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~ 1. ~
The first time it happens is by complete happenstance. He’s studying at Nick’s for the science exam he’s got currently festering anxiety in the back of his mind and while Nick and he are tentatively going out, it’s not reached sleepover status just yet.
That all changes when he’s packing up his belongings to leave in time to make it home for dinner and Nick’s window is a haze of stormy rain, a great crash of thunder making him almost jump out of his jeans and socks. It also seems to scare Nellie as well, given he can hear the collie’s footsteps downstairs hasten, most likely to curl up in her bed.
He didn’t bring an umbrella, as there was no rain earlier or even a hint of it, so he’s effectively trapped and god, it feels so awkward. He knows his parents would be kind of okay-ish if he stayed at Nick’s and Nick’s mum would never let him endanger himself, he’s sure of that.
Still, it just seems like a very loaded question to ask the strawberry blonde as he comes into the room from having to go to the bathroom, frowns furrowing at Charlie’s face. “You okay, Char?”
“Well…I…um…” He only has to look at the window again for Nick’s eyes to follow and it seems his train of thought is catching swiftly up with Nick’s as the other turns to him, eyes quite wide. “Char, surely you aren’t not considering going home in /that/?”
“I don’t want to make anything weird.” Charlie admits out loud and draws back into himself when he realizes that fact. Nick, however, is already striding over and putting his hands on his forearms, looking down at him. “Charlie, it’s okay. Really. I don’t mind.”
“Are you sure?” Charlie winces despite knowing Nick is being sincere.
“Never more sure than I have in my life and that’s saying a bloody lot.” Nick confirms, which makes Charlie laugh and finally keep a smile, Nick’s smile too good to be alone.
(And if he sees that smile before he drifts off in his arms at midnight, cramped in Nick’s single bed together and leading to his knees and back aching in the morning, he doesn’t really mind.
At least it’s a Saturday.)
~ 2. ~
The second time is a little bit more…intentional, but nevertheless strange as it’s now October and Charlie’s not exactly supposed to be near home or Nick’s place. In reality, he’s not even supposed to be in Herne Bay at the moment.
Charlie’s really supposed to be in the ED treatment facility that he’s been buried in for almost 3 weeks, but they don’t police everything like they should other than Charlie’s ability to not fucking eat his food, so as soon as he sees an opportunity, he takes it.
He literally hotfoots it to the train as best he can, bare feet almost sticking to the carpet and heart racing as he clings to the aqua-colored hoodie of Nick’s he’d shoved over his pyjamas, feeling dark and so grossly alone that he almost vomits out the window. He doesn’t, thankfully.
Soon enough, he’s tracing a well-worn path through the streets of his home and it’s a surprise that even this late in the evening, Nick’s bedroom light is still on, glowing like a homing beacon and giving Charlie the motivation to climb towards it using the window ledges, watching Nick as he studies from his desk for a moment before knocking and grabbing his attention.
Nick’s not as happy to see him as Charlie is. “Char, what in the fuck- how did you get here?!”
He hauls Charlie in like a madman and Charlie can’t help but laugh tearfully as Nick’s warm body envelopes his freezing one, seemingly making sure he was real before he’s drawing back, wiping Charlie’s face. “Charlie, you shouldn’t be here.”
“I missed you.” Charlie said and it’s just so, so simple after that or at least, it should be, but Nick’s face is like he sucked on a lemon and he’s shaking his head. “That doesn’t mean you can just break out of mental health facilities, love. Your Mum and your Dad and Tori are going to be worried about you.”
“Don’t care.” Charlie pouts like a toddler and it seems that’s what breaks the other, as his chest falls in and he sighs, reaching up to brush a curl from his face. “You can stay if you let me and Mum take you back to the hospital in the morning. Please.”
He doesn't want to go back, but the stupid thing about when you are in love is that you’ll do anything to please them and all he wants to do is please Nick. “Okay. Yeah.”
That’s apparently all the verbal agreement Nick needs, as a sad smile flutters over his face and he pulls him close. “Good.”
(Nick’s bed is still cramped, but it’s a godsend compared to the hospital bed he’d withering on for weeks and smells like Nick too, all saltwater toffee and grass and laundry powder - Charlie wishes he could bottle it up and make it into a candle sometimes.
Now he’s got TOP stuck in his head, Great. Hopefully, they’ll fade like everything does as he sleeps with his head on Nick’s chest, listening to his heartbeat as he drifts off.)
~ 3. ~
The third time is far more deliberate, as it’s practically the last time they are going to see eachother for a while and he can’t bring himself to let go.
They’ve just had a party, 3 in fact.
The first one was for Elle earlier in the day, who has graduated from Higgs and is heading off to Central St Martins come Spring (Charlie’s going to miss her so much, not as much as Tao, however, which he knows), the second was for Tori - a brief affair, as she's never been one of big things and the last for Nick later in the night with just his Mum and him present, as he’s heading off to the University of Leeds in only a couple of months as well, leaving Charlie alone and hopeless like a stone at the bottom of a rather shitty garden.
It’s not Nick’s fault that Charlie’s feeling so low. He’s 17, almost 18 now. He’s a fully grown man who can make his own decisions and Charlie would never in a million years tell him otherwise what to do and what not to do, but knowing he’s going to be without him soon just never gets easier and he knows Nick can see this for he’s always hovering now.
It’s the same in the current present, as all their friends collectively have gone, but Charlie can't bring himself to step outside. Not like he /was/ going to anyway, but he knows that seeing him stand there frozen on the landing isn’t a good sight for either of them.
He wanted not to be a kid about this. He wanted to play the role of a 16-year-old just leaving a party, going home for the night, typical teen behaviour. Instead, he finds himself playing the real role he’s been cast in, the 16-year-old whose boyfriend of almost a year and a half is leaving for university 4 hours away in 2 weeks and unable to take him with him in his suitcase or packing boxes.
The statement is so emotionally charged that it’s enough to make a grown man cry and while Charlie’s not grown, he can certainly cry and so can Nick, for before they are aware of it, they are embracing in the hall of Nick’s house, their shadows cast by the pendulous soft yellow light from the staircase above them as they sob into each other's shirts, helpless.
(Eventually, Sarah closes the door as the house’s heating system is having a fit and sits them down to force-feed them tea, which seems to mend a little bit of the brokenness inside of both of them before they are in Nick’s bed again, so close to each other that the bed almost feels like the door raft from the Titanic in a horrifying way.
Charlie silently hopes as his ability to dream ducks out on him and leaves him in depressing pitch blackness for the rest of the night that this doesn’t end the same.)
~ 4. ~
The fourth time is also intentional, but a lot more comical instead of curtailed. It’s been almost 6 months since Nick packed up his entire life and moved to Leeds. Charlie’s obviously seen him a couple of times in person since then, but most of their interactions are usually through Facetime or constant messaging.
That changes today, however, as Charlie’s on half-term break and there is only one place he wants to go.
It doesn’t start off the greatest, his plan to surprise the hell out of an unsuspecting Nick Nelson. At first, he accidentally got on the wrong train and made a detour to Oxford to go back, then he split the coffee he got from a local shop down the front of his jeans. Then he also has to run back to said local shop to grab his weekender because he put it down while he was paying and forgot to pick it back up again.
He also may have tripped over in that time, leaving him quite embarrassed and a little more muddy than he intended to be while wearing a white shirt, so it’s just his luck when he finally gets to Nick’s on-campus halls and finds his door locked.
He doesn’t have to be a genius to know where the other is. He’s obviously at practice given he joined the university rugby team like the moment he got here.
This means Charlie will be standing here for almost 2 hours, so he kind of ruins the surprise out of fear he might get cast out, misidentified as a vagrant by the campus police.
Then again, it’s actually quite funny seeing Nick not answer back his quite witty message announcing his presence, followed by an image of him putting his finger up at the door, before he’s suddenly flying into the courtyard like a bird headed for a window and also managing to do some tripping, becoming covered in mud himself.
Well, more mud than he was /already/ covered in.
Charlie can’t help but laugh-cry as it’s been so long and while Nick scowls rearing up from the ground, his arms, hands and then lips are all over Charlie, almost drawing out the coolness that the muid provides and leaving the spots they touch with wet heat that’s making Charlie’s knees weaker than normal and his breath stuttering in the cold morning air.
(The behaviour just gets worse as they get inside and despite the showers they take separately to somehow clean themselves after saying hello to each other a frankly overwhelming number of times, eventually, the rather disgusting sofa that makes the Year 12 break rooms look like suites in the Ritz is being used as a makeout spot.
The bed is not a bad spot to make out either, Charlie also finds out.)
~ 5. ~
The fifth and last time is the most prominent in Charlie’s mind, as that day is filled with a lot more memories than others have been. It’s a day of firsts, for all of them. For his parents, it’s their first son leaving home. For Nick, it’s his first boyfriend graduating. As for him, it’s his first-ever apartment and his first-ever time moving, which scares the bejeesus out of him, but he swallows it mostly down.
He’s known it’s been coming, Countless hours of hunting from this street to that street and do you think it’s too small? Too big? Can it fit this or can it fit that? There was a lot riding on this, but Charlie’s comfortable with the one they picked.
It’s a drafty, weatherboarded little thing, one of only a few on the outskirts of the university with easy transport in and out of the city, beside an allotment and a bunch of other things all crammed in a chuck of decently marketed Leeds real estate. It's just 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and the view of a brick wall thanks to the shop next door, but Charlie loves it.
Thankfully Nick does too, as it’s not long before he’s also there, unpacking his own belongings to mix in with the ones Charlie hasn’t left behind. There wasn’t any world where Charlie would ever live on his own, even just for a little while.
So in true fashion, this is officially his and Nick’s home here for the foreseeable future.
Soon enough, there are boxes on boxes smashing both of their worlds together again and while they attempt to make quick work of most of them, not all of them get done until a few days later and despite Charlie’s MUSIC sign being crooked (only slightly) and Nick’s terrible charity shop sense kicking in when they realized they didn’t have a coffee table (honestly, he wanted to come with him, but he guesses the giant old green trunk matches that disgusting sofa they also took and it’s 85 quid too late now to take it back), everything finds a place.
They both collapse from exhaustion straight after this is realized and equally, look around admiring their handiwork before looking at eachother and grinning, Charlie’s head resting on Nick’s shoulder as the other pulls his phone out to order them Chinese, the TV sitting on a row of cardboard boxes entertaining as they tuck into their hard-earned meals. Even if they don’t exactly finish everything in favour of other activities.
(Another investment made that Charlie doesn’t regret making is pooling their money together early on to buy a fucking queen-sized bed. After screwing around on single beds for almost 2 years, the bed they both hauled in from 2 floors down by themselves and retired to that night feels like an ocean with how much room there is, but it doesn’t stop them from curling up together like two cats on a warm spot in the sun.
Charlie’s heart is finally, blessedly full and it steadily remains that way for good.)
~ +1. ~
He can see him in the doorway as he ignores him, looking down at Adrianna as she suckles from her bottle where they are curled up in bed. Bastard. He almost wants to sneer, but refrains for her sake as her big, blue eyes look up at him, the little one’s face a tonic for any anger fizzling and bubbling under the surface of Charlie’s skin as the tension builds up again, like the feeling you get just before a rollercoaster goes down.
They’d had a fight. It was a bad one. Something stupid that someone had said to Charlie on their date night that had caused Nick to get heated and embarrass the both of them. He’d had to drag Nick home from the pub they had landed in for dinner after the play they went to go see in London, arguing the entire time while they were driving until Charlie had enough and abandoned the older boy a fair way from home before picking up Adrianna from the babysitters and driving back to their apartment where Henry, their pug, was waiting.
He doesn’t mean to, but the guilt gives chase after the adrenaline wears off and by the time Nick’s finally entered the apartment, it’s almost 1 am and Charlie’s hands are shaking. Thankfully, Adrianna hasn’t seemed to notice and continues to feed as elegantly as a baby really can, even as Nick’s presence in the doorway puts Charlie on edge.
He doesn't know how long it takes, but there’s a gentle approach, the slick sounds of socks on the floor alerting him to such, before Nick is hesitantly sliding into his side of the bed, but not getting close to either of them, like he lost the privilege to do so somehow. It’s almost gratifying to see him so withered for once, if Charlie hadn’t already forgiven him the moment he crossed the threshold of their front door with Adrianna in hand hours earlier.
It’s silent for the longest time before Charlie, out of characterily, makes the first move and lets out an exhaustive sigh, head falling to Nick’s shoulder. Nick freezes up for a moment, like he’s been electrocuted by something, before the tightness leaves his body and her curls around them, still reeking of a bit too much alcohol for Charlie’s liking, rather quiet.
(It stays like that until Charlie puts Adrianna in her crib five feet away and they have a stern, but ultimately makeup moment on the mattress together, Nick making him forget everything that happened with his lips and then some as he’s sobered up a little, their shared existence together just too much of a good thing to let a silly little fight break them up.
“There’s only one ending to our story, Char-” Nick whispers to not wake the little one after having been crying his heart out to Charlie for forgiveness, his voice soft and groggy thanks to the slight slur front the beer while his arms clung to him in the darkness of their house and bedroom. “-and that’s us living happily ever after, yeah?”
Yes. Yes it is and always will be.)