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Half asleep on his bed, Charlie could hear the light beeping of the keypad outside his dorm room. He knew it was Nick finally coming home as Nick was the only one with the code to his door, but also because of the odd rhythms he always used to punch in the numbers, in 3s instead of 2s. Charlie marveled at him every time Nick came round. He couldn’t imagine doing anything without it being in multiples of two.
At first, Charlie was comforted by the fact that he was about to see his loving boyfriend. But as Nick punched in the last numbers, panic surged through Charlie's body. He had promised himself he would feel better by the time Nick got back. He had a huge exam that day for his bio-chem class. Charlie couldn’t put this on him. Not then. He tried to get up, to pull himself together and stand up to greet his hardworking man. But he couldn't. He just couldn’t get out of the bed.
So he did the next best thing and pretended to be asleep as the door swung open.
“Charlie, baby,” Nick called off softly, seeing that the big light was off. “Did you fall asleep?” he asked. Charlie listened as Nick kicked off his shoes and put them by the door in their spot. He tried not to react to the sounds, but it was hard not to flinch when he didn’t know when the thud of the lab safe shoes would clang around the room.
“Love?” Nick cooed. Charlie felt the bed sink beneath him and soon enough there was a hand on his back. He tried not to lean into Nick's touch and prove he was awake. Perhaps it was his stillness that gave him away, as Nick said, “Charlie, I know you’re awake.”
Charlie let out a groan as he let his eyes flutter open. Even the soft light of the lamp on the other side of the room felt too much for him.
“Hi,” he croaked. He was pitiful. He knew that.
“Hi baby,” Nick said with a little smile,”What’s wrong?”
“Nothing” Charlie lied. He brought his hands up to his eyes to rub the sleep away but it didn’t work. “Just closed my eyes for a second. How was your exam?”
“I think it went well,” Nick said skeptically. Charlie couldn’t tell if his hesitation was about Nick's test or Charlie's well-being.
“That's good.” Charlie tried to smile but he was sure it looked more like a grimace.
“But you don’t look well,” Nick quickly followed up. He felt Charlie's forehead to see if it was a fever. “Is it your body or your head?”
“Nothing's wrong,” Charlie protested. There was more anger in his voice now. He turned away from Nick and faced the wall. He didn’t even know why Nick's questions were making him so angry. He loved when Nick doted on him, took care of him. And the whole reason he was pretending to be fine was to not make a scene. But here he was, making one anyway.
“I don’t believe you,” Nick insisted. He placed a hand on Charlie's back, and it took everyone in him not to shove it away. He knew by now the difference between a comforting touch and a gentle hand counting just how much of his spine was poking out. But now he couldn’t tell. It was like everything was a mystery. His feelings, Nick's feelings, they were all hidden behind a hazy cloud.
“I just had a shit day that’s all,” Charlie said, reaching for the blankets. “I'll be fine.” Nick was silent for a moment. Charlie prayed to every god he could think of that Nick wasn’t going to ask the one question he couldn’t answer.
“Have you eaten today?” There it was. Charlie kept his mouth shut. If he spoke it would just make it worse. “Char, baby, have you eaten yet today?” Nick gently grabbed his shoulders and flipped Charlie around in the bed. “Anything? An energy bar? Some candy? don’t care how small it was.”
Charlie pondered his response. He could lie, say he went to the dining hall with friends, or had some ramen, but both of those options were easy to disprove. He could make up something about picking up a toffy from office hours, but Nick would see right through that. Eventually, he overthought it so much, that he couldn’t control the words that spilled out of his mouth.
“Look, it's not like I have to eat every day.” That was definitely the wrong thing to say.
“Yes, you do, Charlie,” Nick sighed, trying to catch Charlie's eyes. “you need to eat, you know that,”
“I'm fine for a couple days without food,” he insisted, “anyone can go a couple days without food, it’s just science.”
“You’re not fine when you don’t eat,” Nick tried to remind him. His voice was stern, but not mean. Not as mean as Charlie's voice. He hated how poorly he was treating Nick but he didn’t know how to stop. “Your blood sugar tanks, you pass out, you get dehydrated, and you end up in hospital.”
“I'm different,” Charlie insisted, sitting up in bed. He ignored the dots floating around his vision. “That might happen to some people, but not to me.”
“I’m not talking about some people, Charlie, I'm talking about you.”
Charlie didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t even know how to exist in the moment. So he just sat there, until his cheeks were wet with tears.
“I know,” he whispered. He drew his knees up to his chest and hugged himself, knowing there was no way Nick would want to hold him after how terrible he’d been after the most stressful exam of the year.
“What’s got you feeling like this love?” Nick asked. He put his hand on Charlie's knee. Charlie’s lips began to tremble. He was afraid if he spoke he would start sobbing. Nick didn’t deserve such theatrics from him, he certainly didn’t deserve the emotional release of tears. But it happened anyway.
“I don’t know,” he choked. “nothing happened. My classes were fine, everyone was nice, I just…” Nick gave him space to finish, but scooted just a bit closer. Both of his hands were on Charlie's legs now. “I just woke up this morning and I couldn’t do it. I felt like,” he stopped himself, knowing what he was going to say was stupid. Nick just kept rubbing his knees, looking at him with loving eyes. “Like it was going to kill me. The food, it was going to erode my stomach and leak stomach acid into my bloodstream and it was going to kill me. And I was right, I ate yesterday and my body feels like shit now.” He began crying harder, which only made him feel worse.
“Charlie,” Nick sighed, taking his head in his hand.
“I’m so scared Nick,” he sobbed, “I don’t know what to do.” At his words, Nick couldn’t hold back anymore and pulled Charlie into his arms. The younger boy clung to him. Nick, his best and longest life-raft. “I tried to make myself sick, but nothing came up. It’s going to kill me, and I don’t want to die anymore.” Nick's t-shirt quickly became damp with tears.
“You’re not going to die,” he said, holding Charlie tightly. “there was nothing wrong with the food. It’s not going to kill you. Not eating will be what kills you.”
“You don’t know that,” Charlie protested, flipping from sad and scared to angry again in less than a second. “You can’t know that. There could have been salmonella or e coli or mad cow.”
“I know that not eating is far more dangerous than eating and taking the risk of contracting a rare infection,” Nick reassured him. “I know that the food we ate yesterday was safe and clean.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” Charlie shouted.
“That’s true,” Nick said in a calm voice. “but I know that I'm not feeling sick. Nor are any of our friends who ate the same thing. I know no announcement has been made by the dining hall about a foodborne illness outbreak. I know there are no current recalls.”
“Then why am I feeling like such shit?” Charlie asked, “Why won’t you believe me?”
“I believe that this is very true in your head. What’s real in there, doesn’t always match up with what's real out here .” Nick began to stroke Charlie's face, trying to bring him back to earth. “Do you remember the exercise we learned from the hospital therapist, Check The Facts?”
“What if the facts are wrong?”
“They’re not, that’s why they are called facts.” This elicited a tiny giggle from Charlie, signaling to Nick that he was on the right track. “You feel poorly because it’s been over 24 hours since you've eaten anything. You’re running on empty. You can’t think straight with nothing in your system.”
“ But I've always done this,” Charlie said quietly.
“Yah, and babe until you started getting better, you always felt like shit,” Nick reminded him
“And I never think straight, so I don’t think eating is going to help.”
“Charlie,” Nick sighed as he repositioned himself and the younger boy so he could hold him and look him in the eyes at the same time. “I know you don’t want to eat right now. I know it’s scary and I know it feels like your world might end. And I know arguing with me about it seems like a good way to prevent eating for longer. But you need to at least try to eat something. Your body doesn’t handle starvation as well as it used to, and frankly, you’re scaring me Char.” Charlie didn’t know how to respond to Nick's words. The whole conversation felt surreal. He didn’t even want to be arguing with Nick, he didn’t understand why he was in the first place. But he didn’t know how to stop and he sure and hell didn’t know how to eat. So he stayed quiet.
“I know you can do it,” Nick said so softly. “And I'll be right there next to you, the whole time.” Nick cupped his cheek and stroked his jawline. Like it always did in moments like these, something inside Charlie broke. All the anger left his body and he fell apart.
“I’m so sorry.” It wasn’t angry tears flowing now, but tears of deep upset. “Tonight was supposed to be about you. I was going to help you relax after your test, but I've gone and made it all about me again.” Nick pulled the small boy onto his lap and cradled him, wiping the tears away and kissing his head.
“It’s okay, don’t worry about me,” Nick said. “I'm okay.” His hands began to travel over Charlie's back. He knew that this touch, in his hunched position, was a spine check. It was Nick trying to figure out just how worried he should be, how many meals Charlie had been skipping without telling him. He couldn’t even be upset at him for it. Charlie knew it was warranted. “If you really want me to relax, please eat something Char.” Charlie hated when Nick pulled the eat-for-me-2014-tumblr-bullshit, but it always worked. He would do anything for Nick.
“Okay,” he sniffled. “I'll try.”
“Thank you, love. I'm so proud of you.” Nick pressed a long kiss into Charlie's forehead. The younger boy made a small, broken sound, from the back of his throat. “Would ramen be okay?”
Charlie nodded, scared to use his words.
“Would you like me to make it for you, or do you want to do it?”
“You make it,” Charlie mumbled. After a moment, they stood up off the bed and walked across the tiny room to the closet, where they kept the contraband electric kettle. They both knew Charlie would never eat if he had to go all the way to the kitchen. Charlie clung to Nick's hand the whole time, moving to his middle when he needed both hands to pull out the bowl and put on the water. When the soft sounds of the kettle filled up the room, Nick turned around in Charlie's arms to wipe another tear from his cheek. They moved toward each other instinctively, and soon were locked in a soft kiss. Charlie only began to cry harder at the love he could feel radiating off of nick. At first, Nick tried to wipe the tears off his face, but soon enough Nick was crying too and there was no point. They broke apart at the snap of the kettle, but stood there for a minute longer, foreheads pressed together, breathing with each other. Charlie was still horribly afraid to eat, but he felt less explosive with Nick's hands on his hips.
“I have to make the ramen now baby,” Nick whispered. They were so close his lips brushed against charlie’s when he spoke. Charlie whined, not wanting to let go. “Do you want to sit down or stay with me?” Charlie liked when Nick laid out all the options. He couldn’t always figure out what to do when he was upset.
“Stay here,” he said, pulling Nick tighter. This time, it wasn’t a diversion tactic not to eat, he just didn’t want to let go.
“I do have to turn around though,” Nick said with a smile. Charlie loosened his grip enough to let Nick turn towards the counter, before wrapping his arms around him again, and hurrying his face in the back of Nick's sweatshirt. He could hear the clink of the fork and the crunch of the ramen as Nick stirred it in. In the moment of silence while they waited for the ramen to cook, Nick stroked Charlie's hands and muttered sweet nothing after sweet nothing. Soon enough the ramen was done and Nick was leading Charlie to the empty spot on the floor where he liked to eat. He never ate in his bed, never.
Normally, they would sit facing each other, but Nick knew that wouldn’t do with Charlie’s mental state. So, he set down the bowl and pulled Charlie into his lap, where he could eat surrounded by Nick's love and support. Normally, they would have talked or played a game while they ate. Intense distraction from meals is not ideal in recovery. But that wasn’t possible. If Charlie was going to eat, he couldn’t have space to think about all the germs and toxins and calories and cholesterol. So, Nick pulled out Charlie's laptop and booted up his favorite television obsession, an American medical drama. Nick glanced at the description quickly to make sure the episode didn’t deal with an anorexic patient or mass contamination.
Halfway through an episode about a car crash victim whose arm needed amputation and a mystery heart attack in a 9 year old, the bowl was almost empty. They had been taking turns, charlie feeding himself for a few bites, Nick taking charge when he couldn’t. Charlie had to take several breaks to do breathing exercises or just hide in the crook of Nick's neck. But just as the patient woke up from surgery on the show, the bowl was void of noodles. Charlie hadn’t had much of the broth, but nick didn’t feel like fighting that battle. There was food in Charlie's belly. that’s all that counted.
“How are you feeling, baby?” Nick asked. Charlie took a deep breath, set the cup down, and rested his head in his hands. Nick rubbed his back and waited patiently for an answer.
“Really bloated” Charlie said through his hands. “and scared and guilty and all the things I always feel after I eat.” He looked up with weary eyes. “but I don’t feel as poorly, I guess.”
“That's good,” Nick encouraged him. “That means your body needed it.” Charlie slumped over onto him.
“I hate having a body,” he said into Nick's shirt.
“I know baby,” Nick said. He moved his hands up and down Charlie's arms, with just enough pressure to help him feel safe.
“Can we move up to the bed now?” Charlie asked, his voice breaking silently.
“Of course.” Nick kissed his hairline and moved the laptop to the edge of the bed. Charlie slowly stood up and fell on-top of the covers, exhausted from the whole ordeal. Nick put the kettle back in the closet and grabbed out an extra blanket so Charlie could be warm without having to move.
As he settled in next to his boyfriend, piling layers on top of the frail boy, Nick looked down at the bowl of broth on the floor. He liked to do dishes as soon as possible, but it would have to be a morning problem. Then, all that mattered to him was making sure Charlie felt safe.
Charlie curled into him. Even if he could bind their bodies together, they still wouldn’t feel close enough. Nick, trying to relax him, let his hands wander to all of Charlie's comfort spots. The small of his back, his earlobes, the base of his neck, and slowly Nick felt him relax.
By the end of the episode, both boys were sound asleep, not thinking about what other horrors tomorrow may bring.