What the fuck is he doing? This seems like the type of thing kids do in books or TV shows. It kind of makes him feel alive? Instead of going out the front door, Charlie slides open the ranch slider by the kitchen; it’s quieter that way. He’s thankful, for the first time ever, that they have no pets that would have heard him stir. Okay, nearly there.
Out on the road it’s silent. The hum of electricity from the light poles fills the air, a light breeze blows. Why hasn’t he done this before? Without thinking twice, he breaks into a run, picking up his pace and jogging full steam ahead towards the 24-hour Tesco. It’s about 1.5 kilometres from his house; he makes it in under 7 minutes.
He arrives. Darcy is a few minutes away; she’s shared her location. What are they going to do in the Big Tesco? He supposes, whatever they want.
Darcy shows up, hair a little greasy but tied half-up, half-down, in her signature tie-dye hoodie, joggers, socks, and slides. What a fashion icon, Charlie thinks to himself.
“Charlie, are you ready to see the kingdom?”
“Take me and show me, master. I am a young grasshopper and need your wisdom.” Charlie laughs and fakes a bow.
They wander in; the lights are fluorescent.
“Why can’t you sleep tonight, young grasshopper?” Darcy asks as she browses the crisps.
“Family fight last night was just so shit. My mum told me I’m attention-seeking and that I need to grow up, and that people in the real world aren’t going to put up with my behaviour. I think I’m fucked off because I think she might be right.”
Darcy leans against the shopping trolley. “Okay, so that’s complete horseshit, but alright. Your mum, sorry for saying this, is such a cow. She should join up with my mum and they can start the Bad Mum Club.”
“I wish I could talk to Nick about it, but it feels like it’s all I do. I complain. I cry. I complain. I vent. His mum is literally perfect, and I know it’s not been easy what with his dad being an utter cock, but it’s different.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that, Charles. My two cents is that you don’t have to live with them forever. You’re 16 now; you only have to make it through to the end of high school. You’ve come such a long way and you’ve made awesome friends, like me, have basically found your soulmate and drum like a rockstar. It’s going to be alright in the end. I think weird adventures to clear your head after family fights are just as good as therapy sometimes.”
“I can’t stop thinking about how hard it’s going to be when Nick goes away to Leeds. When I think about it, I feel like I’ll throw up.”
Darcy moves several 24-packs of toilet paper into a square shape in the aisle, and pats the spot she’s created next to her. “Sit, grasshopper.”
“Thank you, master.” It’s such a weird role play they’ve just randomly made up, but it’s soothing somehow.
“I feel the same about Tara. I’m barely fucking literate. It’s a miracle if I get my homework in, and I literally won’t get into any universities. Meanwhile, she’s a star student, literally A-star grades, smashing music, popular with all the teachers. She is thinking about maybe going to law school, and there will be no room for me there, I worry.”
“Left behind.”
“That’s the fear, isn’t it, grasshopper? At least you can go and study in the break at uni with Nick after he goes, and go to house parties with him and do sleepovers in his dorm next year. It’s a four-hour journey, but it’s doable. He loves you and you’re his whole universe. Long distance is going to suck so bad, but it’s doable. Then in a year, you can join him at Leeds, do some smarty-pants degree, and it’ll be Nick & Charlie, just the same as high school, but now without parental supervision.”
It’s true. Charlie forgets that he’s going to have so much freedom when he visits Nick at uni, and uni isn’t that far away for him either. With uni comes freedom from his dreadful mother.
Darcy gets up from their toilet paper couch, and wanders towards the drinks aisle.
“Come on, let’s go, grasshopper. We need a drink.”
They look at all the juice options and pick out a weird peach jelly drink. Charlie makes it clear that this round will be on him, and puts it in their trolley. The trolley is completely empty apart from the lonely bottle of juice, rolling around as they glide up and down the aisles.
An underpaid, overworked staff member glances at them, and gives them a knowing nod. Troubled youth love a trip to Tesco. Going to Tesco as an adult is boring and mundane, buying things like canned beans, window cleaner, toothpaste, organic eggs. Being a teenager? Tesco is magic.
The Tesco magic works. Charlie is feeling better. “Tara loves you too, Darce. I know you’re not like an insane brainbox like she is, but you are endgame. No matter what happens, she will fit you into her life and you will fit her into yours. If she goes to law school, you can go and flat with her and do work experience in the same town. I think you’d be a great sparky.”
“I have actually thought about getting into a trade. I’m very practical, you know.”
“Yeah, remember when you rewired the projector in the art room to stop it flickering so much?”
“I followed a YouTube tutorial, but yeah. Something practical would be good for me. School makes me feel so dumb.”
“Have you ever been tested for ADHD?”
“Nah, my parents don’t believe in it.” Darcy fiddles with her hoodie strings. “I probably am. When I’m older, I’ll go and get it sorted. When I’m independent from them.”
“Let me know if you ever want a support person. I’ve seen a fair number of shrinks in my time.” Charlie laughs. Seeing Geoff has been one of the best things he’s ever done.
“We need something to eat with the peach juice drink thing. Let’s find some crisps.”
They pick out some cheese and onion crisps and take them to the self-checkout. The security guard eyes them suspiciously as they put the two items through the scanner.
Making their way outside, the air feels warm compared to the frosty Tesco. The car park has seven cars in it, and the overhead lights flood the car park with a cold glow. It’s beautiful.
“I don’t want to go home.” Darcy looks at her feet, scrunching and unscrunching her socked toes in her slides. “Fuck, my family just sucks so bad.”
“Come to mine then? My mum will kill me, but I bet we can sneak you in. If she catches you, we can explain.”
“Yeah, at least with being a girl your mum isn’t going to think we are doing anything too ‘Hanky Panky,’” and Darcy laughs, thinking back to when they talked about Charlie’s parents giving him the talk.
“Never remind me.” Charlie lies back on the concrete car park. The light pollution means there are four stars and a dim moon. “I’m so thankful for you, Darcy. I love Tao, and Aled, and Elle, but I really appreciate how raw you are.” He reaches over and grabs her pinky with his. “Swear to me that you’ll never change, Darcy. Never stop being you.”
“I can’t make promises, Charles; you know that’s off-brand for me.” She snorts, gripping Charlie’s pinky back.
“I want to be young forever, but at the same time, being a teenager with no money, no power, and no control is terrible.” Darcy sighs. Charlie rolls onto his tummy on the concrete. It hurts his ribs, and to anyone walking by, they look crazy, lying on the hard ground at 4 AM.
“I love you, Darcy. Remember when I was hospitalised and they sent me to inpatient? When you sent me the Henry Maddox A1 size poster, I knew we would be friends forever.”
“You have no idea how hard it was to trace down that stupid poster. Anything for you, my young fellow queer grasshopper friend.”
“Come on, Darcy, we need to get back to my house. Are you any good at jogging? I want to run down the middle of the road before cars appear.”
“I’ll try for you. I’m actually very good at skipping.”
Charlie runs facing backwards, and Darcy skips along the road, so they can look both ways for oncoming vehicles. It is remarkably responsible.
“My girlfriend is going to kill me for cheating on her with a gay man.” Darcy laughs and jumps a little higher.
“I’m just glad Tesco remains 24/7 with how few people are utilising it for romantic middle-of-the-night dates.” Charlie thinks about how Nick loves his sleep too much to ever voluntarily go to Tesco at 3 AM.
They arrive at Charlie’s house and sneak down the back to the sliding door. Carefully, they sneak in and go up to Charlie’s room. Charlie closes the door, and they curl up on his bed.
“I’m going to sleep a little. Glad it’s Saturday, technically.” Darcy pulls off her hoodie; now she’s overheated from skipping 1.5 kilometres. She balls it up into a makeshift pillow and plops herself down the opposite end of the bed.
Charlie wonders how he will ever explain Darcy being here to his mum but decides Darcy is chaotic and charismatic enough that she will probably handle it just fine on her own.
This will be something that happens more; these middle-of-the-night adventures are something that will not feel the same when they are older and actually allowed to go out whenever they want.
Darcy is breathing deeply now, asleep.