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Charlie can smell dinner wafting out into the shared corridor before he even gets his key into the lock.
His stomach rumbles, but instead of feeling hungry, he just feels sick. Like his internal organs are covered in a thick sludge and are slowly hardening because they were left outside during an unforgiving January cold snap. The thought of eating food makes him want to rip his face off and throw it in the murky puddle that he had just stepped in on his way back to the flat from work.
“Char!” Nick shouts merrily over the cacophony of a timer beeping somewhere, the vent hood on its highest setting, and the classical reimagining of pop hits playing from his laptop. The man’s smile alone could thaw the most frozen-solid of uliginous innards to at the very least a squelchy level so that their owner is able to digest a meal. That’s the power and warmth of a Nick Nelson grin. The blonde wipes his hands on the dainty flowered apron he wears then shuts off the deafening air circulation. “The lasagna has about five minutes left to cook, and then it needs to cool for a bit. Care for some wine?”
Nick glides over to where Charlie toes off his sodden work shoes, and once he’s set his bag and keys down, wraps him in a patented Nick Nelson hug. If the man’s smile wasn’t enough to soften Charlie’s insides, the embrace melts him like butter.
Charlie’s boyfriend knows better than to ask about his day right as he enters their flat. The man needs some transition time from workday to commute to home. Lately, his emotions feel heavier and more gelatinous anyway, and being reminded of the bad shit that may have occurred sends wobbly bitter-tasting ripples throughout their evenings. So Nick lets his boyfriend bring up whatever he'd like to mention about his day, and trusts that Charlie will work through undiscussed events and feelings in his own time, either by himself, together, or with Geoff.
After a smooch on his weather-dampened curls, Nick pours two glasses of wine while Charlie washes up and changes into one of his old band t-shirts. Reemerging from their bedroom, he accepts his drink tentatively, knowing that any more than a few sips of alcohol will go straight to his brain and make his thoughts fuzzy and even meaner and more self-critical than they already are.
“I’m not really hungry, to be honest.” Charlie states dejectedly after Nick silently asks the question while removing the expertly browned and bubbling dish from the oven. He places it on the countertop. With what Charlie hopes is a glimmer of positivity, he adds, “You have some, though!”
In lieu of a verbal response, Nick pulls him into another hug. A cloak of gentle understanding, of all-encompassing comfort shrouds Charlie as he relaxes into the solid embrace.
"Maybe you'll be ready to eat in a few minutes, once it's cooled?" Nick whispers into Charlie's temple.
"Probably not," Charlie replies softly into Nick's shoulder. He clasps his hands around his boyfriend’s waist, encouraging Nick to come even closer and press his torso against his own.
Nick allows a few unhurried moments to pass before beginning the couple’s now-nightly dance of how best to support Charlie’s need to eat. First, he offers to fix him a plate which he can eat while Nick makes himself scarce. Forgoing a shared meal is the most straightforward solution, since Charlie's misophonia has spiked in recent weeks, contributing another layer of disgusting sensory hell to his avoidance of eating. Charlie has made it abundantly clear that it's nothing to do with Nick, or how he eats (although the loaf does sometimes chew rather sloppily when he's especially ravenous), but with the way that Charlie's brain is wired. Sounds associated with food cause a trigger in his central auditory system, sometimes even leading to a full-blown meltdown, such as when his otherwise lovely officemate slurps her lunchtime instant ramen loudly and repeatedly and insistently enough that even earplugs can't block out the noise.
Watching others eat is even worse. The way they carelessly let crumbs tumble onto the table before them, the way that grease collects at the corners of lips, the way that particles of food slip off of utensils when they're used imprecisely. If Charlie were normal , he unhelpfully reminds himself, he wouldn't even notice how others eat. But the fact that he does leads him to believe deep down that others watch him eat in return. The thought of someone paying attention to the number of times he chews a bite before swallowing, or how much salad dressing he does or doesn’t use, is enough stress to make Charlie want to walk into the ocean.
Logically, he knows this is untrue. But mental health disorders don't follow logic.
Nick rubs a slow circle over Charlie's upper back, guiding him back to the moment as if he knew that Charlie was replaying bad memories from the day. "What about dinner in bed? We can watch TV?"
Charlie shakes his head. Sometimes he needs to focus on eating. Other times, he welcomes the distraction of shitty sitcom reruns. But right now, each option sounds less appealing than the other.
“Would you rather have ice cream for dinner?”
Charlie frowns and pulls away from the embrace. “Nick! You put in all this work to make us a nice meal." He surveys the kitchen, noting several pots and pans on the dish-drying rack. "You even made the sauce from scratch, I can tell!”
Nick pulls his smile to the side, lips pressed together tightly as if he’s not really in the smiling mood. He shakes his head and responds, “Doesn’t matter. We can parcel it up and freeze it. Hell, we can throw it away. I don’t care.”
So much goes unspoken in that flippant suggestion. It's like the hours of his life wasted just for Charlie's sake mean absolutely nothing to Nick. The implication is that it’s not about the food, really; it’s about pulling out all the stops to try and help his partner.
It’s bad again. It must be, if Nick is reacting so unremittingly to Charlie's current aversion to food.
It wasn’t bad for a really, really long time. But it’s bad again.
It’s not like Charlie doesn’t know he needs to eat. That’s a fact of being human. Humans eat food. They have to. Obviously.
And it’s not that Charlie doesn’t have a wonderful network of support around him, no matter what his needs are or how they change day to day. Darcy drove him to an emergency therapy appointment two days prior, and waited in the car for the entire hour. Elle made ta'ameya with him the previous weekend when he needed to occupy his brain while desensitizing himself to being around food again. Not a single friend of Charlie’s questions or comments on his food choices or ritualistic behaviors.
Of course, Charlie’s rock, his load-bearing support beam, is Nick. Kind, respectful, intuitive, loving, nurturing, benevolent Nick. His homemade meals helped for a while; coming home to fresh pasta or flavorful curry and rice made the necessary evil of eating a hell of a lot easier to stomach.
But after a few weeks of that special treatment, even Nick Nelson' greatest hits weren’t enough to pique Charlie’s appetite. He began eating the meals out of a sense of obligation to his boyfriend, rather than enjoyment and conscious nourishment.
Then the desire to avoid disrespecting his partner, to not belittle all his unwavering hard work in helping Charlie through this surprise relapse, up and vanished one day. He sat with Nick by candlelight as the blonde scarfed the sausage and kale quiche he’d prepared. As they chatted idly about their days, he surely noticed that Charlie wasn’t eating, but said nothing. In fact, he didn’t once look at Charlie’s plate, nor the fork he fiddled with instead of using to pierce a bite of the theoretically delicious, but sensorially revolting meal Nick had toiled over.
All Charlie could think was: it’s so easy for him. He will never get it.
Which is partially true, as Geoff mentions often. People who don’t experience eating disorders will never truly know what it’s like to have one. But that doesn’t mean that those people can’t act with empathy, the therapist is always quick to follow up with.
“How about a Special?” Nick offers with a touch of hope in his voice, once again easing Charlie back to the present moment. Charlie can only shake his head in response. Not even his safest of safe foods sounds remotely digestible.
Charlie can sense the exasperation as Nick rubs a hand over his face then through his hair. He takes a deep breath, which to some might indicate a fight is about to break out. But Charlie trusts that Nick would never pick a fight about food, especially at this moment.
“I’m worried that you haven’t eaten anything today,” Nick states calmly, his voice soothing over Charlie’s frazzled brain like a spoonful of honey melting into hot tea.
Charlie glances down at his socked feet. “I know.”
Another sigh, and then the blonde huffs a quick laugh, almost imperceptible apart from the way his soft but strong stomach clenches as he puffs out the air. It catches Charlie’s attention, so he meets those golden-brown eyes, only to find them sparkling with a hint of mischief. “I do have one other idea.”
Charlie quirks an eyebrow. They’d already gone through the list of every single tactic Geoff had helped the two of them brainstorm for days like these. What else could Nick have thought of?
“I, um,” Nick rakes his fingers through his blonde hair again, pushing the longer pieces on top back and to the side, then toying with the finer hairs at the nape of his neck. His tell-tale nervous tic. “I wondered if maybe you, um…”
The younger man can hardly bear how cute and bashful his boyfriend is acting. It’s not like they haven’t seen each other at their worst, or as if they have any secrets between them. “Nick? What is it?” he grins as he zeroes in on a hug. Nick quickly rests his chin on the shorter man’s shoulder, and snakes his arms around his waist, which is getting thinner by the day despite all his hard work in recovery. Charlie’s eyes drift closed at the comforting contact.
Nick draws in a shallow breath, and whispers into Charlie’s ear, “What if you ate your dinner off of me?”
Charlie’s eyes shoot open. “What?!” he exclaims as he pulls his upper body away from Nick to look him in the eye.
Brown eyes dart between Charlie’s eyes and somewhere in the middle-distance behind him. “Y’know, I just…I know you like my belly. You really like it, actually, or at least that’s what it seemed like in bed last night,” a statement which causes a blush to bloom across both of the men’s faces. “So… I just thought that maybe it would, like, I don’t know, make you feel more comfortable than sitting at the table? Or be a new enough experience that your brain can override its patterns of avoidance? Obviously, you don’t have to do this, but it could-”
Charlie props himself up on his tiptoes and plants a chaste kiss on Nick’s mouth. “Yes. Okay.”
Shock splashes across Nick’s face before dissolving into a look of glee. “Well okay then! Let’s go!” He extracts his arms from around his boyfriend and makes a break for the kitchen, grabbing the entire dish of layered pasta.
“W-wait, Nick. What’s the plan?” Charlie asks before clocking a sheepish grin on his partner’s face. Affection fizzes up from his chest and manifests as a knowing chuckle. “You’ve got a plan, haven’t you. Oh my god, you’ve been thinking about this!”
Before long, Nick is laid prostrate on the couple’s bed, stripped down to nothing but his black boxer briefs. Standing next to him, Charlie is a bit taken aback by how fluid and speedy his partner’s movements were to get into this position. He stares between the dish, the tableware, and the nearly naked hunk before him.
Charlie takes stock of a few of the innumerable features he loves and admires about his partner. The practice acts not as a means to compare his own body to his hot as fuck boyfriend, but rather to get out of his head about his own insecurities.
He starts with his shoulders. The broad, muscled shoulders that Nick can use to toss Charlie around, or lift him up piggyback-style to change the recessed light bulbs in the living room ceiling. They give way to soft upper arms that are so squeezable and perfect to cuddle up under.
His eyes float across his gorgeous collarbone to chiseled, smooth, delectable chest before drifting southward. Every single inch of Nick is beautiful. But right now, what Charlie is most attracted to is the proffered dinner plate: Nick’s belly. There are strong muscles hidden under the pale, hairless flesh, but the softness so unmistakably yummy that Charlie can’t help but smile when he’s given free reign of his boyfriend’s squishy, loveable midsection, is his favorite part of all.
“So, how do I…how do we…” Charlie struggles to find the words to the questions he can’t quite articulate. This is so different to anything they’d ever tried before. Well, except for the couple of encounters with chocolate sauce, though Charlie found that triggering enough as a sensual activity that they had abandoned that idea long ago.
“Well…” Nick begins, a mischievous grin once again spreading across his face, “you can put a few noodles right here,” he sucks in his belly to create a divot the perfect size for a small serving of food, “or you can be a little messier, and spread it all over,” he explains as he sweeps a large hand across his entire torso. In a much softer voice almost too shrinking to be heard he states, “Guess it depends if you want to use utensils or not.”
The earnestness written across Nick's face unlocks another guarded part of Charlie's psyche. His defenses had been built up over decades of criticism and judgment for his eating habits and peculiarities. But this goofy man is willing to have his body smeared with cheese and tomato sauce, just to try and put his partner at ease. Charlie cannot contain the delight that bursts through those mental bulwarks at the odd reminder of how deeply he is loved by his partner, who all these years later still somehow manages to find new ways demonstrating that care. A giggle bubbles out of him, which evokes a giggle from Nick, creating a feedback loop of relieved tension and acknowledgement of how weird but intriguing this activity is for the both of them.
"Ok, ok, uh…" Charlie gathers himself enough to consider his options, eyeing the full pan of lasagna that already feels slightly less daunting. After a steadying breath, he cuts a piece from a corner about half the size of a portion Nick would typically serve him. He assesses the practicality of cutting bites on Nick's tummy; he’d probably end up poking him with the fork in the process of trying to consume Nick's hard work. So Charlie cuts the slice into smaller pieces while it’s still in the dish.
"Are you sure?" Charlie checks in before transferring the steaming serving spoon full of food onto Nick's awaiting abdomen.
An enthusiastic nod invites him to gingerly place the mess of noodles, sauce, cheese, and chopped veggies into the hollow below his boyfriend's ribcage. A quiet hum lets Charlie know that the lasagna has cooled just enough to add pleasant warmth to Nick's skin. Upon placement, the layers topple toward Nick's navel. The wide sheets leave trails of red sauce in their wake. Bits of mushroom and spinach slump out from between the pasta and the cheese, with one small chunk rolling down the valley between two of Nick's ribs onto their fitted bedsheet.
The loudest part of Charlie's brain rationalizes that the sheets need to be changed anyway. However, the sloppy pile of food on Nick's bare body muffles the typically-overbearing voice, and instead encourages him to savor the visual and edible feast laid before him.
As Charlie takes in the vision, it doesn't go without notice that Nick is having a rather physical reaction to the pleasurable stimulus. In turn, Charlie considers that he himself not only feels hungry for the first time in ages, but that he actually is feeling a similar reaction brewing in himself.
"So, how do I …" Charlie starts to ask as he crawls onto the bed. He furrows his brow in ponderance, to which Nick grins so widely that his lips struggle against the threat of breaking open.
"Just, um…"
It seems the instigator of all of this is also at a bit of a loss for how to get started.
After another steadying breath, Charlie supposes there's nothing for him to do except dive in. With his body perpendicular to Nick’s, he leans forward and takes the mouthful of lasagna closest to his belly button. His lips sweep across the soft skin before wrapping around a manageable bit of filling. He closes his lips into a gentle kiss, feeling in awe of himself that he’s managed to willingly take a bite of food.
Nick’s entire body shivers as he sucks in a breath.
Charlie chews, and while he obeys the mental block he's intentionally put in place around the textural experience in his mouth, he feels something deep within his brain light up as he notices a hint of spice in the seasoning of the sauce Nick had prepared.
A quick glance to Nick's face reveals widening pupils and flushed cheeks. So Charlie goes in for another bite. This time, he grazes along his boyfriend's costal arch, leisurely chasing after a slippery noodle with his lips and tongue. After he successfully grasps it with his teeth, Charlie cleans up a bit of the sauce that he'd inadvertently spread. A wide lick evokes another tremble and a playful wriggle from the human dinner plate.
The meal then becomes a game of exploration. When Charlie nips at the soft flesh to go after a large bite of lasagna, Nick shudders and his breath hitches. Licking results in more wriggles at first, but as Nick grows accustomed to the sensation, he starts leaning into the tonguing to chase the feeling. A soft sucking of some saucy ricotta draws a surprising moan so erotic that Charlie suddenly needs to adjust himself before he can follow up with another cleansing lick.
However, when Charlie refocuses after a brief hiatus with his right hand to abate his pants situation, he is surprised to find that he's eaten the entirety of the lasagna he'd plated on his boyfriend.
Nick opens his eyes after a few seconds of inactivity to find Charlie mulling over the situation.
"Um," Charlie ponders with a slight tone of disbelief. "I'm…finished?" The muscles around Nick's eyes contract almost imperceptibly; Charlie can tell he wants to congratulate him, or at the very least smile proudly, but the hint of hesitancy in Charlie's voice makes him remain neutral. "I think that I'm, um, still hungry?"
Nick licks his lips, one of his many tells that he is trying to keep a poker face. Ruddy cheeks grow redder as he pulls a tight-lipped grin to the side. Nick is doing a terrible job at masking his enthusiasm for both Charlie wanting to eat more dinner, and that he wants to do so off of his body. That's all the permission Charlie needs to serve himself another helping.
As Charlie dishes himself up some more lasagna, he pretends to not notice Nick palming his own pants situation.
This time, Charlie is intentionally a little less careful about the placement of the food. He drops a large spoonful right onto the crest of his breastbone. On impact, layers slide every which way, much sloppier than before. Charlie doesn't hesitate to begin cleanup, taking bites of the dinner that he finds remarkably agreeable. He makes sure to pay special attention to the bit of ricotta that had ended up near one of Nick's nipples, taking his time to really make sure that no morsels of food would be left behind there. Feeling inspired, Charlie then also cleans off Nick's other nipple with small, quick strokes of the tongue, even though nothing had landed anywhere near it. Just for good measure.
Charlie briefly contemplates feeding Nick a bite of lasagna from his own mouth, but the thought of a mama bird regurgitating food for her young is not a thought Charlie needs to replicate during this sexy practice of eating disorder recovery.
The second portion of Charlie's dinner goes down even smoother than the first. Notably, he finds himself savoring even the textural components of the dish. Meanwhile, Nick is clearly enjoying the experience as well, as made abundantly obvious by the unabashed attention he is giving himself as Charlie licks his platter clean.
Having finally consumed calories for the first time all day, Charlie is understandably clear-headed and his mood leveled out. He turns his attention to the unsubtle show Nick is putting on for him, when he gets another idea.
"Hey, Nick?"
The blonde hums in response, preoccupied by his heightening arousal.
"Did you say we have ice cream?"
One beautiful brown eyes pops open, and he stutters a yeah through labored breaths.
"Could I, um, try eating some out of your belly button?"
Before Charlie can barely get his question out, Nick slams both of his hands onto the bed with an enthusiastic “YES!” implying that Charlie had better hurry to the freezer so they can both enjoy a little dessert.