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Falling in love with him was easy.
Too easy, Richard thinks. It was simple, a common piece of knowledge that actually figuring out made his brain feel like it had opened for the first time. He didn’t think love was meant to feel this ordinary, like a pencil he’d always used that he’d suddenly realized was his favourite. Or the scent of mossy grass he’d grown too familiar with. It wasn’t a big realization either, no heavens opening or big punch in the gut, but rather a small smile received and a switch flipped in his brain.
Easy.
Being around him, hearing his voice, childish banter and meaningless words spoken into darkness well past anyone in their right mind should be awake. There was a comfort to it all that Richard couldn’t properly explain, because he couldn’t remember the coldness of not having him. He couldn’t think of a time where he didn’t wake up to an instrument being harshly blown right against his ear, or hearing Charlie complain about the same class and the same professor, or making his coffee with 3 sugars instead of 2 because that’s how Charlie liked it and he always ended up stealing Richards anyway.
His life before was a blur that he didn’t focus on. He knows it existed, he knows years would’ve passed where he simply just hadn’t so much as heard Charlie’s name, but what was the point in dwelling on it? Charlie, with his smirks, and his laughs, and his mouth, and his voice, and his hands, enough to fit Richard's whole universe into. Even if he didn’t know it, really. But he probably did. Because Charlie knew everything, and Richard loves him in not-so-secret, and it’s sweet and small and enough.
He doesn’t need much more, he doesn’t think. There’s something about what they have that doesn’t push their boundaries, like the sun and the moon, and black and white, they’re opposite and there at the same time. There’s a quietness to love, an illusion of sorts.
Don’t move.
Don’t say anything.
Don’t leave. Please don’t leave.
It’s simple, and painless, yet hurts like getting each organ ripped out one by one. Richard likes to pride himself on his ability to speak things through, but he’ll never be able to explain this. He doesn’t want to.
It’s simple and painless and hurtful and terrifying and ordinary and complicated, it is everything and everyone and all he does is hope it never ends.
He’s very near to falling asleep when Charlie speaks, his eyes heavy and blanket pulled perfectly over him. “Do you think he’ll make us do an essay on that multicellular garbage?”
“Go to sleep, Charlie.” His voice comes out doused in the weariness of sleep and roughness of a tight throat.
“Can’t.”
“Okay then let me sleep.”
“Can’t.” And Richard can hear the smile in his voice, the very slight upward quirk only the left side of his face would do, clear under his eyelids. He groans half-heartedly and pulls his blanket slightly off, finally opening his eyes. There is quiet for a few moments longer, Richard listens to the sound of his breathing like an anchor keeping him close to the earth. It’s comfortable.
“He probably will.” Richard provides, if only to make noise so his mind doesn’t wander too much.
“God, I hate him.” Charlie says so immediately that Richard can’t help but snort.
“I like the essays bit.”
There’s something soft in the way he responds, “I know you do.” and it’s stupid but he grins anyway because it’s dark and Charlie can’t see him. “I like this, you know.”
“What?” He’s turned to face Charlie now, though he can barely make him out. He was probably facing upwards since his face turns and Richard is very suddenly met with brown, brown eyes.
He thinks for a moment, hopes probably, that Charlie is going to say you. He doesn’t. He says, “this. I don’t know, just talking,” there’s a small pause followed by light laughter “it’s a little stupid I know.”
“It’s not.” He probably says it a beat too soon, “I like it too.”
This time, Rich’s eyes have adjusted to the dark and he can see Charlie grin, it's warm and big and makes his lungs feel funny. “Okay.”
“Goodnight, Char.”
“Night.”
He doesn’t think either of them fell asleep.
__________
Charlie likes his life sorted into blocks, a tier of everything in its importance and somewhere at the top is his sister, and Neil, and Cameron too. He doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t care either. He thinks it was inevitable in a way, the whole thing. Cameron was this being, so big that he took up all of the space in the room, yet so small that Charlie thinks it’s awful more people can’t see him.
There has to be a name for it, the feeling in the pit of his stomach. It’s sort of like there’s flowers growing in his chest.
He shakes the thought, setting down his textbook and looking around the room till his eyes land on him. He’s sitting by the windowsill, and Charlie follows his gaze to the small ladybug just outside the window. Cameron’s smiling slightly, his book limp in his hands and his heart tugs again. Those fucking flowers.
He walks over, doesn’t sit beside him but rather down, his back resting against the wall where Cameron’s legs are. He looks up, and Camerons looking at him now, not the bug, but the same sort of lazy smile and Charlie thinks he should spew some stupid cliche garbage poetry about his clear blue eyes.
“Done already?” Cameron asks, and Charlie almost asks what until he remembers.
“No,” he shakes his head, “I’ll study later.”
Cameron's face does that stupid thing where it scrunches up somewhere between exasperation and fondness and if Charlie’s heart tugs one more time he might have to push himself against him. “You can’t , testing starts tomorrow.”
Charlie smiles, nudging his knee with his nose before turning his head so he can rest it atop Cameron’s legs. “You’ll help me.”
He feels Cameron’s fingers very gently begin to move through his hair, against the top of the strands rather than near his roots. He laughs a little, and Charlie smiles too because of course he does. “No, I won’t.”
Charlie stretches his head back so he can meet Cameron’s eyes. “You will.”
There is something about time that stops working in moments like these, it either moves too fast or not at all and Charlie cannot decide which.
“Yeah,” he breathes out, “Probably.”
And Charlie laughs.
He thinks then that he hates cliches, he really, really does. But if he were the sun, and Cameron the moon, then they would fall in love, for a day, for a year, forever until the end of time. Not that he’s in love with Cameron or anything, but the thought feels right.
He would be the sun, if only because Cameron was most definitely the moon. The warmth, and the comfort, like a sunset in fall. Cameron had all of it tucked into every shade of his eyes and crevice of his lips, and Charlie had always liked the night more than the day anyway.
Charlie was open and bright and terrified.
Cameron was soft and inquisitive and welcoming.
They’d make quite the pair.
Not that he’s in love with Richard, though. Because he’s not.
(The flowers in his chest disagree. Charlie pretends he can’t hear them.)
_________
Charlie is his best friend, Richard realizes. Maybe that’s what makes it scary. Because relationships end more than friendships do, and Richard wants and wants and wants whatever he can get without losing. He’d be a bad gambler.
He watches the leaves fall, lost somewhere in himself. It’s a dark night, the stars have hidden away, it seems. He feels the rustling of leaves under footsteps, and the weight of someone sitting beside him. He looks over at Charlie and tries not to smile too big.
“Hi.” He says, his voice softer than he expected it to be. Welton is a tower behind them, it’s shadow stretching out against the courtyard.
“Hush, I’m thinking.” Charlie’s eyebrows furrow as he concentrates harder against the pile of falling leaves Richard was just looking at.
He whispers, “what are we thinking about?”
Charlie turns to him and grins, “you.” And something in Richard kind of wishes there were cameras in his eyes so he could freeze this moment forever and keep it tucked away.
Richard laughs and swats his shoulder because jokes should be treated as such, (and if Charlie frowns before going along with it, then he doesn’t see it). “Don’t say that.”
He asks “why?” and Richard almost tells him.
Instead, he smiles to the night sky, and lays down against the grass that pokes a little too harshly against him through his quite thin nightshirt. He’s shivering a bit, and Charlie rolls his eyes before moving closer and wrapping both his arms around him.
Richard groans, pushing at him until they’re pulling at each other's shirts and tumbling through the grass in a mess of grins and laughter. Finally, Charlie has him pinned against the ground, his hands wrapped tightly against Richard's wrists and he thinks if he bursts now and it all just stops he wouldn’t mind as much as he should.
“Alright, alright,” he laughs, twisting slightly while Charlie only tightens his grip. “I give up.”
“Weak.” Charlie mutters, though there is happiness dripping from his lips, he rolls over until he’s next to Richard and pulls him back into him. Richard doesn’t quite hate cliches as much as Charlie does, so he might begin to say that he felt safe.
“Warm.” He says in response.
“Idiot.”
“Yeah, that I am.”
There’s a moment before he responds, words more so mumbled into Cameron’s hair than spoken. “No, you’re not.”
He sighs instead of responding.
__________
Maybe Charlie is in love with him. It wouldn’t be surprising, really. Well. It might be to others. He doesn’t think he would mind if he was, he doesn’t think anything would really change all that much. Why would it? He loves him now, and he’d love him then, only the word ‘love’ would have a different connotation. So what?
Now that he thinks about it, he probably always has been anyway. Maybe your heart doesn’t need to beat fast, maybe you don’t need to second guess everything, maybe that’s a crush and this is love, and he couldn’t tell the difference before. Maybe.
He wonders if he’s ever been in love before. He wonders if Richard ever has. He wants to ask but that might be too much. Anyway, he doesn’t think he has. You would know right away right? Without someone needing to lay it out and explain it? You’d probably just wake up and think yeah, I’m in love. But that hasn't happened before and it’s sort of happening now, and usually he would go to Richard about these things but he can’t.
Neil. He could go to Neil. But that would be like ruining the secret and Charlie Dalton is anything but a snitch so he doesn’t.
This is stupid, he thinks all of this is just stupid, and honestly Richard would tell him so too. Rich is one of his best friends, and sure at some point the little lever controlling the amount of love he has for someone just slipped a bit too much into ‘not like a friend’ territory. It happens! So what? He’s only human, and to be fair Rich has no right being that cute or intelligent or know exactly how to make Charlie feel good about himself anyway. So really, this is his fault.
Yes. Absolutely his fault.
He groans into his pillow, momentarily forgetting that Richard is literally right across from him at the moment.
“Charlie, I swear to fucking God, why don’t you ever just sleep ?” Charlie knows he’s not as irritated as he sounds, his voice gets a bit deeper when he is actually pissed off and- see! This is ridiculous, people don’t just know these things about people they aren’t in love with, right?
“You know how to put up with me.” He smiles despite himself.
Richard grumbles slightly, “yeah, good luck finding someone else that does.”
“Why would I need to find someone else?” He watches as Richard turns to face him, flopping his head against the pillow. There’s little stray hairs against his temple, probably obscuring his sight, but he doesn’t push them away.
“Well, you’re going to get married to someone .”
Charlie shrugs against his bed, “I’ll just marry you.”
Richard snorts, turning and picking up his extra pillow to throw at Charlie’s head, and Charlie lets him because he’s too busy grinning to even care. “In your dreams, Dalton.”
Yeah, he agrees, my dreams.
Charlie hates cliches but he wouldn’t mind becoming one for Cameron.
_________
They’re graduating. They’re like actually, really, graduating. Richard doesn’t know how to comprehend any of it. ‘Where did the time go’ and all that. The ceremony ends and he walks off the little bleachers, trying to find his friends in the hoards of people when he sees Charlie running forward towards him.
He opens his arms last second before their bodies are flung together, and his mind is spinning in circles along with his legs and he’s clinging to his best friend and God his smile is aching his cheeks. He pressed Charlie harder into him, because he can and he doesn’t think he’s been so happy in forever.
“We did it, we did it, we did it” Charlie is almost shouting right into his shoulder, so it’s muffled and Richard can barely hear him but he doesn’t care. Charlie pulls away first. “Rich. It’s over. We’re passed Helton.”
Richard thinks he’d give anything to kiss the smile on his face.
It’s almost guilt that fills him but not completely. He doesn’t like the fact that he’s hiding something from Charlie, but it’s better that way anyway.
He smirks, hoping it clouds his grin at least a little. “Didn’t think you’d be able to do it.”
“I can’t even fight with you.” Charlie’s gripping his hands now, rubbing small circles against his knuckles and bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Richard raises an eyebrow, “That’s new.” Right as he speaks someone sets a few confetti cannons in the back and Richard jumps slightly. He looks up while Charlie laughs, squeezing his hands tighter, watching as different colored pieces of paper fall down, and then watching as a few settle in Charlie’s hair.
I’m in love with you, he thinks, why can’t you hear me?
He doesn’t say it though.
He just stares.
__________
Charlie decides he’s going to go out on a date with Lizzie, a friend of John from economics. He tells Richard as much and the line goes quiet for a second too long. He hasn’t actually seen Richard for a week now, he didn’t realize how much of their closeness was dependent on the confining walls of Welton. He’ll find time, eventually.
“That’s great, Charlie.” Richard says when he finally speaks.
Charlie frowns, gripping his phone slightly tighter. “You alright?”
Richard laughs then and it’s a little wet, something deep in Charlie’s organs twists. “Course,” he sighs, “why wouldn’t I be?”
Charlie knows why, he really does know why, but he doesn’t want to admit it. He doesn’t want to lose whatever game it is they’re playing. So he chuckles too, forced but there, “are you free tomorrow?”
“Why?” Richard asks, and Charlie frowns again.
“Well,” he splutters, “I- I don’t know, uh- I want to see you.” He says a bit sheepishly and that’s really stupid because Richard is his best friend. It’s normal for him to want to see him. He flushes a bright pink colour anyway.
“Miss me, do you?” Charlie’s going from pink to red now.
“I- oh, shut up.” He grins anyway, full and happy.
28 hours later he’s sitting pressed next to Richards side, grinning and so fucking drunk, while he plays with little strands of bright copper red hair. He wonders for a brief moment if it could just be this, this and this forever.
But it can’t, so he wakes up the next day with a pounding headache and his legs still tangled in Richards, gets ready, and meets Lizzie at the cafe next to the theatre. She says she’ll await his call but they both know she won’t pick up.
_________
There were quiet moments because there were always quiet moments, and this was one of those. Though, this was less like the calm desire that filled him and more like awaiting the storm. Charlie had been screaming on and off about school, and his parents, and himself, and Richard listened because that’s what he’s good at.
“And I just- God, this is all so fucked, I don’t want to handle the business Rich, I don’t-” he groaned and though Rich had heard this rant plenty of times before, his heart ached all the same. Charlie stopped, laying on the couch so his head was on Richard's lap and Rich could see his blurry eyes clearly. “I don’t want any of it.”
Richard reached forward slowly, wiping the tears off his face with the gentlest touch he could muster. He tried for a sweet tone, “what do you wanna do Charlie?”
Charlie snorted, meeting Richard's eyes. “Does it matter?”
The angle was awkward, but Rich cupped his face anyway. “I wanna know.”
Charlie squeezed his eyes shut, a few more tears squeezing themselves out. He smiled when he opened them. “I wanna own a cafe.”
Richard laughed, looking at him maybe a bit too endearingly, “a cafe?”
Charlie nodded a bit aggressively, “Yeah, make the walls a deep green, have blue chairs.” If Richard wasn’t very sure it was impossible, he’d say Charlie’s eyes were literally sparkling. “Of course, I’d keep a little library corner for you.”
“How generous of you.” Richard grinned down at him, his heart swelling in his chest.
“Oh, and maybe a stage for low budget mini plays, Neil could help me out.” He finished with a dazed sort of smile.
“That sounds nice, Char.”
“Does, doesn’t it?” The too bad it’s impossible went unsaid. Richard would do anything to take all of the responsibilities and burdens off him, he thinks he’d rip the sky at it’s seams and shred the universe apart for stupid Charlie and his stupid cafe. Charlie meets his eyes again, though this time it’s more intense, maybe sadder. “I could be happy without all that too, you know.” He whispers it like it's a secret. Maybe it is.
“How?” He asks.
And there it is, the quiet, so painfully quiet. Eyes have never been browner, and hopes never so high. Still, Richard doesn’t see it coming when there are lips on his. The angle is still awkward, but Richard's mind is too preoccupied to focus on that.
Whoever said the wait makes things better was an absolute liar because Richard is so very sure that this would have felt equally as wonderful as if he’d gotten it the first second he’d met this ridiculous man.
Charlie pulls away after a little bit, “sorry,” he’s a little out of breath and Richard is so red he might burst, “that- that’s how. If it wasn’t clear.” He sounds so unsure that Richard wants to cry.
He doesn’t, though, he just kisses him again.