Chapter Text
“It is a blessing that I can sound the alarm and ask for my loved ones to gather around me.”
— Benyamin Rubi, “The Jewish Poem That Helped Me Grieve”
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TEN DAYS AFTER.
The thing is, Charlie doesn’t just… call. Not without permission first via text. He doesn’t call anyone, but he especially doesn’t call Nick. The idea of bombarding Nick with affection and making Nick sick of him is terrifying. He even does this with their nightly calls which they’ve had since their first date where Nick FaceTimed him afterward to check in that he got home safe, as Charlie asked, and to tell him about how Lucy managed to get into the garbage, despite it being hidden in the cupboard — again. Nick has no problem just calling, which Charlie finds himself grateful for — that Nick feels the urge to talk to him and acts on it. Charlie doesn’t though. He meekly asks for permission for a space in Nick’s life.
It doesn’t feel big right now. But the train car on his way back through the city towards his flat is empty. And Charlie’s hurting, even though he doesn’t think he can rehash it with Nick quite yet.
He's found himself ruminating as the 52 minute ride (should he catch all the right trains — which, of course, he did) toils on. He felt good upon leaving Michael, Ein and Tori. He felt seen and validated and heard. Still though, there’s been two niggling thoughts in the back of his head that haven't left since Tori dropped him off at the train.
The first: Am I too much?
He thought the mental illness was bad enough. He thought taxing the people he loves with the suffering caused by his illnesses was bad enough. The expression on Tori’s face as he apologised over and over on the yellow tiles of his childhood bathroom at fifteen will outlive him. It will live within him forever.
The second: How will I ever be able to trust again?
Trusting people was tough for him before; trusting them with his mental illness, with his head, his heart, his soul. But he had really been making progress, though uni and now in the working world. He trusted people to know his dreams (to be a fiction author), his fears (even the irrational ones), his past (the white, white walls and barred windows and double-locked doors of in-patient at fifteen and again at twenty), his world (Tori, and all things associated with her). And then Ben came and ruined all of that.
Charlie’s been compulsively wondering who he would’ve been had Ben not done what he did. Abused him. It’s never not going to be hard to say, even just to himself.
He wonders if he’ll ever be able to say it to Nick, to call it what it was. At this juncture, it feels doubtful. But even with how much Charlie already almost compulsively trusts Nick, like it’s easy, like water down his throat, like air through his lungs, Charlie doesn’t know for sure. He needs the trust he has in Nick like an unconscious reflex. He’s not used to it after a year and a half of constant distrust, monitoring and discomfort; however, he’s finding it harder and harder to resist that trust he has in Nick. Because, while Charlie adores Nick and wants him in his life for a long time (always, always, always), it’s still new. He isn’t running anymore, and has hardly felt the urge in the week since the wedding, but it’s still hard to give into the instinct he’s not even had to develop. Frightening, in a way. Beautiful, in a way.
Nick is just… there. He’s always a text or call or FaceTime or tube ride away. Dependable. Charlie’s never really experienced dependability before. Nick is religious about checking in; it's not to a point of being smothering, just telling him about his own day — the drama at Frankie’s, the job applications he’s sending in around London and asking if bits he’s written in it are any good, Lucy’s various adventures and worldly enjoyments — and to ask Charlie about his own. It’s really nice. Ben was sort of… distant, when he wasn’t smothering Charlie. It was all or nothing. Charlie hated it, but thought that’s what all serious boyfriends did; Charlie didn’t know — he hadn’t had one before.
But he has one like it now. While Nick and Charlie haven’t officialised their relationship, it is akin to the seriousness Charlie has always yearned for in romance. He’s not all too interested in casual — in any parts of his life. He’s an intense person, as a rule. He knew it was the thing that pushed Ben away in the end, his inability to find peace in the casual, but he didn’t know how to help it, how to fix it.
Nick doesn’t seem to want it fixed. He wants it, point blank, because he is just as intense as Charlie is. Charlie hadn’t thought such a thing was possible, let alone for him.
He’s so lucky.
And because he’s lucky, because Nick doesn’t want to fix him, Charlie tabs out of the book he was skimming and not internalising on iBooks and calls Nick.
Trust, compulsory.
And after the fourth ring, Nick’s bright, cheery voice trills in his ear, “Hi, sweetheart! I was just thinking about you.”
And there it is: safety.
Charlie crumbles a bit, his face screwing up in a wobbly, pathetic smile; he’s glad Nick can’t see him. He tries to keep the emotion from his voice when he says, “Hi, Nick.”
He must fail because Nick coos in his ear. “What’s wrong, shayna? Can I do anything?”
Charlie chuckles wetly, dabbing his damp skin with his jumper sleeve. “You’re doing it right now.”
Nick hums. “Good, baby. All I ever want is to help you.”
Charlie closes his eyes, letting the words and the sweet tone of Nick's voice wash over him. He breathes in and out, slowly, measuredly. He feels as if today is the first day of his life. The wedding was so transformative, but that was the whimper before the bang. So much of Charlie’s life has been brought to light, and so many dead things have finally started to sprout up green. Trees need time to grow, though. He feels a tear fall. He bucks up the courage and asks in a way he prays doesn’t sound like begging, “Do you think you could come over? Are you too busy?”
“Never too busy for you, my love,” Nick responds, still as stable as he’s been the entire call. Charlie’s heart starts to heal just a little bit more. Geoff’s kind words; the shelter of Tori’s side; Nick’s voice ringing in his head, the voice of angels, gods, all things sacred and holy. They're beautiful things that Charlie’s been allowed to have.
Nick, with all his insecurities and anxieties and mistakes, is the most wonderful man Charlie has ever had the pleasure of meeting.
“Do you want me to talk to you while I drive?” Nick asks, shuffling over the line. “Are you hungry? I made chicken stir fry for dinner; I could bring that and some… yeah, I have tortillas in the pantry, I thought so. They’re just store-bought, but I’m going to bring them anyway just so you have something you only have to heat up. I’m going to walk Lucy really quick, and then I’ll be over straight away. Do you need anything else, love?”
Charlie is overwhelmed. Nick’s insistent, precious care for him is so evident in all his words, everything he does and is for Charlie.
But Charlie, through the endless, untraversable maze of his insecurities, suddenly feels guilty. Nick is doing too much. Charlie is too much. “Actually, no, nevermind, you were probably about to go to sleep, and Lucy doesn’t like to be alone at night, and—”
“Baby, it’s half 8. I have no plans. Lucy is perfectly fine. Aren’t you, Luceleh? Do you want to talk to your best friend Charlie?”
Luceleh. Nick is using a Yiddish diminutive for his dog. Charlie almost starts crying again. Quietly, through the crackling of Lucy’s sniffing at Nick’s phone speaker, Charlie says, “Hi, my lovely. Are you going to be okay if your big strong owner goes—”
“I prefer guardian.”
Charlie smiles; it doesn’t feel so hard to reach for anymore. “Your guardian goes and visits your…” his smile turns into a sh*t-eating grin and repeats it like the little rascal he is and always has been, something Ben couldn’t snuff out of him, “best friend, Charlie?”
Nick whines a little, muffled over Lucy’s sniffing. “Charlie!” Charlie’s grin broadens somehow. The train slows to a stop and Charlie gets up and sets his headphones up so he can continue talking to Nick while he walks over to his house.
“I love it when you say my name like that,” Charlie says, the smirk evident in his voice while he’s still in the privacy of the empty train car. “So whiny.”
“No!” Nick yelps, the phone clattering as Nick drops the phone. From further away now: “Ah!” Shuffling, and then Nick’s voice is closer to the mic now. “No turning me on! There are things yet to be done! Chicken and tube and hugs!”
Charlie laughs at him. “Oh, hugs, huh?” He’s feeling so much better just from the banter and teasing. He doesn’t know how that’s possible, how Nick can make him feel so good. So alive. “I didn’t know hugs were involved in this. Well, now I really think you should probably stay home. I happen to dislike hugs.”
“Oh, you do, eh?” Nick asks, slow and lazy, back to teasing Charlie in an instant. The malleability of their romance and of the way Nick gives it to him has butterflies fluttering in Charlie’s stomach, landing gently on the notches of his ribs, the lining of his lungs, the beating mass of his heart, the pulse in it getting faster and faster with every word, every volley. It’s everything, every single time. “I had no idea. I guess I’ll just have to never hug you again.”
Charlie frowns and petulantly goes, “No.”
“No?” Nick drawls. He even sounds like he’s smirking. Dick. “Oh, I’m just following orders. You know how much I like to follow orders, baby.”
Now Charlie’s the one to startle at Nick’s flirting. He jumps as he turns onto his street, letting out an unintelligible, garbled exclamation. He looks around suspiciously, as if anyone could hear Nick through his noise-cancelling headphones. “I’m in public, sir!”
“Ooh, sir,” Nick hums. “I don’t mind that.”
“Aaaand we’re done.” They share a laugh and the tension is dissipated. It feels good to flirt without fearing the outcome — sex isn't always needed when it comes to flirting with someone you're dating. It's nice; he's never had that before. Flirting was always the thing that led to the other thing. It isn't anymore. It's quite comforting, to know that he doesn't always have to put out to still be desired.
He gets out his wallet and passes the fob of his building’s lock. Nick must hear the door swing open because he asks, “You home?”
“I am,” Charlie says. He waves to Wallace, Charlie’s elderly downstairs neighbour who almost exclusively spends his time in the lobby. Wallace gives him a curt nod — Wallace is a great guy, very friendly to kids and dogs, but incredibly stoic and borderline-curmudgeonly towards anyone else. “I’m gonna go in the elevator, so I’ll lose service briefly.”
“That’s okay, sweetheart, I’m going to head over anyway.” There’s shuffling, the crinkle of Nick’s plastic tote, likely where he’s storing the chicken Charlie did not have the chance to say yes or no to — Nick just made the decision for him. With anything else, when not in a panic attack, Charlie would feel slighted — but it’s about food, and Nick knows better than to ask Charlie if he’s hungry or not. He’s simply bringing it, regardless of if or when Charlie decides he can eat it.
“Okay,” Charlie says, voice faint. Nick’s going to be here soon, you ninny, Charlie internally scolds. No need to mope.
“Unless you’d like me to stay on the phone with you while I travel?” Nick asks, the sound of Lucy’s lead clipping and the creaky door opening — Charlie’s flat gets too warm because his landlord won't pay for fans and Nick’s gets damp due to bad insulation and gaps in the doors. Charlie’s glad he isn’t too afraid of bugs and spiders because it’s not uncommon to see a few of them wandering around in Nick’s flat. Charlie’s a good insect-slayer though. He let the non-offensive bugs outside when he came over to find a few cups on the floor and killed the spooky ones. It feels good, to help Nick in that way when Nick spends so much of his own time helping Charlie.
Charlie’s house is too warm and Nick’s is too cold. Nick is afraid of bugs and Charlie isn’t. Nick offers himself entirely to Charlie, chest cracked open wide, and Charlie takes and takes and takes.
Selfish c*nt, Charlie spits to himself, just as he did at Tori’s an hour and a half ago. Nick doesn’t deserve to have Charlie be inflicted upon him. He’s so vulnerable, so simple-hearted and single-minded in his emotionality, ready and willing to have everything within him be used for parts. And Charlie is a butcher, ready to slice and pull and devour. Like a lamb to slaughter.
Charlie Spring, cruel f*cking butcher. Nick Nelson, stupid f*cking lamb.
He almost goes to stop Nick from coming again, but Nick cuts him off without knowing it by saying, “I can’t find my airpods—”
“Again?” Charlie snorts, but it’s hardly a happy sound.
“Yes, again,” Nick says, laughing a little, a decidedly less unhappy sound. “So I’d have to hold up the phone. But I’m happy to—”
“It’s fine, Nick,” Charlie says, shaking his head as he waits for the lift to come down. His hands are shaking. “Really, just stay home. It’s been so humid today and—”
“I want to come,” Nick says sweetly, very quiet, but just loud enough to cut through the hedges and pull Charlie out of the maze. It shuts Charlie and his malignant thoughts right up. “I want to see you. I want to be there for you.”
Charlie says, “Oh,” because what else is there to say?
“Oh,” Nick repeats, teasing and achingly tender. “I just finished up with Lucy.” The door shuts; Lucy’s panting faintly in the background and her nails are click-clacking on the hardwood as she adjusts, waiting for her treat for going outside quickly with no major upsets. Charlie hears her tail thumping rhythmically against something wooden. He laughs gently. “Will you let me come to you?”
“I…” Charlie swallows. The lift is on the second floor. The decision has to be now. Good thing, too; he might’ve never decided without the push. “Sure. Yes. Please.”
“Okay, baby,” Nick says, smile evident in the way he says it. “I’m on my way. I can’t wait to see you.”
Charlie smiles slightly as the lift dings and the doors open. He whispers, “Me neither.”
They hang up and Charlie heads up towards the 6th floor of 7. On the way up, he looks down at his dark phone. The screen lights up when he turns it over and his lock screen, the first selfie he and Nick took together, and looking at Nick’s adoring expression where he was wrapped around Charlie's back on the dancefloor of Tori's wedding, Charlie realises that he called Nick first. It wasn’t as scary as he thought it’d be.
The minute Charlie gets upstairs and into the safety of his own flat, finally safe and sound from the demons of Ben clawing and begging for entrance, Charlie looks around, huffing out a few nervous breaths.
And then he sees it, the demon he can’t smoke out: Ben left his tote bag in the corner of the room.
Charlie hadn't seen it until now; he didn’t know it was there. He walks towards it with a mind of his own. He walks slowly, like he’s being stalked as prey, and as he makes his way to it, he finds that there’s nothing in it; it was what Ben used to bring over all of the things Charlie left at his place — not many. Charlie lets out a single relieved breath, that he won’t have to find a way to contact him to give it back, but it’s still here. Remnants. Pieces of plaster chipped off the walls. Not simply the stripping of paint, but chunks ripped out of the things holding him up, his boundaries crumbling, leaving him still standing, but with aching vacuums within him. Little black holes, sucking up the good and making sure every trace of it is gone. Charlie can scrub and scrub and he’ll never get the stain of Ben Hope out from the fabric of his life.
He picks it up. And compulsively, cruelly, he brings it up to his face to smell it.
The scent is faint, but trapped in the threads is Ben. Lavender; historically for most, it’s a comforting scent. It never will be for Charlie again.
He feels sick. The scent of the man who abused him. Ben abused him. He abused him, and Charlie had no idea until he was already gone. There were moments where he thought, maybe. Maybe this isn’t what it’s supposed to be like. Maybe love shouldn’t need to be fought for this hard. Maybe life shouldn’t be a series of tense moments until your boyfriend texts you and the tension snaps, leaving a breathlessness he’d convinced himself was butterflies and a gnawing, aching void in its wake, wanting more and knowing he’d never have it. When he looked at Ben’s endless, bright green eyes, he only saw a forest to get lost in and never be found. Make a shelter from sticks and bark, hiding, hiding from the green.
He drops the bag with shaking hands. He’ll never be rid of him.
Charlie runs to the bathroom, heaving. As he vomits, all he can think is, I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. He can’t stop. It’s over and over, an endless, painful, obsessive, intrusive loop. He hates this. He hates this. He’s crying, he realises distantly as he heaves again. What is he supposed to do with it? The tote bag is not his to destroy, but God, he wants to.
How would he ever return it aside from wordlessly dropping it on Ben’s doorstep? He doesn’t want to go towards Ben’s entire part of town,let alone to his flat. Ben is gone from his life. Blocked, the endless slog ripped out from the wall in one tug. The pieces of plaster around it are gone in dribs and drabs. A gap here. A tear there. Slowly, he’s had pieces of him ripped out. And then Ben told him he hadn’t loved him in a long time. So much of him, gone in one swift pull on the walls of his heart. Ripped to shreds.
Who could want him — ruined without even having realised it?
Did Nick see the paint and plaster and insulation in ruins at his feet when Charlie showed him pieces of his heart? A room here. A cabinet there. Never all of him. The walls around him have been so high, he hasn’t even noticed they were walls at all. They are just how he lives — sunless, gaunt and pale, without the nutrients of all a person needs to survive. He’s been living off of the burning fire of Ben for so long.
But Nick. Nick, who wants him entirely. Who is waiting patiently for Charlie to let him in.
And for the first time in his entire stupid life, Charlie wants that. He wants the sunlight of Nick Nelson. He wants the way it lights up everything, not just Charlie. Fire is bright, but it has nothing a person needs to survive. He cooked pieces of himself and cannibalised his most tender parts on Ben’s fire, photosynthesising his bruised heart. Blood everywhere. Flames succumbing to the will of the wind. He’s been eating parts of himself because what else was there to eat?
Nick is bringing him potatoes. Nick’s bringing him vegetables and meat — not his own. Nick feeds him in all ways. Charlie will eat today, he thinks. Today, he will eat.
He washes his face and brushes his teeth furiously, trying desperately to scrape off every piece of Ben that still exists in the culture of his mouth. A blood test would show Ben still within him, but Charlie hopes the test would find less after today. A bloodletting happened today, he thinks. Today, a bloodletting.
A purge of so much of him, flushed down the toilet, gone. Charlie looks at it and realises he will have to wash every piece of Ben out from every inch of the place Charlie lives in. Maybe he will burn the bag in the kitchen sink. Fitting. A painful, brutal, bitter end to the cruel, bloodthirsty, abusive fire Ben already set to his life. Up in flames. Ripped out at the spine. Washed away with Clorox and bleach.
He washes the toilet. He washes the sink. He takes a shower and changes into neatly folded pyjamas — he doesn’t notice what they are, so long as they are clean. He leaves the bathroom and looks at the corner where the tote bag is still laying limp and undamaged. He feels a scream building up in his throat, but before he can let it out, he throws the bag violently across the room and towards the kitchen where he can burn it. He washes the corner where the bag once lived. He washes the walls, the little scuffs and marks that make a wall a wall. Maybe that’s all he thought Ben was until today: scuffs and marks on the walls he’s built up. Naive. Pitiful. Pathetic, that he didn’t even see his own life clearly enough to bear witness to his own life. Delusional f*cking Charlie Spring. He should’ve known he’d be weak enough to hardly withstand this.
But he did, says a voice that’s Tori’s, Geoff’s, his own. He withstood it. Through all the skipped meals to be perfect for Ben, all the scratches and cuts he dug into the meat of his body, all the times he turned on incognito mode and searched for a way out. He made it. He didn’t find a way out. Today, he thinks, he’s going to keep living. Tomorrow, too, no matter how he makes it there. He knows that to be true. It isn’t a hope anymore. It’s a fundamental truth.
He had not been weak to become this way; he had been growing stronger and stronger with each dig at the walls. His foundation, while rocked, is still intact. The walls are broken but not unfixable. He is still here to hold them up. To buy some plaster himself and f*cking fix it.
Every week in therapy. Every text with Tori. Every hug from Nick. He will work and work until there’s nothing to see but him. Nothing there but the faded scars. They will fade into the white, Cloroxed walls until he is made clean again. He will fight and fight and fight to keep living. No matter the cost. He wants this life. Today, he wants this life.
He thinks of Tori out in Sutton, waiting for Charlie’s text to know he made it home safe. Safe. She told Charlie he was safe. Charlie told himself he was safe. There was a moment of unsafety — as there will be in the future, he knows. Still, he pushed through. He scrubbed it out. He is still scrubbing it out.
He fishes his phone out of the pocket of his sleep shorts and with a rag hanging off two fingers, he pulls up Tori’s text thread. He types, safe. thank you. love you. She won’t respond in kind, but Charlie will never doubt her love for him. There’s no way he ever possibly could. She’s nothing like Ben — Charlie sees her love for him so plainly, she doesn’t ever need to say it again for Charlie to still know it more concretely than hardly anything else in his life.
And then Charlie looks at the time. 9.01. Charlie ended the call with Nick 20 minutes ago. Nick lives 22-25 minutes away, depending on the tube schedule. He’ll be over in — he glances at one of the six clocks in his flat — approximately 90 seconds.
Charlie had been busying himself with tidying and rewashing dishes and cleaning the microwave and he can’t stop now. What started as something good and healing has spiralled and become something destructive. Because that’s who Charlie is. He takes and he takes and he takes, even if only from himself.
Charlie is trying to put away the cleaning products hastily when the buzzer sounds and hears Nick’s voice crackle through the speaker, hi shayna, it’s me. Charlie immediately abandons ship at the idea of Nick waiting down there for him, asking plainly and uncomplicatedly to be a figure in Charlie’s life. He doesn’t even press the intercom back to let Nick know he’s upstairs; he's already up after grabbing his keys off of the coat hook on the back of the front door and running down to the lift to let Nick up himself. Charlie only realises when his door has swung and locked shut behind him that the moment he heard Nick’s voice, the sickly swell of voices in Charlie’s own head telling him to keep cleaning, keep moving, keep his head down and work had quieted.
As soon as he realised they were gone completely, they’re back again, but they’re easier to ignore this time. He’s never been interrupted like that. Usually, the voices have to fade on their own. Never has something external exhumed the self-exalted choir in his head.
The choir hasn’t shut up completely, but it’s singing a different song. He is no longer the conductor leading the congregation. The voices in his head have been left to their own devices, and without Charlie there to lead them, they’re starting to fall apart.
Charlie notices now that without the deafening nature of the voices, the song is actually sort of beautiful. His own illness doesn’t feel so Atlantean right now.
The lift is on the bottom floor when Charlie makes it to the doors, so Charlie gives up with a huff and books it down the stairs. He skids into the lobby and gives a quick, distracted wave to Wallace before tumbling out of the door and into Nick’s waiting arms.
“Oh!” Nick stumbles a little from the force of it, but he rights himself easily, wrapping his arms around Charlie by instinct alone. Nick’s instinct is to hold. Charlie feels it every day. Nick laughs and squeezes Charlie round the middle. “Hi, my love.”
“Hi.” Charlie’s got his face buried in the crook of his neck.
“I didn’t know you weren’t going to buzz me up,” Nick says. Charlie can feel Nick smile against his jaw. “You didn’t have to come down for me.”
“I’d do a million things worse for you,” Charlie says, nuzzling into Nick’s neck and breathing in. Woodsmoke and patchouli. Nothing like Ben. Nothing at all. Charlie feels Nick’s breath catch in his throat against his mouth. He plays back what he said and winces hard, pulling back, unable to look Nick in the eye. Embarrassed and overwhelmed by how much he meant it, he says, “That was cheesy.”
“I loved it,” Nick breathes, smiling wide and gummy when Charlie chances a look up at him. “If that was you being cheesy, be cheesy so much more please.”
Charlie smiles a little bit, shyly looking up through his fringe. “Well, if you insist.”
“I do insist,” Nick says, taking a step closer, through where Charlie created space. “I insist very, very much.” They shine at each other for a little while, and then Nick looks down at the rest of him, like he’s trying to catalogue every inch of Charlie. His eyes are twinkling when he looks back up at Charlie’s. “You’re in your jammies.”
Charlie looks down. “Oh.” He looks back up, impassive. “Yeah.” He doesn’t even feel self-conscious to be seen in the middle of the street at night like this, in the ugly, bright yellow crocs Isaac got for him because ‘comfort is better than anything else, every time’, plaid pyjama bottoms and giant shirt that was stolen from his dad in his youth that reads, LORD OF THE STRINGS he fashioned into a bit of a crop top with a pair of scissors at nineteen. There’s only a sliver of skin, but it makes him feel confident, even if it’s only a garment he can wear in the privacy of his own home. He’s outside right now, where anybody could walk by and see him. He doesn’t care. He’s got Nick. He doesn’t need to think about anything else.
He pitches himself back into Nick’s arms. Nick laughs again and hoists him up with an exaggerated groan to spin him around. Charlie lets out a peel of delighted giggles. He squawks and lightly slaps Nick’s shoulders in a quick rhythm out of protest, but he’s not telling Nick to put him down. It’s nice, actually, to be cared about in public like this. Nick’s good at being loud about how he feels. It’s a far cry from Ben who, even as he said he loved Charlie for the first time, had said it as a poker chip. Poker chips for sex and poker chips for love.
He and Ben were arguing — something stupid, asinine, but something Ben wouldn’t let go of and would then hold over Charlie’s head after analysing every move he made and word he said or did — and Ben said it. I do this because I love you. It would’ve been easy for Ben to take it back or soften and apologise and make it less of a heat-of-the-moment thing. But he didn’t. He lifted a brow when Charlie fishmouthed and said, nothing to say? He scoffed and rolled his eyes, as if to say typical, but he was smiling like he was kidding. Still gobsmacked, Charlie stuttered out what he hoped was the truth, I-I do love you, Ben. Of course, yeah, I love you too.
He doesn’t know to this day if he was lying when he responded to Ben or not, but he said it because he needed to so he could keep Ben. He felt dependent on Ben’s affections, like they were the only thing tethering him to the ground. He's never told a man he loves him first. James told him in secondary school, unrequited, and then Ben at twenty-three. Charlie's never had the chance to think about it for himself. Impulse, do I love him, yes or no. He wonders if he ever will. He wondered during the hours after the breakup, if he can tether himself. He supposed he'd have to find out if he were strong enough to or not.
It’s not that way with Nick; Nick makes Charlie feel strong on his own. Sometimes, Charlie has to compare the two of them. It feels even more necessary after what Charlie put himself through today — in therapy, at Tori’s, upstairs after seeing the bag. Not like Ben. Not at all.
Being with Ben was like pressing on a bruise you don’t remember how you got; it hurts, but you kind of love the ache. It ached for so long, he didn’t know who he’d be without it. Being with Nick is like a cool pillow on your cheek after crawling into bed on a hot day; pure comfort.
The comfort of Nick putting him down after a little while, arms still looped around his waist, his skin touching Charlie’s where his shirt has ridden up. The comfort of him hiding that skin to the rest of the world that Charlie didn’t realise would be seen. The comfort of a kiss to his cheek. The comfort of Nick tilting his head towards the building and saying, “C’mon. You just showered, don’t want you to catch a chill.”
“It’s twenty-something degrees. And humid.” Charlie says incredulously, shaking his head. Comfort. “There’s no chills to be caught.”
“Well, then I don’t want you to sweat!” Nick says with cheer in his voice, pulling back and offering Charlie his hand. “You wanna go up?”
Charlie smiles at Nick’s hand, then looks back up at Nick. He nods. “Yeah.” Charlie laces their fingers and tugs him into the building.
Nick waves at Wallace and asks him how his dog is. Nick has somehow made friends with Charlie’s nosy first-floor neighbour after meeting him once when he dropped Charlie off upstairs a few days ago because Wallace’s dog, Angel (a name Charlie did not know until a few days ago), was recovering from a surgery and he had no one to watch her, so she got brought into the lobby. Nick noticed the cone and made friends with them both. Wallace brightens slightly at Nick's friendliness and says that she’s made a full recovery — Nick had insisted upon showing Wallace pictures because he had a border collie when he was younger as well.
They chat a little bit about their dogs — Lucy apparently got into something in the rubbish bin that made her sick a while back and he had to take her for surgery to the emergency vet. She ended up being fine, but Charlie still frowns up at him and runs his thumb over Nick’s knuckles in support. Nick smiles down at him and tells Wallace that he has food to bring upstairs, holding up his own tote bag (it’s got little puppies and race cars all over it — Charlie suspects it was made for children and Nick bought it because he likes both of those things) he’s holding with the other hand. Wallace bids them well and nods at Charlie, softening just a tad around him after this. Charlie nods back with a small smile, genuine now instead of placating.
While they wait for the lift (stuck on the top floor now), Charlie leans his head on Nick’s shoulder, uncaring of the ways the folks in his building could look at him and see him as visibly queer in a populated, public space — one where he lives. They’re not kissing or being handsy, they’re simply standing there, leaning on one another the way lovers do. Still, there’s a quickness to the beat of his heart though that’s there for not only that reason, but also proximity to Nick in general.
He looks around and sees a renter in the building who’s by the mailroom looking at him — he doesn’t sneer or smile or move. But then the lift dings, opens, and a few people filter out. Charlie’s head pops up off of Nick’s shoulder and looks towards the movement as Nick adjusts to politely let the people go through unimpeded. When Charlie looks back, the man who was looking at him is gone.
He had bright green eyes. Ben's eyes.
Charlie takes the disquietness into the lift with them. Charlie drops the hand holding Nick’s to press the button for his floor. He doesn’t pick Nick’s hand back up. He feels cold, lightyears from the sun despite it only being a few inches. He swallows; he regretted unlacing their fingers as soon as he did it but doesn’t move to rectify it. He feels as if he doesn’t deserve the comfort in the wake of forest fire green. He remembers comparing his feelings for Nick to a forest fire at the wedding. They weren’t, but caring for someone like a forest fire was all he knew for so long, he didn’t know how else to do it.
He glances over at Nick through the mirrors surrounding them in the elevator. He knows in his heart that he’ll be met with disdain or quiet hurt. But he isn’t: Nick is looking at him already through the same mirror, and when their eyes meet, he pulls a face. It’s an awful sight, and it shocks Charlie into laughing.
He feels colour return to his cheeks. He feels his spine straighten. He feels the comforting weight of sticks and bark and deep brown eyes he won’t get lost in.
Nick’s face smooths out into a smile at the sight of Charlie’s laughter. Charlie smiles back. It doesn’t feel so hard to reach for.
The lift dings and Charlie steps forward first, then holds out his elbow for Nick to thread his arm through for the scant three metre walk to Charlie’s door. Nick gets a pretty blush on his face at Charlie’s display of affection and mumbles, “Such a gentleman.”
“Well, somebody’s gotta be,” Charlie heaves dramatically as Nick puts his hand on the inside of Charlie’s elbow.
“Hey!” Nick cries, then cringes at the loud volume at the hour and whispers to no one, “Sorry.”
“Polite,” Charlie comments at a normal volume, walking them to the door, “but not a gentleman.”
“I beg to differ,” Nick sniffs, in a sad little mumble.
“Aw,” Charlie says, giving him a smile at his depressing display. He takes his elbow from Nick’s hand and leans against his flat door, hands behind the bottom of his spine behind him as he looks up at Nick. “I love how pathetic you are.”
Charlie's cheeks flame at ‘love’, but he doesn’t rush to take it back. He does love how Nick is so sensitive and emotive. Not only is it a complete 180 from what his life was like before all this, but it’s everything Charlie’s ever wanted in a partner and never thought he’d get; someone who he doesn’t have to read. Someone whose heart lives stitched into his sleeve and whose face is so expressive, it’s impossible not to understand how he’s feeling without having to wonder. Charlie sees Nick — he feels Nick.
He smiles at Nick through red cheeks; he hopes Nick can feel him too.
“I’m not pathetic, I’m just…” Nick shuffles his feet. “I dunno, part of my, like… identity is being a gentleman.”
“Oh,” Charlie says — he thinks he f*cked up. His smile drops and he pushes off the door to cup Nick’s arm. “You don’t like being teased about that, do you?” Nick shrugs, not making direct eye contact — a rarity. Charlie definitely f*cked up. “I’m sorry I upset you, baby.”
“I’m not upset, I know you were joking, I just…” He shrugs again. "I know it's kind of unhealthy, probably, but the idea of not being seen as someone who does for others makes me a little seasick."
"Then I won't make that joke again," Charlie says. His skin feels hot at the idea that he's hurt Nick. The fact that they've only known each other for a short time is showing its hand plainly in this moment.
"Okay." Nick breathes out slowly, then shakes his head rapidly, like he’s shaking some thoughts out. “Sorry I got all insecure for a second.”
“Angel, if I had to apologise for every time I got insecure, you’d never hear the end of it, and scold me about sorries until the sky falls.”
Nick had quirked a small smile at ‘angel’, but it grows with confidence at the end of Charlie’s sentence. He takes the final step between them closer. He looks much better now; Charlie wants to take care of the heart living within the threads of Nick’s sleeve. “I wanna be there with you when the sky falls.” Charlie hears his breath catch more than he feels it. It’s a loud sound — not a gasp, but a choke. “You okay there?” Nick asks, testing the waters of teasing again. Charlie’s glad he didn’t ruin that aspect of them with one bad move.
“I’m fine.” Charlie bites, glaring through cheeks now flaming. “You can’t just say stuff like that.”
“What, the truth?” Nick’s got a co*cky smile on now — yeah, Nick’s fine.
“Twat,” Charlie mumbles, turning to open the door. “See if I let you in now.”
“Noooo, I wanna come iiiin,” Nick whines, wrapping himself around Charlie’s back as he fits the finicky key in the lock, trying to catch the right spring with the rotor. “Pleeeease let me in.”
“No,” Charlie says, maintaining his absolutely false airs. “You lost your inside-time privileges. You’ll have to wait out here on my doorstep until I decide you’ve been good enough to let inside.”
“I can do that,” Nick says, but he doesn’t sound as put out about it anymore. Does he find that sexy somehow? Weirdo.
“Feh, you’re gross,” Charlie laughs. “I guess you can come in.”
“Why, now you really are a gentleman,” Nick snorts, taking his limbs away from where they were all pressed up against Charlie and slips next to Charlie through the door.
“Hey,” Charlie says, more softly now, catching Nick by the forearm in the doorway. Nick turns back. “You are a gentleman, you know.”
The flush on Nick’s cheeks has returned and he asks, voice small, “Yeah?”
Charlie smiles and reaches up to tuck the rogue lock of hair that’s always falling in Nick’s face back into the rest of it. “Definitely.” His hand travels down to cup Nick’s cheek and gently thumbs beneath Nick’s eye. “My sweet, polite boy.”
Nick smiles bashfully and squirms. “Oh.”
“Yeah." He repeats Nick's teasing repetition from earlier, "Oh.” Charlie leans up on his toes to kiss Nick’s other cheek. “C’mon. Inside-privileges reinstated.”
“Ooh, lucky me,” Nick says, still smiling, but more stable this time. God, Charlie likes him so, so much.
“C’mon, you wanna put the food in the fridge?” Charlie asks as he travels further into the house. He looks around at his immaculately cleaned flat and starts to spot little places that he missed. “I’m just gonna…” He puts his keys on the coffee table and distractedly says to Nick, “I put my keys on the table, don’t let me forget.” Nick replies that he won’t and Charlie goes to grab the white vinegar cleaning supplies he’d hastily hidden in his attempt to not have Nick see them, for whatever reason. Cat’s out of the bag now — Charlie’s crazy. Might as well lean into it.
He’s angry with himself as he kneels on the ground at the entrance of his bedroom door and cleans the grout. Crazy bastard, Nick probably thinks you’re crazy because you are crazy. Nick doesn’t say anything, but Charlie knows he’s visibly different, has been acting different for most of the time he’s been around Nick today — clingy, then distant; doting, then awkward.
He hears Nick put the food down on one of the two bar stools Charlie got for free on Marketplace and walks over. He sits next to Charlie, cross-legged, like he’s settling in to sit wherever Charlie is. Charlie’s mouth ticks down on one side. Crazy. Crazy. “Whatcha doin’ over here?”
Nick’s too nice. He’s too sweet. He’s so lovely and Charlie’s so crazy. So broken. “Sorry,” is all he says as he puts his back into scrubbing now to avoid looking at Nick.
“No need to be sorry,” Nick says, then places a gentle hand on the centre of Charlie’s back. “Do you want help?”
That gives Charlie serious pause. No one has ever offered to help him clean when he's like this, even Tori. She just shut it down as best as she could when they were living together at their parents’. Tao and Elle have both seen it happen, and continue talking to Charlie while he works through it on his own, trying not to call attention to it, hoping Charlie will tire himself out. That’s almost never what works, but honestly, very little does work. A serious distraction he supposes, like Nick succeeded in earlier, or needing to go somewhere is usually all that can get him to stop cleaning once he’s started.
His hand pauses on the door, and he turns his head to Nick; his face looks gentle, concerned, and open. He’s so beautiful and kind, it makes Charlie want to cry. “You’d do that?”
“Yeah,” Nick says gently, dragging his hand from Charlie’s back to the spot at the base of his neck. “Of course I would.” Charlie collapses to the ground from where he was perched on his toes. The vinegar-soaked sponge lays limp in his hand. “Charlie, baby, what’s wrong? How can I help?”
The questions are good ones; Charlie knew the first was coming — he still doesn’t have a good answer for it though. He can’t tell Nick the whole story just yet — some part of him is screaming and thrashing inside him at the box Charlie keeps it in, angry that Charlie exposed so much today. The part of him that closes his mouth on everything that goes wrong; the part of him that kept him from telling anybody anything was wrong until Tori found him half-alive on the bathroom floor; the part of him that took three full weeks at the in-patient clinic hours away from everything he’d ever known to finally tell his gently prodding psychiatrist about the bullying, the depression, the eating, the obsessions, the lack of and need for control, the reason he needed to be there in the first place.
That part of him was quieted the sixteen months he was with Ben. It was the only part of him that was soothed, but out of the cage Charlie had locked it in, roaming free inside him, it took up a large swath of room within him. It took him years to quiet that voice, but now that Ben’s gone and Charlie’s starting to feel again, feel anything but cloying fear, it’s back with a point to prove. See how much easier things were when you just shut your ugly mouth? that part of him screams. That mouth that eats and eats and eats; eats your friends and family’s hearts out of house and f*cking home, is taking bite after bite of Nick’s until he’ll be nothing left but a shaking, starving mess when you’re finally finished with him. You feel full yet, you bloodthirsty, heart-hungry pig? Are you ever going to be f*cking full?
Charlie can’t get the lock on the cage yet. It’s going to take time. But he’s got his back up against the door and is doing everything he can to keep it contained. It won’t be quiet, but Charlie fights back against it by refusing to lie.
“I had a hard session with Geoff,” Charlie admits. Nick nods, the concern smoothing out a little bit at the tenseness at the corners of his eyes and the space between his brows at Charlie's disclosure. “Tori’s was hard too.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” Nick says, stroking the skin beneath Charlie’s jaw gently with his thumb. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“It was just…” He can’t, he doesn’t think. Not yet. He hasn’t even talked to himself about it yet, let alone a man he met eight days ago. Nick is much, much more than a man he met eight days ago, but the factuality of it rings true right now — it would be a long, endless story, and he doesn’t know which parts to tell yet. “I’ll explain eventually. Promise. I’m just still processing.”
“That’s okay, my love,” Nick smiles slightly. “Thank you for telling me you can’t yet. I love that you set a boundary. Thank you for doing so.” It feels like sarcasm Ben would’ve used and it makes him wary. Nick must see that in his face, and adds, “I mean it. I’m glad you feel safe enough with me to tell me the truth, and to eventually tell me what it was you talked about with Geoff and Tori. But it’s good you told me you can’t right now; boundaries are hard, especially with new people, and new… well… relationships.” Nick’s mouth goes tight. “Actually I… I wanted…” He searches Charlie’s face for a moment, then says, “Ah, nevermind. I think I answered my own question.”
“O… okay.” Charlie’s concerned now too. “Are you sure?”
“Later,” Nick says, his smile returned from wherever he was hiding it. Charlie wishes he never would. He repeats Charlie with, “Promise.”
“Okay. Good.”
Nick smiles. “Good.”
Charlie puts the sponge down purposefully; it feels like a herculean task, but he doesn’t want to sully Nick with its false-clean when he crawls into his lap. Nick hums and wraps his arms around Charlie — one around his lower back, arm on his skin but his hand splayed over the shirt on his hip, the other braced on his spine over his shirt — holding tight the way Charlie likes it. He isn’t delicate. He isn’t breakable. He isn’t broken. And Nick is the first person he’s ever been with who doesn’t treat him the way he hates but can’t rebel against because it’d be wrong to — because, to the naked eye, they’re right.
But Charlie knows himself better. He knows himself to be—
“You’re so strong,” Nick murmurs, his fingers scratching lightly at the hair at the nape of Charlie’s neck, the arm against Charlie’s spine pressing him into his chest without hurting him or making him feel claustrophobic or caged. Charlie buries his face into the shell of Nick’s throat. He knows Charlie too. “You’re maybe the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
“You don’t even know me that well yet, Nick,” Charlie points out, defying his own logic, but he’s cuddled in close enough that their skin could fuse together with little effort. He wants that, wants to live inside the branches and bark of Nick Nelson and make a shelter there, together.
“Mm, I know enough,” Nick hums in deference. “I know more than you think.”
“Ooh, how secretive,” Charlie giggles, teasing. “Go on; tell me what you think you know, then.”
“Oh, I don’t think I should get into all of it tonight, but…” Nick pauses, then presses a kiss to Charlie’s hair. “I know that you’ve kept your strength through some of the hardest things a person can go through — maybe more than even I know yet. And that takes a very brave person. It’s brave to fight the urge to become weak in the face of all of what you go through — and I wouldn’t judge anyone for becoming that way. But watching you fight it off and still remain soft in your strength, it’s…” He pauses, and Charlie is trying very hard not to cry into Nick’s neck. Nick squeezes Charlie’s whole upper body twice. “God, I like you so much. I can’t believe someone like you has let me in as much as you have. That you think someone like me deserves you.”
Deserves. Charlie tries to swallow the lump in his throat and fails as he croaks out, “Likewise.”
They sit there for a little while, swaying in a way that feels similar to shokeling without the speed — the way shokeling is supposed to look before Charlie came in with his anxiety and desecrated the centuries-old custom. It feels good. Charlie feels safe enough to close his eyes for a few moments. He’s not dead tired yet, but he knows it would take him a soft pillow and three minutes to fall asleep if he tried right now.
Long day.
But Nick has other plans. “You ready for chicken?” He doesn’t give Charlie time to answer. “Because I’m ready for chicken.”
“Wasn’t it your supper?” Charlie snorts, pulling back to look at him with an eyebrow raised.
Nick shrugs unapologetically. It’s nice to see someone so unapologetic about eating. It’s a welcomed reprieve. Nick is so good for him. He hopes he’s good for Nick too. “That was hours ago. I’m a growing boy.”
“‘Growing boy’? You’re twenty-five. I don’t think you’re going to grow anymore.” Charlie wrinkles his nose through his smile. “Nor should you — I like your height.”
“You do?” Nick asks, almost cheering already, eyes lit up with his mouth open and grinning.
Charlie rolls his eyes. Best not to feed into this. “You know I do. Now c’mon; there’s chicken to be made.”
Charlie goes to get up, and Nick lets him out of his lap easily, but still reaches for him. “Noooo! I want to hear more about how much you like my height!” He gets up and grabs for Charlie, but Charlie’s faster than Nick could ever dream of being so he ducks away from Nick’s insistent fingers easily.
“Nice try, but I guess you’re not big enough yet to be kissed by me.”
“I’m big! I’m very big!”
Charlie lets a slow smirk bloom on his face, co*cks an eyebrow, leaning his hip on the side of the kitchen island and crossing his arms over his chest. He says nothing in response, but gives Nick an obvious and deliberate once-over. “Mmn.”
Nick flushes vermillion, stammering, “Oh, well, I-I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Charlie says, looking at the way Nick’s shoulders fill out and strain against his t-shirt, allowed in ways he got laughed at for, with Ben. In public? You look at me like that where other people can see us? You’re going to get us hate-crimed, when all Charlie had been doing was smiling at him. The memory of Ben isn’t so serrated in this moment, not with Nick being shy and flushed and sweet. He won. He can feel a little whorish right now. “But I did.”
Nick’s eyes snap up to Charlie’s, eyes wide. His mouth drops open, shocked, and says nothing. Charlie meets him halfway and walks up to kiss his mouth gently, lingeringly. Nick gasps into his mouth and asks, “Did you smoke with Tori?”
“I don't know, did I?” Charlie smirks, pulling back just enough to look at him.
Nick sighs and shakes his head, leaning in a little so the tips of their noses brush together, then pulls back to lament, “I suppose I’m going to have to kiss a smoker now. Ah, how my mum would be aghast.”
“Oh, come off it, you’re not kissing a smoker,” Charlie scoffs, rolling his eyes, chuckling twice. “I didn’t even smoke myself. I haven’t done it since we were, like, fifteen.” He blinks up at Nick coquettishly. “What, you wouldn’t want to see my lips wrapped around something?”
Nick’s eyes widen and he makes a silly, shocked noise. Charlie breaks the moment and laughs. Nick rushes out, “I can kiss a smoker. I can totally kiss a smoker,” then reels Charlie back in to do as he said. Charlie hums and kisses him back but pulls back before Nick can deepen the kiss — he can flirt a little, but not much more than light petting. Not today.
Nick’s eyes blink open, and he’s starry-eyed with a dopey smile on his handsome face. Charlie feels supremely lucky. Nick breathes, “You’re incorrigible. Simply insatiable.”
Charlie shrugs one shoulder and uncrosses his wrists from where they were dangling behind Nick's neck and drops his arms. “Maybe so.” Feeling as brave as Nick believes him to be, Charlie suggests, “Dinner?”
Nick’s eyes light up and he smiles, quite literally jumping into action, hopping towards the kitchen. So adorable, every time. “Yes! Perfect idea, my love! Let me start warming it up.”
Nick goes to enter the kitchen, but halfway through the entranceway, he leans down to pick up—
“Don’t!” Charlie screeches, reaching out like he’s close enough to keep Nick from moving. He doesn’t need to be; Nick stops abruptly. “Don’t touch that.”
“The tote bag?” Nick asks, looking at him and straightening his spine once more, but he hasn’t moved his feet. “I was just going to move it so I can warm up the food. Is that— I mean, do you still want to eat?” Horrible question now. He must look as sick as he feels, because Nick can clearly tell and amends quickly, “I’m going to warm up some for us, but it can go right back in the tupperware; is that the issue?”
Charlie shakes his head but can’t verbalise the rest. He wraps his arms around his ribs, like he's holding himself together. Nick can’t touch anything of Ben’s. It will taint him. Paint him in the colours of lavender and blackandblue and abuse. Suddenly, Nick is in front of him, arms reaching to touch Charlie but not landing on skin; just enough to let Charlie know that he’s there, holding the space around Charlie together and keep him from breaking out of his skin and running away from himself. Nick gentles, “Hey. Hey. You’re alright. Do you want to breathe with me?”
Charlie shakes his head once more and chokes out, “I’m good. I’m good. I’m just—” He feels like an embarrassment and a burden. But trust. Charlie’s intrinsic ability to trust Nick leads his hands to one of Nick’s and places it on the spot at the base of his neck. Nick now knows Charlie’s weaknesses, his weakness for Nick and his beautiful light. He watches Nick smile, soft and sweet and kind, and Charlie can’t look at him. Sunlight. Sunlight. Charlie feels warm in the heat of him.
Charlie drops his hands and squeezes his eyes shut, unable to stand being looked at in such an openly adoring way. Nick doesn’t remove his own hand from Charlie’s neck. Just beneath Nick’s palm, Charlie’s pulse is fluttering wildly. Nick is still there no matter if he can look at him or not, his hand gently resting right where Charlie needs him and can no longer be seen asking for it, a steady presence. “You’re okay, love. You’re alright. I’m here. Always, okay?” Charlie swallows — he knows Nick can feel it — and nods jerkily three times. “Good. I’m glad you know. I’m glad you know that I would do anything for you.”
“Maybe not anything,” Charlie whispers. His eyes flutter open and finds Nick smiling, rolling his eyes goodnaturedly. It’s hard to believe he can have this. After the day he’s had, it feels incongruent. It doesn’t make sense. He went from table scraps to a whole f*cking feast. His shrunken stomach needs time to adjust.
He hopes he’ll get there.
“Do you feel any better?”
Charlie shrugs, but he brings his hand up to rest against Nick’s that’s still laid on his neck once again and looks up shyly through his fringe, at the space between their bodies, then back up when he decides he can make eye contact at the moment. “A little.”
Nick’s smile turns warm. Sunlight. “Good, baby.” Nick’s smile falters but doesn’t leave his face. “Do you want to tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it and try not to do it again?”
“It’s not— You didn’t do anything. It’s just… about the day I had.” He wraps an arm around Nick’s waist and his eyes settle over Nick’s shoulder to the bag still discarded in a heap on the floor. His arm twitches where it’s holding onto Nick. He decides that, while he can’t tell him the whole story just yet, he can tell Nick the bare bones of it. He deserves to know, if he’s going to do what Charlie can hardly accept and internalise the stark difference of his life from two weeks ago to now. Two weeks ago when— “That was Ben’s. He left it when he… yeah.”
“Oh,” Nick says softly. He glances back at it for a moment, then back to Charlie. “S’ugly as sin.”
Charlie snorts through his nose, smiling just a little. “It’s a tote bag.”
“So? It’s stinky. It’s got stinky energy. Like a smell.”
“You’re spending way too much time with Darcy,” Charlie grins, showing teeth.
“No, I’m spending too much time with you,” Nick says, co*cking his head, smiling tenderly. “And thank God I am.”
Charlie doesn’t disagree, but he wouldn’t describe it as a bad thing either.
He’s FaceTimed with Nick’s friends twice now, and they’re all getting together on Sunday on Nick's day off for the first time. Historically, Charlie is very bad at making new friends; he’s awkward, clumsy with his words and actions and affections, and he’s shy with an acerbic, grating sense of humour. He doesn’t exactly make a prime candidate for friendship. Nick’s friends seemed to like him over the phone though and were keen to the wheedling Charlie did about Nick’s Guide to Getting the Guy involving late-night Googling and around 70 flashcards in the span of two days.
Darcy called him Simpck (Simp-Nick) the entire conversation. Charlie teased a furiously blushing Nick right along with them, but it gives him butterflies every time he remembers Nick fancied him so much from the jump, from the sight of him across the green on campus, from the mouth of God calling out to him. Nick had no idea he was even listening. Charlie wonders if he ever will.
Sometimes, he wonders why exactly Nick fancies him. He’s bad at making friends, and he and Nick are certainly more than that — maybe they skipped right over friendship like he and Ben did. The idea brings back the nausea.
But Ben didn’t FaceTime him nightly to hear about his day, flirting scant, but affection always present; or walk him to his door at the end of their date; or ask to kiss him. Nick does little things Ben would’ve never done, like insist they watch Before Sunrise two nights ago (Nick had mentioned it was one of his favourite romantic movies and when Charlie told him he’d never seen it, Nick vehemently insisted they needed to watch it). It felt like a date when they got up from their cuddle after their romp in bed and went into the living room to watch the film, Nick handing tissues to Charlie as he cried as surreptitiously as he could manage, the only parts of them touching were their ankles tangled in the middle of the couch where their knees were bent. Lucy snoozed on the floor below them on the big pillow Lucy was using as a bed that Nick dragged over to where they were laying. It was a good first meeting with Lucy; Nick had warned she might get spooked by Charlie’s presence and to not be insulted in that case — she’s just jumpy — but she didn’t. Nick said he fit well into his world with the loveliest smile on his face.
They go on dates. They kiss. They have sex. That doesn’t necessarily mean friends. Maybe their bypassing of it makes them just like Charlie and Ben. Charlie doesn’t want to think about it that way, but he feels like there’s no other choice except to.
Maybe they’re Somethings-With-Benefits. Maybe he just thinks Charlie’s hot — while that seems unlikely too, it’s the only other option left, other than it being just divine plan.
Charlie thinks he’d be alright with Nick only liking him because God wants him to. Being with Nick sometimes feels like a direct line to God Himself. Mayn gat, Nick said. Mayn gat, Charlie said back to him; to Him. The sky didn’t fall because, all too quickly, Nick has become a god to Charlie. His very own facet of heaven.
Bubbe says Zayde is her bashert to anyone who will listen. Maybe he should talk to Bubbe about this. She might know more about what the f*ck to do about the fact that your soulmate becomes your lover becomes your god. He hopes Bubbe won’t tell him it’s sacrilegious. He thinks it would kill him to hear Bubbe call him a blaspheme.
Maybe he’ll skip that part of the story during his next monthly call with Bubbe.
“Nick?” Charlie asks softly.
Nick hums. He slides up close to Charlie, cupping his deltoid. He must see the way Charlie’s eyes dart around the room, never landing on Nick, too nervous with the question he has to ask, but it’ll drive him crazy if he doesn’t ask it. Nick senses the apprehension to continue, so he cups the back of Charlie's head and uses both hands to fit him into his arms and tuck Charlie’s face into his own chest. Charlie’s eyes well up at the understanding that Charlie has trouble being watched when he’s being vulnerable and giving him that necessity for vulnerability without needing to be asked or Charlie simply doing it himself. He just knows.
Do friends just know?
Through his watery vision, his eyes fall onto Ben’s tote bag once again. It’s a branded Salesforce bag from his work. He never thought to get a more customised one for his own personality, just used whatever was handed to him and made that who he was. Nick's puppies-and-racecars bag, whilst perhaps a tad immature, has more personality than Ben's bag could ever dream of — than Ben could ever dream of.
Nick’s right; it's pretty damn ugly.
With the strength he gets from Nick cradling him gently and the strongest person I’ve ever met, his eyes still on the tote bag, he asks, “Am I your friend?”
“Oh,” Nick breathes, immediately nodding and emphatically continuing, “Yes. ‘More than friends’ implies friendship occurred somewhere in the equation, does it not?” Charlie just shrugs. So perhaps not Somethings-With-Benefits. “Do you want us to be friends, Charlie?”
Charlie takes a sharp inhale — he was never awarded those types of questions with Ben, even in the beginning. Ben didn’t ask Charlie what he wanted — he gave, and Charlie received. He made decisions, and Charlie went along with them. That was the way of them. He had opinions and was beaten into submission and stopped sharing them because Ben only laughed at him when he expressed them with bad faith and made decisions for the two of them himself. There was no other world out there for him, even just a month ago.
And now, it’s become the world he lives in, semi-permanently — they’re not boyfriends, though a small, timid part of Charlie admits he would like them to be, however soon it may be; but they are… somethings. It feels a little like Charlie’s falling down a very long drop; he can’t see the bottom, but the world is lit up in technicolour where it once was sepia, muted, dull-toned. It was frightening at first, but anyone gets used to something the longer it goes on for. He was standing on the cliffside, toes teetering, scared of being pushed off. But the longer they dated, the easier the fear of losing his balance and not being grabbed back became commonplace. He got used to fear.
He chose this fall with Nick, though. He looked into the abyss and jumped straight into it, head first. The walls are coming down. There’s no fear anymore. Only exhilaration. Every moment with Nick is knowing he will catch him.
The bravery of choosing the fall; the pride. He chose something good. f*ck fear. Full-heartedly, knowing what he wants and thinking he might be allowed to have it if he asks, he tells Nick, “Yeah. I really do.”
Nick kisses the top of his head. “Well, good. I do too.”
“Friends who kiss,” Charlie amends, squirming.
He peeks his head out from where it was laying on Nick’s chest who is smirking; it’s so charming. Charlie knows Nick is about to tease him and it’s still charming. Infuriating. “Well, I’d sure hope so, considering how many times we’ve done so already.”
“And friends who—” Have sex. But Charlie hears his conversation with Geoff from earlier today ringing in his head. Bartering tools and poker chips. He can’t have Nick feel that way too. The idea of it is abjectly terrifying.
He asks, because he has to, because the terror that he pressured Nick into that aspect of their lives is going to eat him alive if he doesn’t. “You… You do want to be having sex, right?” Charlie knows he sounds like an insecure wreck, but he can’t not, but once the question has been asked, he starts rambling, unable to keep it all in. “It was so soon, and I didn’t ask, I pressured you into it that first night, being so insistent, and you might not have wanted to, f*ck, f*ck, I’m just like B—”
“Charlie,” Nick hushes, cupping Charlie’s cheeks. Nick usually lets Charlie finish his sentences, even when he’s anxious, so it must be serious if Nick is cutting him off. Charlie looks up at him with swimming eyes. Nick is smiling. He shakes his head and presses a long, gentle kiss to the space between Charlie’s eyebrows whose eyes flutter closed at the action. The feeling it brings him, the safety he feels — even after just eight days of having it — is immaculate.
“Charlie, I want it all with you, no matter the timing. I wanted to sleep with you that night, and I still do. I can’t imagine a world in which I stop wanting that with you. Wanting everything with you.” He pulls back and ducks his head so he can be eye level with Charlie now. Charlie ducks his head too, trying to hide behind his fringe, but still manages to hold tentative eye contact with a slight smile. Nick cups the back of Charlie’s head, his long curls spilling out from between Nick’s fingers, and asks, “Can I kiss you, shayna?”
Charlie lets out a shaky breath. He nods and straightens his neck to look at Nick head on. Whispers, “Please.” Waits to be kissed. Patient. Willing. Allowed.
Nick leans in. Charlie closes his eyes. Nick surprises Charlie; he doesn’t kiss his mouth. Instead, he presses a slow, soft kiss to Charlie’s cheekbone. Then down to the meat of his cheek. The corner of Charlie’s mouth. The tip of his nose. The bridge of it. Kisses coming faster and faster, out of order and at random all over his face. Charlie’s eyes are still closed and he revels in the unknown, giggling, the rays of sun glittering on the water. Charlie is a reflection of felicity.
After everything that’s happened today, it had begun to feel like he’d never feel happy again. He had forgotten the abject joy he feels with Nick. The safety that never came with Ben, no matter how hard Charlie tried to force it to arrive. With Nick, it’s so goddamn easy to feel safe. It’s like it’s written in Charlie’s code to trust Nick Nelson. One day, if they end up apart, Charlie thinks he still will.
The grief of Ben grabbing his arm with intention to hurt, even if that hurt never touched his skin. The guilt of Tori’s face on the bathroom floor, looking up at her like a guardian angel she shouldn’t have had to become. The trust he feels in Nick, even through the grief and the guilt. It will all outlive him. It will all live within him forever. And that, in itself, is a blessing, a mitzvah — to care enough about your life to live it, despite.
“I’m going to kiss your lips now,” Nick whispers.
Charlie smiles. Charlie knows it’s coming. It doesn’t feel so frightening to have his eyes closed with another man; he knows somehow that Nick won’t take and take and take. “Okay.”
Nick is good on his word and kisses him on the mouth. It’s gentle, yielding, as many of Nick’s kisses are. Even when they’re having sex, the kisses can be feverish, but always where either of them can make the decision to pull away. Nick hasn’t yet — Charlie’s been the one to break all of their kisses, like Nick would kiss him endlessly if he could. It’s a good feeling, to be wanted, to be cared for and about. Charlie loves it. He loves the way Nick cares. He hopes one day to learn the way Nick loves.
Nick cups his jaw, the kisses getting a little more firm, but not going further than that. Their tongues only peek out every now and then to slide against the other’s bottom lip. There’s humming but not moaning; touching but not taking. It’s rapturous. Nick is the Adonai that Charlie has been searching for. God is something he can now see and touch and taste. God has given Himself to Charlie in the form of a beautiful man who does nothing but care — about Charlie, yes, but so many other things and people. He cares about his dog and his friends and his mother and Charlie’s family and Tori and music and rain on windows and pen on paper and Charlie is so, so lucky to be one of those things. Nick blesses the things and people he cares about, and God, Charlie feels that consecration down to the core of the earth where his toes stay rooted.
His heels are off the ground as he evens out their height difference and kisses Nick with the same worshipful softness as Nick gives him, in all things and all ways.
Charlie slides his hand around from the planes of his chest to the side of his neck and turns him the way he wants. He smiles against Nick’s mouth when Nick lets out a little affected sigh and pulls away first, a novelty. Nick’s lips are sticky-sweet and candy apple red, bee-stung and slick. Nick seemingly can’t help but lean in and kiss him once more before leaning back. It’s chaste, but it lingers.
Nick’s eyes flutter open and he looks strangely calm; Charlie hadn’t expected him to be, with the sighs and hums and quiet sharp intakes of breath, like he’d kept forgetting to breathe — or maybe how to at all.
Charlie slides his arms from around the breadth of Nick’s shoulders to around his neck, hikes himself even higher on his toes, and hugs him. Nick hums again, gentler this time, and wraps his arms around Charlie’s waist, hugging him tightly enough that Charlie doesn’t need to strain on his toes; Nick is keeping him a centimetre off the ground with it. Charlie presses his face into Nick’s jaw.
“Hey,” Charlie says quietly into Nick’s skin. “It’s nice that we can make each other upset and fix it. I like that.”
Nick kisses the side of Charlie's head and says, “I like that too.” He smiles against Charlie’s skin and says, “Actually, I think it makes us even better friends.”
Charlie swallows and, barely there, asks, “Yeah?”
“Mmm.” Nick slides one arm from around Charlie’s back, still holding him tightly with the other the way Charlie likes to be held. He slides his hand up and presses it to Charlie’s chest, so close between them, they’re both touching either side of it; Nick to the back of his hand, Charlie to the palm. “I think it could make us better boyfriends too. If you wanted it to.”
Charlie’s eyes fly open where they’d been shut blissfully. He pulls back, heels hitting the ground but arms still looped around Nick’s neck. His brows raise at the shiftiness in Nick’s expression, not like he’s waffling in his proposition, but as if a sudden flood of anxiety is overtaking him. Nick’s arm loosens but his hand is still on Charlie’s heart, his stupid, stupid heart, like Nick’s expecting Charlie to run. He’s not going to. He hopes he never will again. He smiles so wide, it feels almost painful; he hardly notices it. “Yeah?”
Nick swallows, glancing at Charlie, looking away quickly, then looking back. His cheeks are flushed. He nods.
He must not be able to tell that Charlie has never felt so glad to have met someone in his entire life, so he rocks up on his toes again and looks at Nick head on. Incredulously, he says, “Yes. Was it not obvious that I want that?”
“I didn’t want to assume…” Nick’s apprehension is still present, but a smile is starting to grow on his face despite it.
Charlie hums. “Here.” He slides his hands down Nick’s arms instead of removing them, knowing Nick will need the anchor of skin-to-skin contact right now. He grabs both of Nick’s hands and walks them backwards so they can sit on the sofa. He heaves his legs into Nick’s lap, bum pressed against Nick’s outer thigh, as close as they can get. He squeezes Nick’s hands four times, hard enough that he hopes Nick feels the joy he feels right now.
This feels big, but it’s felt this big since the day they met in a chain restaurant with Charlie’s best friends shoving them together by their backs like preteens on the playground. This kismet, fated, divine providence, bashert, this old testament to the star-stuff their souls were made from. They’re parts of the same star. Cosmic. Destined.
They’re so lucky. Charlie tries to hold onto that fact when he remembers Ben never actually asked him this same question. He wasn’t awarded the choice; Ben simply introduced Charlie as his boyfriend one day, and that was that. Assumed. Nick has never presumed anything on Charlie’s behalf like that. I didn’t want to assume… Nick is just good in ways that Charlie realises looking back Ben never possessed.
He can’t think of Ben as a wholly terrible person; the dialectics involved in loving someone for almost a year makes that so. Ben had his issues, of course, as anyone does. But Nick’s relationship with his biphobic brother is so similar to the ways Ben’s parents were hom*ophobic who Charlie never once met, and Nick never acted that way. Ben tried to keep him far away from his familial world; Charlie wanted to support Ben in that way, in any way, but Ben shut him out. Nick is an open book.
Charlie can’t be that way anymore. Not after Ben. But Nick isn't looking to tear out pages. He's patiently waiting to be allowed access. Charlie is starting to give it to him, bit by painstaking bit.
Nick’s never going to know who Charlie was before Ben, and there’s a sense of mourning about that. But he’s never going to know who Charlie was when he was with Ben, either. He’ll know Charlie to be the aftermath of him: jumpy; a little clingy; sensitive; neuroticism more exaggerated; more prone to mental health episodes — at least for a while. It breaks his heart a little.
He wishes Nick could at least meet twenty-one year old Charlie — unburdened from the shackles of the pervasiveness of his mental illnesses, more able to have a hold on them, the traumatic memories of his bullying, and himself. Or eighteen year old Charlie — ready to meet the adult world head on, freshly into uni, happy and free from his parents’ house and their dead-end little suburb where nothing ever happened and no one ever got out. Or even fourteen year-old Charlie — a little messed up, a little worse for the wear, but so, so greedy for love and affection, even if it was shrouded in secrecy. Tao got to see it; Isaac and Elle too. He wishes Nick could have too. He wishes Nick could have known him his whole life. His life would’ve been so much more safe. He’d have been more confident, the way Nick makes him and everyone around him feel. It would’ve been a wonderful life.
But he knows Nick now. It can still be wonderful. Nick is already working to make it that way just by being who he is in proximity to Charlie.
It feels easy for Charlie to slide his hands from Nick’s and up his chest to cup his jaw. He smiles tenderly, with every ounce of softheartedness he has within him for this man. It feels just as big as it did when he asked Nick to the wedding at Frankie & Benny’s when he says, “Nick,” he pauses, tilting his head, “thank you for asking me.”
Nick’s brows screw in. “Of course I did.”
Charlie’s smile turns wistful, a little sad. “Not of course. But it’s very, very good that you did.”
Nick nods, expression smooths out from concern to gentle sympathy. He must understand, at least a little. It’s not as frightening as Charlie expected being seen like this would be. “Well, you’re welcome.” Charlie drags his hands down to Nick’s chest and leans in to give him a featherlight kiss, then another, and another. When he pulls away, Nick is smiling. Nervously, sweetly, Nick asks, “So you want to… be my… be my boyfriend?”
Charlie chuckles quietly and shakes his head. What a marvel. “Yes, Nick. I want to be your boyfriend.”
“Okay.” Nick’s smile grows until it’s blinding. Charlie quirks up one side of his mouth from impulse alone; it’d be impossible for him not to. “I want to be yours too. Just so you know.”
“You know, I kind of figured, from the way you asked me,” Charlie says with his brows raised, eyes half-lidded in reverence for this moment. Nick lets out an offended noise. Charlie slides his hands down the outsides of Nick’s ribs and wraps his arms around Nick’s waist, leaning in closer from it. He’s a little lower than Nick now, so he looks up at him and says, “But thank you for the clarification.”
Nick fingers a curl from Charlie’s eyes and tucks it behind his ear. Charlie moulds his whole front to Nick’s side and rests his cheek against Nick’s chest. He tucks his toes into the crevice between the cushions on the other side of Nick who wraps one arm around Charlie’s shoulders and rests the other hand on the outside of his thigh, fingers dragging against his hip and thumb petting the top of his thigh, right on the seam of his shorts so that every now and then, their skin meets. Charlie feels sparks drag up and in from every place he’s touching Nick, igniting him with a soft breath of relief.
He has a boyfriend. A good boyfriend. Beyond that, a good person. Nick is such a wonderful, wonderful man, and Charlie finds himself taken back briefly to the moment where Charlie found out he and Ben were dating. Ben’s arm was already possessive and tight around Charlie’s waist, but the grip became a vice when he said it. This is my boyfriend, Charlie. Charlie felt butterflies, genuine ones, and God, he was so naive and ignorant. Was he ignoring the signs or was he just daft? He sees Geoff and Tori frown in his head at the question, and they weave the comfort of knowing nothing Ben did or how he forced Charlie to act as a result of his abuse was his fault into each of his thoughts following. He was so controlling and I had no way of knowing he’d turn out that way. He took too long to break up with me. I didn't ask him to stay when he didn’t love me. It helps.
Nick’s arms around him help too. He won’t always have Nick wrapped around him, drawing letters on his upper back (Charlie catches a T and a K) and pressing errant kisses into the crown of his head.
Charlie realises he’s falling asleep in Nick’s arms from how tired he is, how tired he’s been. Since therapy. Since the day he met Nick. Since the day he met Ben.
The lack of sleep for the past two weeks has been taking its toll on him emotionally, and he has to nip it in the bud before it turns physical too. First he was in mourning for the loss of Ben that was mixed in with anxiousness about the wedding, then keyed up about meeting and dating — now, really dating — Nick. He’s been travelling from room to room in his head all day, all week, all year, chasing Ben’s ghost away without even realising he’s doing it. He’s tired. He’s so, so tired.
“Nick, ’m falling asleep,” Charlie slurs. “You should go.”
“Okay, love.” Nick starts to gather Charlie in his arms and stands up holding Charlie bridal-style, as if it’s not an issue of strength at all. Charlie hums and wraps his arms around Nick’s neck, kicking his feet lightly where they dangle. “Let me just put you to bed and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Noooo, I like you in my hair,” Charlie grumbles, hiding his face into the crook of Nick’s shoulder.
“Mm, I like me in your hair too.” Nick sets Charlie down in his bed and brushes his fingers through Charlie curls, smiling.
Charlie giggles and burrows further into the blankets. “You make me so happy,” he sighs, cheeks heating up from the admission, but not rushing to take it back like he might’ve if he wasn’t overtired — or if Nick weren’t his boyfriend.
There’s a small pause, and Charlie gets worried so he peeks an eye open from where his face is squished into the pillow. He sees Nick smile helplessly, eyes suspiciously a little wet, and says, “I’m so glad. You make me happy too, my love.”
Charlie feels a pang in his sternum and butterflies erupt from the centre, warming him from the inside out. His eyes flutter shut again. Nick digs through Charlie's bed sheets and finds Kitty buried beneath the duvet; he hands her to Charlie, and Charlie's cheeks heat up further as he slides her underneath the blanket he's covered himself with. “Kitty, stop salting my game," he mumbles.
Nick laughs. "She salts nothing."
“sh*t,” he grumbles, starting to get up, “teeth.”
“Lay down, love, I’ll get you your toothbrush and a cup to spit in.”
Charlie whines loudly while Nick is already walking out of the room. “That’s gross, Nick, you’re gonna have to turn around!”
Nick asks, an amused tilt to his mouth when he comes back in, “We can’t brush our teeth in the same room?” Charlie shakes his head in dissent. Nick’s got Charlie’s toothbrush loaded with toothpaste and two cups — one to spit in, one to wash his mouth out with, he says when Charlie asks — and a lump in the pocket of his joggers that wasn’t there before. Charlie sits up halfway and starts brushing his teeth with reddened cheeks. Nick puts the cups down on the nightstand, pulls out Charlie’s hairbrush from his pocket, sits on the edge of the bed, and starts brushing out his curls out of his face, the way Charlie needs to do before bed so they don’t turn into a rat’s nest overnight.
Charlie’s hand slows to a stop. With the toothbrush still hanging out of his mouth, he tilts his head to blink up at Nick with huge, wet eyes, almost in tears. He can’t speak, mouth full of toothpaste, but Nick just smiles at him and leans down to kiss his hairline. Charlie has never felt so cared for by someone who isn’t Tori in his life — and even Tori doesn’t do things like this.
Charlie looks forward and continues brushing his teeth, going on for far too long so Nick doesn’t have to stop brushing his hair. He keeps the brush in his mouth for at least a minute longer than he needs to, but eventually gestures for Nick to hand him the spit-cup. Nick does and Charlie looks up at him before spitting and twirls the toothbrush in the air, gesturing for Nick to turn around. Nick laughs, shakes his head and does as he’s told. After spitting, Charlie dumps the toothbrush into the cup and flaps his hand in Nick’s eyesight for the water, even though he can easily ask for it now. Nick hands it over, and Charlie washes his mouth out, then puts the cups on the other bedside table, out of Nick’s reach and eyesight where he’s sitting next to Charlie.
“Can I turn back now?” Charlie hums affirmatively. Nick turns and looks around for the cups, then spots them on the opposite table. “You don’t want me to put them back?”
“You can’t see my spit.”
Nick laughs, turning back to the bedside table. “You’re such a pest.”
“I’m not a pest, you’re a—” Charlie cuts himself off when Nick turns back around with Charlie’s curl cream. “Oh, you don’t need to do that, I’ll get it in the morning.”
“You do it every night, don’t you?” Charlie shrugs, looking away. He does. “Did you do it after your shower earlier?” Charlie shrugs again. He hadn’t. Fondly, Nick asks, “Will you let me?”
“I-I…” It’s a Herculean effort, but he does end up saying, “Okay.”
Nick hums happily and immediately starts opening the bottle. “Yay!”
“‘Yay’?” Charlie repeats, unable to keep from laughing. “You’re that excited to do my hair?”
“I told you! I like me in your hair!” Charlie smiles, squirming as he slides down into the bed a little bit further. “Don’t go too far, shanya — I need to put this in your hair or else it will be wasteful.”
“Okay, Mother Nature,” Charlie snorts, settling in.
Nick warns, “I’m going to touch your hair,” then does. The warning makes Charlie feel so, so safe. Nick lathers Charlie’s hair from root to tip — he must’ve read the bottle because he’s doing it perfectly. Charlie’s eyelids flutter shut. He lets himself sink into the feeling and allows Nick to care for him. Ben never did this. He doesn’t think Ben has the capacity to do this. He didn’t think his life would ever be this comforting. He can shut his eyes with Nick’s gentle, deft hands in his hair and drift into the silence, the sensations of Nick scratching his scalp lightly.
All too soon, Nick says, “All done, ziskayt.”
Charlie reaches up and fingers a curl; Nick did it perfectly. Charlie tilts his head back onto the headboard and grins up at Nick.
“You’re my boyfriend,” Charlie whispers, giddy.
“You’re my boyfriend,” Nick repeats, just as quiet and just as unbearably, incandescently, inconceivably happy. He can’t conceal it; he has no interest in concealing it. The emotional exposure makes Charlie want to expose a bit more. Piece by piece, he is replastering the wall. Nick hands him the hammer and nails, and Charlie does the hard work of putting them into the wall himself.
Charlie giggles and tilts his chin up, asking for a kiss. Nick gives it to him; it’s uncoordinated and sideways and they’re both smiling too much for it to be much of anything, but it’s Charlie’s favourite of their kisses they’ve shared so far. Charlie’s muscles relax and he slides down the headboard until he’s resting against the pillows again. His mouth starts going a little lax into their kiss, so Nick places one more on his mouth, gentle and chaste, and pulls back. “Let me tuck you in, my love.” Charlie hums and allows himself to be led. “Phone?”
“Pocket,” Charlie drawls. He tilts his hip up towards Nick, eyes closed and expecting Nick to get it. Still, he asks permission, and Charlie smiles and nods for him to get it, not opening his eyes. Nick carefully grabs his phone out of the pocket, his wrist brushing against the bare skin of Charlie’s hipbone. He shivers and sighs at the intimate feeling of it — an erogenous zone being touched with no sex involved feels a lot better than he thought it would. Nick manages to get it out with Charlie’s pyjamas staying secure around his hips and plugs his phone in. He fiddles with the wire until it buzzes twice — Charlie’s charging wire has been acting up. It’s nice that Nick remembers even though Charlie mentioned it only casually.
“Okay,” Nick whispers. He slips off the bed and Charlie opens his eyes to find Nick kneeling down next to the bed, arms braced on the mattress beside Charlie. “Are you all set for the night?”
“I think so,” Charlie whispers. He relaxes further into the bed and reaches an arm out to cup Nick’s cheek. “Thank you for being so sweet to me today.”
“I’ll be sweet to you any day,” Nick says, catching Charlie’s wrist before he pulls his hand away and kisses the centre of his palm — Nick’s lips are warm and dry against Charlie’s skin. Charlie brings his arm back and presses the kiss to his cheek. Nick tilts his head and smiles as he says, “Every day.”
Charlie looks at Nick for a while, smiling at each other, and when Charlie’s eyes begin fighting to stay open, Nick says, “I’m gonna head.”
“Okay,” Charlie sighs, a little sad, but knowing it’s the smartest thing — they haven’t had their first sleepover yet and that feels like it would take more planning, emotionally and physically, than a spur of the moment event. “Text me when you’re home safe.”
“I will, but I’m hoping you’ll get it in the morning,” Nick says, tilting his head down and looking at Charlie expectantly.
“I will, I will.” Charlie flaps his hand about dismissively. “Now go. Lucy misses you.”
“I'll miss you. But okay,” Nick says, but now he sounds sad. Charlie smiles wistfully at him. “Talk tomorrow?”
“And the tomorrow after that,” Charlie promises, leaning over to kiss Nick once more, less clumsy this time. It’s just a few swipes of their lips, but Charlie feels his stomach warm at the feeling.
Nick pulls away first — Charlie is glad Nick’s learning to realise that there is going to be another kiss and there’s no need to hold on desperately to the last one. “Okay.” Nick gets up and walks backwards, waving. “Sleep well, love.”
“You too,” Charlie says, lids fluttering. Nick smiles and Charlie takes that image with him, even when, eventually, the front door shuts.
He’s about to fall asleep when he remembers he has to put away the cleaning supplies. Groggily, he sighs and sits up. He checks the corner of his bedroom door. The sponge is gone. Nick had put it away. There’s nothing more to be cleaned. Charlie is left alone with his thoughts — but not for long.
He unlocks his phone and pulls up Tori’s text box. He waits for a moment, fingers hovering over the keyboard, and then decides to clean house and text her —
Me [01:10]: hey victoria. i just wanted to let you know how sorry i am that i let ben drive a wedge between us when we were dating. i love you shtick drek
He waits a few moments, then sees about half a minute later, Tori reads his message. She starts typing almost immediately.
victoria 🥈 [01.12]: Oh cheers, c*nt.
Charlie snorts, but knows whatever she’s typing now is not an insult at all.
victoria 🥈 [01.14]: (You don’t have to apologise. It was all him. I hated it, but I understood it. He’s gone now, and nothing’s going to tear us apart again. Or else.)
Me [01.15]: (if you used emojis, i know you’d be using the water gun rn)
victoria 🥈 [01.17]: (No I wouldn’t, because I’d be using a real gun. f*ck Apple’s PC sh*t.)
Me [01.17]: (wow, okay daily mail)
victoria 🥈 [01.17]: (Die.)
victoria 🥈 [01.19]: Now are you going to let me sleep or keep yapping my ear off about nothing?
Me [01.20]: hey! this felt important!
victoria 🥈 [01.21]: It wasn’t. Sleep.
A twenty second pause, then:
victoria 🥈 [01.22]: Please.
Charlie smiles softly at his phone.
Me [01.23]: fiiiine i guess you wore me down
victoria 🥈 [01.27]: You’re a good kid, Charlie, and I’m glad that sick f*ck’s gone from your life so you can learn to remember how right I am to say it. You deserve only good things. Glad to have you back.
About four seconds after Charlie finished reading the message, the message is unsent. Charlie grins.
victoria 🥈 [01.28]: You better not have screenshotted that.
Me [01.28]: too late, loser!
victoria 🥈 [01.29]: DICK. GOOD NIGHT.
Me [01.30]: night <3 love you
She sends a heart in return. Charlie never expects her to say she loves him — he feels it in everything she does. The words are inconsequential in the face of 24 years of tangible proof.
He tabs over to his pinned messages and sends one more text before falling asleep. Eyes struggling to stay open, Charlie texts:
Me [01:31]: thank you. you’re a really good friend
Charlie locks the screen and closes his eyes, but it must not be long before he feels his phone buzz a heartbeat, twice in a row. He immediately picks it back up and sees:
nick 🍭💞: Right back atcha love
Charlie sighs at the screen hovering above his head, but his smile drops into a frown when he realises he forgot to use the bathroom before sleeping and doesn’t want to have to wake up and not be able to get back to sleep. He gets up with a quiet groan and stops in the doorway of his bedroom with his hand on the doorknob, takes a breath, then opens the door. Compulsively, looks at where the tote bag is supposed to be, even though he promised himself he wouldn’t. It’s not there. Charlie frowns, because there’s a little blue post-it where the bag was supposed to be.
Nick’s loopy handwriting — neat, from years of trying to learn calligraphy in secondary — reads, If this is how I can take your pain, it’s my absolute pleasure. Don’t go looking for hurt. But if you can’t help it, I’ll be there to pull you back out of it. Always.
Misty-eyed, Charlie puts the note on the fridge beside a few of the photo strips from the wedding of he and Nick. He touches the edge of Nick’s face through the photo, tracing the soft lines of his face. If Charlie didn’t find most things embarrassing, even on his own where no one is watching, he’d keep out the voyeuristic silence and kiss the photo.
He doesn’t. But he knows he’ll text Nick a few ‘x’s unprompted in a moment.
When he crawls back into bed a few moments later, he doesn’t care that it’s belated and sends Nick five x’s. Nick reads it immediately and replies, Go to sleep, my love. I’ll be here in the morning xxxxxx
Six x's to Charlie's five, like Nick is squeezing Charlie's hand through the screen.
Charlie feels his heart flutter when he sends back two heart emojis, eyelids drooping. He doesn’t know why, but it feels very close to something big. Charlie puts his phone back, telling himself he’ll check his phone for a response in the morning, but when he hears it buzz, he immediately snatches it back to see Nick has simply responded with the smiling emoji that has three hearts surrounding it.
Charlie falls asleep with a smile on his face. He didn’t think he ever would again.
It feels nice to prove the ghosts wrong.
fin.
