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“I wish you didn’t have to go” Charlie lamented fondly, watching as Nick pushed his arm into the sleeve of his coat, pulling the zip up to his neck only breaking eye contact with Charlie when he reached his neck.
“I wish I didn’t either” Nick responds truthfully, sincerely Charlie shockingly realizes. God he was never going to get over this dumb crush, was he? Especially if Nick kept saying things like that. Charlie pulls the blanket he’d swaddled himself in tighter around his body hoping to somewhat hide the blush he can already feel heating up his entire face. Truly he’s so embarrassing.
“You look so cuddly like that” Nick says suddenly, Charlie waits for the joke, for Nick to laugh It off and take it back any moment, but he doesn’t. Charlie doesn’t even know if he wants him to. “Do I?” Charlie asks, mostly because he needs to know the answer to his own internal question. He prays he doesn’t sound too hopeful or wistful, he knows he’s failing miserably.
“Yeah”, Nick replies matter of fact. As if he isn’t throwing Charlies’ entire world off its axis with one singular syllable.
It appears Charlie Spring was doomed to be at rather embarrassingly besotted with Nick Nelson for the rest of his life.
Charlie doesn’t get long to be resigned to his fate because Nick pulls him into what Charlie can only describe as a death grip in the least aggressive way possible. Nick clings to him in a way Charlie can’t quite grasp yet, his breath catching while his mind races to understand the reality of the situation he’s in. That he’s hugging Nick Nelson in the middle of his foyer.
Charlie has hugged a lot of people in his short life and loves giving them to people in return, but he has never experienced a hug quite like this in his nearly 15 years of life. He never knew so much could be communicated in such a simple action, that one embrace can speak for someone more plainly than actual words. Feeling warm, and safe in the arms of someone he’s known such for such a short time.
And how strange it is that it doesn’t scare him.
When he finally exhales, he leans into Nick’s embrace, tucking himself a bit into the Nick’s shoulder and scolding himself for relishing in how achingly good it felt, thinking about the possibility of being able to do that whenever he wanted, still Nick still hadn’t pulled away and if anything he boroughs even deeper, his arms around Charlie solid and never wavering. Maybe… Charlie thinks to himself.
When Nick pulls himself away Charlie already aches for the contact, he can still feel the phantom weight of Nick’s arms pulling the two of them together, Desperate to feel it again. Charlie knows he will cling to the memory of it for as long as he is able.
Nick all but flies out the front door, leaving Charlie with his blanket cocoon and his thoughts. Whatever that was he knew he meant something, even if he couldn’t name it, but a nagging feeling told him it meant something to Nick too.
Not that Charlie was expecting Nick to declare his undying love for him the next time they spoke, that particular scenario had already played in Charlie’s head more times than he was willing to admit.
But there was the familiar flutter he felt in his stomach whenever Nick was around, only this time it resonated deeper, settling into the fibre of his very being making a home within him that seemed to constantly scream Nick Nelson.
Charlie looked at the closed door again, remembering the boy who has stood in front of it not even two minutes earlier. Committing the slightly harsh feel of the material of Nick’s coat against his cheek, the strangely hypnotic smell of Nick’s shampoo, and the way Nick’s chin fit so perfectly in the curve of Charlie’s neck.
He didn’t have the vocabulary to figure out what he all means but maybe…
Yeah, he can live with maybe.