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“This isn’t so bad now, is it Char?” Nick says, looking around.
They’ve had this holiday planned for a long time. Traveling to one of the Canary Islands in December might be an unusual choice but they had their reasons. For once, Charlie has a love-hate relationship with winter in the UK since it’s filled with short days and grey skies but he loves nothing more than being wrapped in blankets on the sofa with a cuppa and Nick cuddling him. Still, a change of scenery isn’t a bad idea. On top of that, with Charlie being in his last year of uni and Nick living back at Sarah’s during his gap year, they have been struggling to get any time alone. And, well, let’s just say that they love each other’s bodies as much as they love each other’s personalities…
So when Nick surprised Charlie with a trip to Lanzarote, funded by savings from his temp job and some help from Sarah, the curly boy was over the moon. Sure, it took a lot of convincing of Jane but they had known that would have been the case so they had come up with a detailed plan to show her why it was okay for them to go. So now that Charlie was finished with his exams for the year, and there was still a bit of time until Christmas, they could finally get away to a pleasantly warm island.
Charlie mumbles a ‘mhm’ to Nick before dramatically falling on the bed.
“Oh baby, are you still tired?” Nick inquires, sitting down on the bed next to his boyfriend and caressing his leg.
“Waking up at 3am to be crammed into a considerably small airplane for three hours is one of the worst things I’ve had to do,” Charlie says back deadpan.
“I know… the flight times were not the best. Sorry,” Nick’s face drops and he starts playing with his fingers.
“Hey now! No S word,” Charlie inserts, taking Nick’s hand into his and giving his knuckles gentle kisses. “I’m really excited to be here with you. I think I just need a nap to fight off this grumpiness, okay darling?”
“Of course. I’ll leave you for a bit and head to the beach. I might go for a swim,” Nick gets up and gives Charlie’s forehead a kiss.
“Oh no, that means I‘ll miss such a beautiful presentation…” Charlie replies with a smirk on his face.
“Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of chances to… explore each other’s bodies,” Nick says, his face now visibly red.
“CRINGE. You’re so cringe,” Charlie groans and rolls his eyes.
Nick snorts as he blows Charlie a kiss. “I’ll just go to the beach we passed when we were driving up here. Come find me if you wake up before I come back.”
Nick grabs his backpack and fills it with the beach essentials, almost forgetting to grab sunscreen and his life flashes in front of his eyes. Charlie would never let him live it down if he forgot to bring sunscreen.
🍂 🍂 🍂
When Charlie wakes up from his post-travel slumber, his body feels pleasantly numb. He’s not sure what it is about naps but they always feel better than a full night of sleep. He gets up and goes to the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face to refresh himself.
Feeling somewhat more awake, he changes into more weather appropriate clothing and puts sunscreen on before heading to the beach to find Nick.
Charlie spots Nick in a distance, laying flat on a towel, nothing but swimming shorts on and a cap covering his face.
IS THAT IDIOT SUNBATHING
Charlie’s wide awake now so he picks up his pace and starts speed walking towards Nick like a frustrated mama swan having to follow one of her wandering babies. As he gets closer to his boyfriend, Charlie sees what he feared would happen.
Now standing next to his boyfriend who’s clearly dozed off, with a bottle of sunscreen on his belly of all things! Charlie rolls his eyes and reaches into his tote bag to take out a water bottle. He opens it and with determination empties the still icy contents on his boyfriend’s torso.
“AAAAAAA” Nick screams as his body launches into the air, cap and the forsaken sunscreen bottle falling somewhere to the side.
“Good morning sunshine,” Charlie says, assuming the stern-parent-pose with hands on his hips.
Nick is now sitting on the sand with the towel clutched in his hands, trying to help with the sudden temperature change to his body.
“WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!”
“Because I’ve told you not to fall asleep in the direct sunlight!”
“I didn’t mean to!”
“You gave yourself a sunburn anyway!”
“But I applied sunscreen…” Nick says with confusion on his face.
“Sweetheart, sunscreen isn’t all and you’re practically transparent. You need to be more careful.”
“Oh my god.”
“What?”
Charlie lets out a massive snort and collapses on his knees.
“What is it?!”
“You—you’ve got,” Charlie tries to communicate something to Nick but the laughing has overtaken his body.
“You’ve got a dick on your abs!” he manages to spit out.
Nick is now majorly perplexed, his face resembling the one of his mother when he tried to tell her about Imogen asking him out, but he went the wrong way around it, confusing his poor mother with the talk of a dead dog.
He looks down on his body and quickly catches on what Charlie is referring to. There, on full display, is a patch of pale skin right where the sunscreen bottle laid. And it’s in the shape of a penis.
“Charlie, it doesn’t necessarily look like a penis!”
“Not by itself, but together with your pecs,” Charlie snorts again, “I can’t unsee it.”
“Oh my god, you’re right! CHAR WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO.”
Unfortunately for Charlie, Nick refused to take off his T-Shirts in the sun again for the remainder of the trip.