After school, Gunther put an arm around his little friend and smiled to himself. He knew that Kick felt humlitiated and troubled and he had a plan.
'Come with me, Kick" He breathed, a little too eagerly. In a better mood Kick would've rolled his eyes at his mock flirtation but today he was silent and sullen. He let Gunther steer him off the usual path. Leading him into a patch of green.
They stopped at the foot of a tree. Gunther gave Kick an expectant smile.
"What am I supposed to be looking at?" Asked Kick wearily.
"I know you're bored now that you can't do any stunts, so I kinda figure you need a new hobby. And you know what I do when we're not doing stunts?"
"uuh. Bake?"
"I come here and watch squirrels!"
Kick looked up at the large gnarled and weathered tree, he couldn't see any movement on it's branches. "There are squirrels in this tree?"
"yeah, They're really shy though" Replied Gunther lowering his voice to a whisper. "so you have to be quiet" He lay down on the grass pulling Kick down next to him.
Tired, and not expecting much from this whole thing, Kick stared up at the trees branches, patches of light shone through the tree's leaves. Next to him, he could hear the whistling of the deviated septum in Gunther's left nostril. It tended to get irritatingly loud in situations that demanded silence.
Annoyed, Kick closed his eyes.
"A SQUIRREL!" Gunther screamed. Kick eyes snapped open, but it was too late.
"Aww, It ran away...Why'd it do that?" Gunther muttered settling down again.
Kick glared up at the tree that stood between his friend and his squirrels. "You want squirrels? I'll give you squirrels." he stated getting up.
"Kick, what are you doing?" Stammered Gunther, as Kick scurried up the tree. "Kick! we're supposed to be squirrel WATCHING. Kick!"
Kick leaped effortlessly from branch to branch.
"Kick, you'll get hurt!"
Kick let himself fall forward, chin up, arms to his side and with a smirk on his face. He enjoyed the small lick of fear causing his heart to pump faster and the way Gunther's eyes seemed rivited to him. Just when it seemed like he was falling he caught a branch and flipped himself up. "you think so?"
Gunther hesitated. He did think so. Kick up in the tree, far from where he could reach him. Kick with the penchant to throw himself off things, with the growing need to look death in the face left a cold feeling in his lungs and a sour taste in his mouth. he found himself panicking. "What if your mom gets mad?"
"What she doesn't know wont hurt her." Kick said, grinning, as he made his was up higher, flipping and using the branches like slingshots. The freedom was too welcome, too sweet to pass up now. His wound, so close to being nothing but a scar, protested occaisionally, but even the pain felt good now, a sharp awakening that washed that exsausting school day away from him.
"What if *I* get mad..?"
Kick stopped, he was so close to the top but couldn't go on. "what?"
"What if I get mad? What if I don't want you getting yourself hurt? What if I'm sick of this, Kick?"
Kick stared down at Gunther, The words stunned him. He couldn't answer them. He didn't know. He looked up at the expanse of sky above him, blue and inviting and back down again at Gunther with his crocs planted firmly on the ground. He climbed back down.
Gunther sighed with releif and smiled. Kick walked up to him, he wore a grim expresion that made Gunther's smile waver, when they were nose to nose Kick asked again. "what?"
"uummmm?"
"You never had a problem with my stunts before."
"You never nearly died!"
"Billy Stumps didn't stop doing stunts when he lost his arm! Why should I stop just cause I lost a little blood? Just cause you want me to?"
"You're so selfish, Kick! And..and Billy Stumps is stupid!"
Kick gasped in horror. "You take that back!"
"No!"
"I said, take it back!" He raised a fist.
"No I wont! This is why you don't have any other friends, Kick, because you're a jerk!"
"you're the one who's being a jerk! you're supposed to be on my side!"
Gunther's face scrunched up with conflicting emotions. With a short exasperated "graah!" he turned around and walked away.
Kick watched him leave, fuming.

Honey Buttowski smiled as she did her daughter's hair. She couldn't help but spoil her daughter, after two sons she was a breath of fresh air.
The Buttowski family were all in the living room. Honey was sitting on the couch, with Brianna on her lap. Brianna was telling her about a friend of a friend of a friend. The head of the household, Harold was pinned to the TV, and in the darkest corner of the room Brad was playing a hand-held video game.
The front door slammed open and Kick stormed in.
"what's the matter, Kick?" his mom asked, concern lining her features.
"Nothing!" her tiny son roared, running up the stairs "I just hate everyone!"
The family all paused what they were doing as they heard the door to Kick's room slam shut.
Harold shrugged. "I remember when Brad went through that phase"
"I STILL hate everybody" Muttered Brad, turning back to his video game.

Kick lay face down on his bed and groaned. His life was over. It was bad enough he couln't do stunts, the thing he had devoted his life to, but now Gunther was lost to him too.
How could Gunther do this to him? He was supposed to believe in him, after all they've been through together did he honestly think Kick couldn't take care of himself? That he was going to fail?
Enraged he rolled over and glared at the ceiling. He was angry and emotion stung his eyes, but he refused to show weakness.
He wasn't small. He wasn't weak. All he needed was a skate board and he could take on the world. It didn't matter what Gunther, what everyone, thought.
He'd show them.
He could hear, muffled by the walls, his family talking and enjoying themselves downstairs. They didn't seem to care. They hardly ever did.
He sat up and looked out the window. He could see Gunther's house across the cul de sac. He had half hoped to see some large sign plastered outside of Gunther window with 'I'm sorry, Kick' scrawled on it. but the house was still and uninviting.
Making a decision Kick opened the window, somewhere out there was an unattended skateboard and a gorge nobody thought he could jump.

The ramp he and Gunther built was still there. It had weathered several downpours and a storm and was worse for wear. The structure was now lopsided, here and there the wood planks that made up it's frame had buckled and stuck out at odd angles. It didn't need to be overlooking a gorge to be death trap now, but Kick didn't care. He WANTED it to be dangerous. He wanted it to be big and unbeatable. So when he beat it he'd be unbeatable too.
He climbed up the ladder Gunther had built up it's side, The ramp creaked alarmingly under his weight but held.
The wind whipped through his hair when he got up top. Though the day had been sunny up here there was a cold biting breeze. He put down the skateboard he had snatched from someone's backyard and balanced a foot on it, letting roll backward and forwards under his foot, testing it.
He looked down the expanse of the ramp, trying to find a path that didn't hold any loose nails and jutting boards.
He found it. He set off.
The noise of the skateboards wheels thudding against the wood was deafening. A nail came loose and zipped past his head. He ignored it and sped up.
The stucture moaned. Shuddering loose its nails and dropping. nails flw dangruosly around him in seemingly slow motion. Kick who had the amazing ability to always know what he looked like from the outside thought he looked pretty cool.
The ramp was about to arc up. He got ready to shoot into the sky but, unfortunatly, the wood was to weak. Instead of going up. He smashed through the wood and down.
Down into the gourge.
And stopped.
Kick looked down at the treacherous rocks below. His skateboard smashed against them without him. Was he floating? He looked up.
Between the Ramp in it's death throes and the cliff face, a round freckled face looked down at him.
It was Gunther, he had grabbed the back of Kick's shirt. He pulled him up and out of the way of the falling ramp.
Kick wanted to ask Gunther what he was doing, or where he came from, but couldn't because his face was quickly shoved between Gunther's sweaty man breasts.
"Omigosh, Kick! are you okay? what did you think you were doing? you don't even have a helmet on!"
Kick managed to peel his face away from Gunther's chest. "Gunther, where'd you come from?"
Gunther stopped mothering him for a second to look embarrased. "Oh, I knew you'd come here." He blushed, too ashamed to admit that had actually just come up here to hide under the ramp and cry, and his punching the ramp in anguish might have been what weakened it.
Kick absorbed this.
"thanks, Gunther." He muttered eventualy. He could feel Gunther shivering, and was starting to feel guilty. It uccured to him that he hadn't been taking into account how Gunther must've been feeling.
"I'm sorry"
He meant to say it but it was Gunther who said it. It only managed to make him feel guiltier.
"I didn't mean to take a side that isn't yours. I just don't want to ever have to lose you."
Strangly he always felt a rush of joy and excitment after every stunt, but here in Gunther's arms he felt stupid.
"I...have a problem, I guess." He slumped, defeated.
Gunther just held him, running hands through his hair.
"I'm sorry, Gunther."
Gunther sighed. "It's okay, Kick, I know you love stunts more than anything."
Kick's heart sank further. He started to protest. "Not more than-" He stopped himself because he knew it was going to sound a lot more intimate than he meant.
He reworded his sentiments in his head. "Gunther, if I had to choose between having you as a friend or doing stunts again, I'll choose you..."
Gunther's lower lip wobbled. "ya mean it, Kick"
Kick didn't reply, already the violin music in the background were taking this bromantic scene into uncomftrable territory. "let's go home, Gunther."
And they DID.
Kick had to admit, it wasn't SO bad, not doing stunts all the time, so long as you had a friend to keep life exciting.
And MAYBE.
EVENTUALLY.
IF HE WAS GOOD.
His mom would give him his skateboard back.

THE END
(this is what I get for starting a fic without an ending in mind...)