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Perhaps it was rude to enter someone’s house and almost immediately flop face-down onto their sofa, but Nick was fairly sure that Charlie wouldn’t judge him that way, and allowed himself the luxury. As predicted, Charlie followed him into the room with nothing but a huffed laugh that held a vague note of concern.
“You okay?” Charlie asked.
Nick muffled a noise into the cushions, then twisted his head enough to make his hum audible and allow him to speak freely. “I’m gonna lay down and die for like half an hour, okay?”
Charlie returned a noise of protest, coming into Nick’s line of vision. With care, he slotted himself onto the edge of the sofa alongside Nick, wobbling precariously for a moment before Nick lifted himself enough to sling an arm over him. “No, not okay, actually. What’s happened?”
Nick pressed his face into the sofa again, only this time he could feel Charlie’s cheek against his. “Nothing, really.”
“Clearly, that’s a lie. Come on, out with it.”
“It’s fine.”
“Do you need me to kill someone for you?”
Nick snorted a laugh he didn’t have enough breath for, so he turned and pressed the sound to Charlie’s jaw. “Oh my God, no.”
Their noses bumped as Charlie turned to look at him. “Do you not think I could, Nicholas?”
“I’d just hope you wouldn’t, actually.”
“Fine,” Charlie sighed dramatically.
Nick pressed a kiss to his nearest dimple. “I appreciate the sentiment, though.” But he appreciated all of Charlie, always, so that wasn’t saying much. He sensed Charlie could tell, if the smile against his cheek was any indication. It was enough to make him want to forget what he’d been bothered about in the first place. It was also the perfect condition to get it off his chest.
Charlie scratched through Nick’s hair and tilted his head towards him, patiently waiting, already knowing Nick had made up his mind and prepared to listen.
“Mum’s upset,” Nick eventually mumbled.
“What?” Charlie twisted bodily towards him, a frown forming between his brows. “What’s happened? Should you be at home? Did you want me to come with—”
“She’s upset with me.”
Charlie stopped as Nick burrowed his face in his shoulder. “What?” Nick made a hiccuping noise, and Charlie’s hand slipped into his hair. “Nick—hey.” Charlie massaged Nick’s scalp, pressed his thumb to Nick’s cheek, and didn’t relent until Nick turned towards him. Charlie’s expression was soft and concerned, but entirely understanding, patient, as Nick warred with the furls of frustration and tendrils of guilt in his chest.
Nick sighed out a breath and shifted onto his side, pressing back into the sofa. He kept an arm tightly around Charlie, first to prevent him from falling and then to draw him closer, giving him more room but not creating any between them. Charlie wriggled his shoulders into the new space and lay his arm over Nick’s, offering a gentle smile. Nick cleared his throat. “Do you remember David was supposed to come this weekend?”
“Yeah.” Charlie nodded, his gaze immediately turning sympathetic. “Did you have a fight?”
“No, no,” Nick assured, smoothing his hand down Charlie’s side. “He decided not to come.”
“Oh. Is that not a good thing?” Charlie furrowed his brow.
“Well, that’s kind of the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was exactly what I said, when Mum told me he wasn’t coming. Just ‘good’. And she just kind of…folded. Like she was so tired of it. And she said, ‘he’s your brother, Nicholas’.”
Charlie winced. “Full name.”
“Yeah.”
“She knows David’s horrible, though. Especially to you. Being your brother doesn’t make him less of a knob. If anything, it makes it worse.”
Nick trailed his fingers from Charlie’s hip to his ribs and back, rustling and bunching Charlie’s—Nick’s—jumper then smoothing it out again. “I know. I said that too. Or, well, not that exactly, but something similar. It probably would’ve been better if I’d said it like that.”
“I take it you mainly focused on the knob part.”
“Yup,” Nick popped the ‘p’. He sighed. “And she made the point that we’re both her sons and don’t I know it makes her feel horrible and…yeah.”
Charlie slipped his arm out from between them and under Nick’s head, and Nick went gladly, tucking himself into Charlie’s chest as Charlie cupped the back of his skull. “Then what happened?” Charlie prodded softly.
“I came here.”
“Oh.” Charlie’s fingers curled in his hair. “So that’s why you think she’s upset with you?”
Nick grasped at Charlie’s side, tucking his hand almost under Charlie to shift closer, blanketing him with a weight he would’ve been worried was too heavy if Charlie hadn’t assured him numerous times that he quite liked it, actually. He hooked his knee over Charlie’s for good measure, tucking his foot somewhere between Charlie’s ankles. “She’s right. She shouldn’t have to choose between us or be referee every time she’s with us both.”
“Nick,” Charlie said, in that impossibly soft way he always did when Nick was being especially pathetic or thick or both. “That isn’t your fault and I know for a fact your mum doesn’t think so, either.”
“We shouldn’t fight like we do.”
“And when have you ever been the one to pick a fight with David?” Charlie asked, a thread of spite slipping into his tone. As Nick tensed, Charlie let out a sigh and softened again, stroking his hand from Nick’s head down to his shoulders. “Nick. Come on, you know David’s the only reason there’s ever a problem. Your mum would never, ever blame you for it.”
Nick stayed silent.
Charlie quietly continued, contemplative. “It makes sense that she’s upset. You are both her sons and I’m sure she loves David, even though he’s a massive twat, because she’s the loveliest person ever. And it’s so obvious she loves you more than anything. Of course she’s going to want you to love each other.”
As if aware of Nick’s thoughts to that, Charlie tightened his hold on him. “He never has, though,” Nick voiced anyway, hardly more than a whisper, drowned out in his own ears by the beat of Charlie’s heart.
“If that’s true, it’s his loss,” Charlie returned, pressing a kiss to the top of Nick’s head. Nick hugged him just a bit tighter.
He found it a bit hard to believe, sometimes, considering. He’d never presumed David loved him, and he’d never been able to figure out why; he’d always been sure his father loved him, and then he fell to being a side character in Nick’s life. He’d been worried, then, when the people who were supposed to love him seemed not to get the memo.
But his mum had always been there to make up for it in spades. She’d brought him up and sent him out well enough that most people seemed to like him easily, attaching themselves to his easy smile and easy physicality and easy nature. All the things that his mum had instilled in him, that she’d told him she loved most about him, that she asked him to never lose.
Nick had never found it hard to keep being easy for her, in return. He’d never considered that his brother’s lack of love towards him made things more difficult for her.
“I want the same as her,” Nick admitted, quietly, to the only person he could—the one that loved him most, even through all their impossibly uneasy times. “But I can never get it for her, can I?”
Charlie pressed another kiss to his hair. “I wish you could,” he murmured, which was much kinder than saying no and yet weighed heavier on Nick’s chest. “But you can tell her that. I think she already knows, but I think she’d rather talk to you about that than curse David out with you.”
Nick let out a breath, slowly. “I don't want to make her feel worse.”
“Do you feel worse, having told me?”
Considering it properly, Nick paused before shaking his head.
“Exactly.” Charlie squeezed him. “Being honest about this won’t make anything worse, Nick. You and your mum have the best relationship. You can talk about anything. If she’s upset by it, you can work through that, too.”
Nick thought of crawling into his mum’s bed, one side cold and empty and him tearfully asking why, and her drawing him into her arms and telling him, honest but reassuring. He thought of sitting on the sofa with her every night for weeks on end, letting her pet through his hair as he petted Nellie and recounted to her everything Charlie had just relayed to him on the phone and how much it sucked. He thought of sitting across the table from her in their kitchen, hands clasped together and tears building behind his eyes and nerves crawling up his throat, and her wrapping him in her arms as always, tearful alongside him but saying, ‘Thank you for telling me’. Reminding him, ‘I love you’.
“I’ll talk to her,” Nick promised. “As soon as I get home.”
Charlie leaned down to kiss his forehead.
In a murmur, Nick added, “Can we stay here for a bit first, though?”
Charlie kissed him on the lips. “We can stay here as long as you like.”