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He doesn’t know just how he ended up here exactly, but it’s not like he has the range in him to care at the moment. He knows he should have called someone, anyone, by now, but his phone is turned off and he has no intentions of turning it back on anytime soon.
Charlie Spring just watches through half-lidded weeping eyes resting on his knees as the waves draw themselves in and out from the shore like breath, almost kissing the toes of his shoes as the stars glimmer in its reflection of the sky above him. It’s far too late at night to be out here and god knows only so very few people know of this place outside of Summer, but it’s where he feels safest right now to look over everything without doing something stupid.
That’s pretty much /why/ he’s out here if he’s honest.
He doesn’t know just when things started spirling. He wishes he did so he could somehow go back and shake some sense into himself, but he doesn’t have that luxury. Was it when Nick was dropped off at uni? Was it Paris? Was it before that, when they were still at school?
Christ, he just can’t think of why he feels like this. Like the whole world is falling apart. He’s fine, or at least, he’s supposed to be. School’s better than before even if it’s still hard to attend some days, he still sees Nick over Facetime and he still visits him every chance he can get away from Leeds.
Tao, Elle, Issac and his newer friends Tara and Darcy still find time to hang out with him, Tori’s still around, having not really decided what she wants to do and his eating disorder is under control, but why does it feel like it’s not enough?
Why does he feel the need to do more…destructive things? Like…hurt himself?
Charlie looks down at his arms when he finally gets around to it and traces the still fresh looking long X like scars martyring his wrists, the bandages originally around them long disposed of in a bin nearby and the stitching dark against the paleness of his skin.
He hadn’t meant to make those appear, but he was feeling so low and he’d already visited his therapist earlier that week and he thought no one was home and it was just a split second decision and he thought there were strings tying him down at some point and he just…he didn’t mean to. He has enough excuses to warrant that.
He only really knew he was done for when he woke up in the hospital and despite Tori’s comforting words, nothing could save him from the wrath of his parents and in the infighting between them and Tori, he’d just taken off and now, hours later after just wandering the streets of Herne Bay without really going anywhere, floating just like before when he’d convinced himself it was tied down, he’d boarded a train and arrived here, the place where Nick and he had their first date as just a couple, not a double or triple.
It’s a place where he seemingly finds so much peace outside of the turmoil he feels both inside and sometimes, around him. Hell, there are even days he can remember just walking out of school and automatically finding himself here after dissociation. He can also count the number of times on his fingers Tori has come to retrieve him, being she’s not only a great older sister when needed, but a great secret keeper as to where their parents' wayward son wanders off to when things get too much. They may not like it, but Charlie is grateful.
Sand crunching beneath his socked feet (he’d forgotten his shoes when he’d left), Charlie finds the need and want to get up and instead of retreating like he should or would if it was a normal pity episode (that’s what he’s taken to calling them even though he’s sure his therapist and others would say differently), steps into the water, head tipped to the sky as the wind pulls tears off his cheeks.
He honestly has half a mind to just dive in the freezing water and never come back up again, or float away up, up, up into the clouds and never come back down, but before he can even entertain the idea of simply going limp and falling forward or backward, there’s the sound of shoes against the pavement, running and a voice calls out his name. “Charlie!”
It’s not Tori’s voice for once.
Bewildered, Charlie turns, only for splashing to follow and his face to be buried in the upper torso of a very upset looking and frantic Nick Nelson, whose hair is windswept beyond normal means and is only wearing joggers, a sleep shirt and by the feel of it as his arms wrap around his rather numb form, one of his signature hoodies that draws warmth from all corners and it makes Charlie’s currently cold exterior feel a little more alive than before.
He should be questioning why. Why and how. Why is Nick here? How is Nick here? Is he an illusion? Has his brain finally given up trying to pretend it was all okay? Is he still high on drugs given to him in the hospital? Is he dissociating and imagining Nick is there? Has he fallen asleep on the sand? Has he fallen into the water and gone unconscious from the cold? Nothing seems to really bite at him, however, like he doesn’t care and while normally that would scare the bloody hell out of him, it’s not right now.
“Nick” is frantically shaking him, the strawberry blonde desperately attempting to get a response out of him and it takes Charlie’s mind way too long to finally look up at him through his eyelashes practically, so, so confused. “Nick?”
“Charlie…” Nick’s voice is so smooth, dipping in relief like butter on a stack of pancakes as he cups his icy cold face and his hands provide something he can at least hold onto for now as the other keeps talking. “Christ, Charlie, I was so worried. Tori called and said you’d hurt yourself and I was on my way down to see you, but then she called me back and said you’d run off and I got so scared and…Charlie? Charlie, are you okay? Talk to me.”
He hadn’t realized his mind or his eyes had wandered off again, but he came back when Nick gently tried to take his attention back. Or well, he usually would, but his eyes and mind stayed stubbornly afloat in a space he’d not been familiar with in some time, the horizon where the moon was rising from the sea more interesting. Seemed a lot was different right now. “I don’t want to come back.”
“Why?” Nick’s voice took on such a gentle tone that Charlie almost whimpered. He didn’t.
“I don’t know.” He hadn’t meant for his voice to crack, or to bundle his scarred hands and arms against his chest with the small amount of space left between Nick’s frame and his own, but he hears Nick’s gasp as he most likely sees the damage Charlie has done to himself and he can’t look at him as the same fingers he’d held onto earlier fold over the still raised skin and all at once, are brought up to lips that kiss them tenderly, like they’re made of the finest materials, yet all they are now are reminders of what he’s done wrong.
“Charlie, please /look/ at me.” It takes him forever, but his eyes finally slide away from the rapidly changing sky to face his partner as he looks down at him, teary-eyed like he is, only for far different reasons.
“Charlie, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
He so badly wants to attach onto that word. Promise. It’s a word he’s heard a thousand times before and believed maybe just as much in tandem. Promises, however, are hard to keep and he knows, /they/ know that more than most.
“You can’t promise anything.” It’s not a Charlie response that leaves him, so monotone and gross, but Nick doesn’t suddenly step away. In fact, he crowds in closer, as close as he can get to him, water wetting his legs as he does, to hold him tightly. “I can and I will.”
He doesn’t know just how long they are there for, but soon enough, the feeling returns to Charlie’s body, like Nick’s defrosted him somehow and he shivers, only being let go for a second to be tenderly stuffed into Nick’s hoodie before he’s brought back close again, Nick’s lips against his temple and forehead as they stand there.
The water is fucking horrible to stand in with socks he finds, just like the sand earlier when he first got here, but he can’t find it in himself to move in case he just takes off agian and seemingly, Nick’s going to be there as long as he needs to be, which Charlie hates a lot, but knows he would do anyway no matter if Charlie’s in the middle of a breakdown or episode or whatever.
Soon enough, there will come a time when they’ll move and there will also be a follow-up time of Charlie weeping in Nick’s arms as they sit on the train station bench, trying to explain why, just why and getting nowhere, then a later moment where they’re back at Nick’s house snuggled up in bed once Sarah’s called his parents and despite knowing he should be, Nick’s not going anywhere because fuck Charlie, I can’t leave you like this, my uni can stick it, don’t guilt me into going back up there and he hates himself more, but gives in to it, trying to take something out of Nick’s embrace as he attempts to sleep and thankfully, succeeds.
There are tougher days ahead, he knows, but right now, Nick’s here in the flesh and keeping him on the ground instead of letting him float away on that beach in the middle of nowhere.
He just hopes that it’s enough to tether him to the ground for good.