Work Text:
Skid was supposed to have been asleep two hours ago.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
Instead, Skid was staring at himself in the mirror. His mask was off for once, which was a surprise in and of itself. If you didn’t know him well enough, you’d think that thing was attached to him. Sometimes he falls asleep in it, serving for some unfortunate hair problems.
Skid stared at himself, examining his face.
It wasn’t as if he had forgotten what he looked like, or anything. He’s just not that big of a fan of his appearance.
He’d always thought he looked cool, but given how much he looked like his… unfortunately absent father, people just don’t look at him the same anymore.
And the weird looks don’t end, even years after he had left. Skid just keeps the mask on so that people aren’t bothered.
He’s thought about how, as a boy of his age, he shouldn’t be worrying about how his appearance bothers others, and that he should be as he likes.
But the people who say those things have clearly never lost a parent that they unfortunately got all of their genetics from.
Skid’s been told how uncanny the resemblance is between him and his father. In fact, his father used to call him his “Mini Me” sometimes.
Skid didn’t actually use to wear the costume all that much. Just for whatever miscellaneous Halloween activities he and his friend got into, encouraged by his cheerful parents.
But then his father left.
And his mother began defacing and hiding the photos of him.
And it made Skid think.. “What if she doesn’t want to look at me anymore?”
His solution?
Wear his costume religiously, as if he would die if he were to take it off.
That solved problems. His mom wouldn’t have to look at him.
But he soon had another problem.
It was his name.
And Skid liked his birthname, really, he did, but after a while, his mom just… stopped calling him by it. She just called him “son”. And Skid soon realized that he didn’t like being addressed by his name anymore.
Thus began his alias. The happy-go-lucky, Halloween obsessed kid with the skeleton costume.
Skid’s best friend went along with it too. The two children finding yet another piece of common ground with their issues of absent parents.
And that was that.
After a while, Skid had accepted that he’d have to take the costume off eventually, and his mom didn’t even look at him like that anymore. But it had become a habit.
Skid just… was used to hiding his face.
He didn’t like taking off the mask in front of other people, other than those trusted few. He hated it, actually.
He had actually made sure to never take off the mask unless required. That worked for him, and people didn’t seem too keen on looking at his face anyway.
There were probably leagues of therapists who would be thrilled to categorize whatever traumas he had.