I'm using some of my head canons I shared when writing-excuses was wondering about ones we have for Chasper in this fic. So, y'all'll see some things that aren't necessarily canon, but I'm trying to a certain degree to be canonical with who the characters are at their core, and trying to build the story on that. Try to be patient with me, as this ain't really that popular of a ship and don't really have a super amount of 'canon fodder.' Lol.
Robin's Telling or Tales from the Friendship Zone
So, whenever they were in 6th grade, Jasper and Charlotte were assigned to this team building experiment disguised as a creative writing project. They had to write a round robin story, which means that they took turns adding material to the story and had to try to feed off of the last of the information by their partner to write the installment of the story. Jasper started it off and Charlotte found it a challenge to sometimes make sense of whatever nonsense he had written, but she was a girl who could appreciate a good challenge. What she hadn't appreciated was the ruse by their teacher to make her and Jasper get along better! But. she had to admit, it helped.
The friends used the story and the notebook it was written in to continue this process and in turn, sort of built upon their friendship as the saga continued. When they came to the end of the spiral, Jasper panicked. "It can't be over! We never made an ending for it!" He was seriously freaking out. Charlotte happened to have another spiral notebook available at the time, and she said, "Look... We can keep it up. Maybe... this could be the second season of it. I'll even start it out." She opened it and started this new installment of the story, then passed it to him. "Chill out. One of these days, it has to end."
"According to who?" He wondered, snatching the spiral from her. She rolled her eyes and walked off.
And now, they were in season 6 of Robin's Telling, as she liked to call it (He called it Tales from the Friendship Zone), and they rarely ever really used it, but every now and then, one of them would either continue from where they left off or ask the other if they had continued yet. It was in Jasper's care at the moment and after he left her house (which was done after he watched her sleep for a little bit, then realized that was probably weird and creepy, but waking her up was probably dangerous). He got home and his mom wasn't even there. Typical. But, he was able to pull out the current spiral and get some writing done. He'd pass it off to her at Man Band practice.
.
Charlotte and Henry were laughing and playing video games whenever Jasper came into work. "Hey, Jasp!" Henry cheered. Charlotte didn't say anything. Jasper wondered if everything was okay between them.
"Hey," he said and put his gym bag away. "What are you two playing?"
"I'm playing. He's just losing," Charlotte said, laughing.
"I'm playing, she's just being mean," Henry corrected.
"Neither of those statements answered my question, but enjoy." He went back to the store and Henry gave Charlotte a weird look. She ignored it and continued playing, so he moved on, too.
Later, whenever it was time for them to go home, Henry and Charlotte were discussing plans for at Henry's house. Apparently, they were hanging out after work, too. Eventually, Henry made some comment that seemed to elude that Jasper was invited too, but he didn't know if he wanted to hangout with the two of them. Maybe he was just overly sensitive because he shared a lot of very intimate. personal information with Charlotte and she seemed to be acting like it never happened. Maybe she was avoiding speaking with him because he made her uncomfortable. At any rate, he said, "I don't know how my mom's gonna act if I spend two nights away from home."
"No, you'll be home later tonight," Henry said, shrugging his shoulders.
"Maybe, you could call ahead and check in with her, to see if she's more understanding, if you do it that way?" Charlotte suggested.
Jasper nodded, "Yeah, I'll do that." Whenever he spoke on the phone with his mom, he told her that he would be hanging out with Henry until later on... "Yeah, she's hanging out too..." Then he sighed and was listening to something for a while. Charlotte and Henry looked at each other. "There's nothing like that going on. We're all just friends. She's a good girl. Top of the class..."
Charlotte raised an eyebrow and leaned into the mouthpiece to say, "HEY JASPER'S MOM!" Henry pulled her to the other side of himself and Jasper rolled his eyes, but they didn't know whether at Charlotte instigating with his mom, or with his mom, obviously on the other line, trash talking Charlotte.
"I'm sure that she'll be home by a time that's decent for a young lady. She's a good egg. I don't feel like doing this. Do you need anything? Okay. Yeah, love you too." He hung up and asked Charlotte, "Why would you provoke her?"
"She's trash," Charlotte said, simply. Henry gasped and Jasper furrowed his eyebrows. "Sorry. I meant to say she was talking trash about me. My bad. Words got choppy in my head." She really meant what she'd said, but that was a bit much to say to someone's face about their mom.
"Good save," Henry said, sarcastically and wrapped an arm around Jasper's shoulder, "But, what kind of trash was she talking about Charlotte?"
"I'm interested, as well."
"She asked, if my little friend was gonna be there, said what's her name, then pretended to say the wrong names. Then, she said that if a girl hangs out with a couple of boys this much something fresh must be going on.
He didn't want to go into detail, but his mother had advised him to use protection, in case she had something and also forbid him to do anything with her if both boys were in the room..
"You know what? I'm gonna shut my mouth and move on with my life," Charlotte said. Jasper's mom had SOME nerve, after the child-rearing job she'd done. Which reminded her, "Oh! Hey, I found something that might be useful for you. Actually, I heard an ad when I was listening to one of my podcasts. I'll send you the info. She texted him a link to a therapy connection that charged $30 a week and you could text a licensed therapist! He smiled to himself and put his phone away.
Henry was curious about what she'd sent to him, but tried not to butt in. There was some kind of other friendship happening with those two that he knew he wasn't included in. SO, he made a conversation topic that the three could participate in.
.
At Henry's, Jasper seemed in his own world. Charlotte was concerned about it, because he usually was the most talkative and cheerful one. At some point, while Henry was in the bathroom, she asked, "You okay, Jasper?"
He sighed, "I thought maybe you didn't care one way or another. I'm… worried that I weirded you out with all my baggage. You're not supposed to unpack in front of people unless you're going to be there for a while. I feel like I just dumped it all over the place and then suddenly, you were distant."
"It wasn't like that to me. I thought that speaking about your trauma probably stirred up some things and maybe you could use a break from focusing on it. Sorry if I seemed taken aback. I wasn't. In fact, I feel closer to you than ever. I'm honestly glad you felt like you could come to me. Are you gonna use that service I sent you?"
"Yeah. I'm gonna check it out. Do you mind if I hug you?"
She smiled and went over for the hug, fell on his lap and they laughed about it, but she didn't move. Jasper had a pretty cozy hug. They didn't usually hug much, but his arms were bigger than she'd noticed and he was soft and slightly cushioned. It was like hugging a lifesize, warm, plushie, or as comforting, anyway. Plus… did Jasper always smell this good? That was definitely new.
He strummed her back and she rested on his shoulder until they heard, "Whoa!" Henry was back and he was shocked and confused by the contact.
Charlotte got up and said, "I fell. Shut up."
"Fell and landed right in Jasper's lap, into a hug, on his shoulder, huh?"
"That's what I said," she told him.
Henry looked at Jasper. "What? Sometimes people fall." He smiled at Charlotte and her face went warm. Sometimes people fall. Such a simple and true statement. Sometimes people fall in more ways than one. Not as simple, but she couldn't tell yet if she minded it at all.
