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He still sometimes bristles when his mother calls him Nicky. He knows that he doesn’t mean top, it’s just a reminder that he’s not who he used to be, but she treats him just the same. Nicholas “Nick” Nelson hasn’t been what his mother would call “Nicky” in a very long time, years in fact, but he doesn’t correct her anymore. There’s no point, as he did manage to pick a new name that sounded similar to his old one.
(If only David could see that, that arsehole still calls him everything under the sun even though it’s been the same time for him as well. His Dad, despite not being around much having gone back to France when he was 10, has gotten better.)
He remembers as a child that he was so…uncomfortable with everything, from the moment he could think for himself. Dolls, skirts, pigtails, dresses - that wasn’t him, it never was and he didn’t know when his mother saw it, but he was grateful she did.
Despite his father and teenage David’s protests, she saw him for who he was under all that stereotypical mambo-jumbo he was forced into and soon enough, ballet turned to rugby, pigtails turned into pompadours and “Nicky” turned slowly but surely into Nicholas.
When he was 16, on raging hormone tablets and completely avoiding the issue of breast tissue formation (thankfully he stayed stubbornly flat as a post), he didn’t expect to meet someone who could feel in a way like he did when he was younger. Charlie Spring, a lanky awkward thing of a guy, was an enigma that was suddenly thrust into his life via a seating chart and he thanks his lucky stars that this was the case as if he hadn’t, he would have never found his best friend and more. So much more.
That ‘so much more’ path is currently haunting him as 4 years after their meeting and a couple of months after Charlie’s graduated and they’ve moved into their apartment and both are attending uni and everything’s perfect is when things come crashing down as he stares into the toilet bowl that he’s just thrown up in for the 5th morning in a row, tears sliding down his face and out of his closed eyes as his chest heaves.
This can’t be happening. His worst nightmare just can’t be happening. He and Charlie only just took the next step in their relationship. It had taken months of just.../loving/ Charlie to allow him access to his body after everything they’d gone through and while it had been an easier ride for him (okay, not really, but still), it was still new and tentative and this just couldn’t be his downfall, he should have listened to his doctor as she warned him that this could happen and they’d used protection, but it wasn’t 100% effective and- fuck!
He slumped against the wall after he’d finished doing his business, flushing the evidence away as he stared at the gross yellow tile that this tiny place in Leeds had come with, swallowing as he felt more vomit burning in his gut that possibly, could also having something else inside of it. Something new and horrific he hadn’t considered or at least, not yet.
He hates this. Feeling like the whole world is collapsing around him. He’s never had to feel like this, the one time he ever did before this being when he was going to tell Charlie about his little…secret he hadn’t brought up.
He can still remember that. Mostly. There was a lot of pacing and cursing and sitting and hair gripping before it and a lot of emotional release after, but Charlie - perfect, yet unwillingly scarred and marred Charlie - had literally taken him in his arms and told him how proud he was, like he used to do (and still did) to him, reassuring him it didn’t change anything.
Was that really so true now? He didn’t know.
He looked up when the door opened and a sleepy Charlie walked through, but didn’t move as the younger boy sat next to him, watching his face with those big, blue eyes. Christ, it made him want to cry all over again, all of this. He’d wanted kids, maybe, when he was older and more stable and perhaps, yes, he might carry one or two - but not now. Not when his life, his proper adult life, was barely starting and not while he and Charlie are just not ready.
Those blue eyes haunt his mind however and he swears internally at himself as before he can prevent it, his head pulls up an image of a little being, with freckles and dark curls, smaller versions of those blue eyes looking up at him, pleading with him.
It makes him choke in fear, clasping Charlie’s hand on one side while the other grasps ineffectively at the tile like it’ll save him from his own mind. It’s also enough for Charlie to also reach over and cuddle him close on the cold, wet ground - almost like they are back in Charlie’s childhood bedroom when Nick, soaking wet and confused, realized he was a lot more complicated than he thought he already was - their backs now together against the shower/bath as he holds Nick though his current internal storm, face buried in Charlie’s pyjama shirt as the floodgates let loose.
The storm soon passes and just leaves a cloud of…something akin to tension over them as Nick moves up and scoots back, his tailbone sending a shock of freezing lighting up his spine as Charlie sits there with him, arm in arm.
He doesn’t deserve this boy. He really doesn’t.
“Nick?” He turns his head gently at his name being called and his fringe has fallen over his face, but he can still see Charlie’s features schooled in worry despite it. “Yeah, love?”
“Are you okay?” Charlie’s voice sounds so hesitant. It wasn’t like he /hadn’t/ noticed something was off with him. When you live out of someone’s pockets, in separate housing when you spend all the time you could together or in an apartment where you spend every waking moment together now, you couldn’t get past anything that wasn’t normal.
He shouldn't be surprised that Charlie knows he’s too scared of that question as well, as he looks away, staring once again at the wall before an answer comes. “I don’t know.”
“Can you talk to me? Or try to? I’m really worried about you.” Charlie sounds like he does when Charlie’s life is spiralling out of control and he needs something to grip onto and Nick’s now wondering which one of them is more screwed as the words to say, or at least most of them, all fizzle out on his numb tongue.
It takes several pregnant pauses (ha, pregnant!) before he finally heaves a breath (or five) and he finally admits. “I think I might…I mean, it’s not certain, but I might be…I…”
It’s terrifying to even say it to himself, but given Elle came along before him and explained everything in her way while she was transitioning (it’s almost the same, just in the opposite direction and just as complicated no matter what people tell you), it’s not surprising that the connotation sort of lands with Charlie as he startles before he also drops, anxiety already lining his features and causing Nick to back up, ready to soothe.
“It’s most likely not, I've more than likely got the flu or something and I’ve been really stressed about uni and work and everything lately, so I’m just overreacting-”
“Do you need a test?” Charlie’s all too calm question knocks the wind out of him and he stops rambling, breathless before he finds his way again, his voice in a whisper. “What?”
“Do you…need a test? To really see.” Charlie’s eyes are on him and while they are fearful, they are trying to not show it. “I can go to the Boots down the street and get one. Or you know, we could go get one together. Or something. Just to make sure.”
Nick’s jaw closes with a click. “You would…do that? Are you sure, Char?”
“Well-” Charlie can’t help but let out an awkward huff and Nick can feel the tightening strings of horror that have been following him for days starting to ease. “-we aren’t going to find out any other way, are we? Plus, it’s better we…know now….so we can figure out what we’re going to do if it’s…positive or…something.”
It was finished lamely, but it was meaningful all the same. It meant Charlie wasn’t running away. It meant that if it was true, that they had made a baby somehow under all their collective issues, he would stay with them, with him, no matter the result on the stick. Nick fell forward and kissed him despite his most likely rank breath, pulling away with teary eyes as he looked down at him, arms around him. There was a lot more sitting as they just stared at each other, before Nick cleared his throat. “We should-”
“-yeah, we should.” Charlie finished for him and they both got up, Charlie helping him out to their living room after they both got changed and into their coats. It was tense, but as they locked up the apartment, Charlie squeezed his hand in a similar way that he had done when he’d graduated and Charlie was waiting at the stage for him as he waited to go up, looking into his eyes with a small smile just for him. “It’ll be okay, Nick. It will all be okay.”
Nick just squeezed back, hopeful that he was right.
(Five pregnancy tests later and a rather heavy feeling discussion of what if’s over a late breakfast that is only half-eaten, Nick’s thankfully not expecting and both of them are sad in a way that there is no little one in their future yet, there are also relieved.)
(Nick would draw back on this moment in the far future when he’s actually pregnant for real this time and delivering his and Charlie’s daughter just 3 days after his 26th birthday, Charlie’s past and present words a beacon of light through the pain. They eventually name her Nellie, after the best dog to ever exist.)