Chapter Text
It’s the only time it feels like there’s any point to any of it, really—when Ben takes from Charlie. Most days, Charlie feels like he was built just for this: to build other people up. It doesn’t matter who Charlie is because all he can do—all he was made to do—is give himself over at his own expense.
Dad says that Charlie’s power is love and that love is the greatest strength anybody could hope to have. But Charlie disagrees. Mostly, Charlie just thinks his power is the only thing that means he’s not completely useless.
He was a late bloomer to begin with. Most people manifest their powers roughly around the ages of nine to ten, some even earlier than that—some significantly earlier than that. Certainly, it’s abnormal not to start showing by the time someone is thirteen. But Charlie? He didn’t develop his until a few months ago. Seriously, it’s humiliating that Charlie’s six-year-old kid brother, Olly, discovered his magic last year, months before Charlie found his.
It’s not like Charlie can even do anything cool now that he has powers. He just feels pathetic compared to his best friends, for example. Isaac has intense focus and concentration; Tao is pretty much a walking human lie detector; Elle can morph her features to look like somebody else.
And Charlie’s sincerely happy for them—really, he is—especially for Elle, who came out as trans shortly after she manifested and has been using it to be female ever since. But he still feels like he’s so, so far behind them—
—because Charlie doesn’t really have abilities of his own. The only thing he can do is replenish other people if they overexert their powers and start running out of juice. That’s how it works: you get to have powers, but only in moderation, and your abilities start to falter if you rely on them too much.
But not if you use Charlie to recharge. And Ben’s been doing exactly that the whole time they’ve been together.
Charlie can’t even call them “together,” really, because Ben cut him right down when Charlie tried calling their arrangement “boyfriends” and only ever wants to see Charlie for minutes at a time when they’re completely alone. To the rest of the world, Ben acts like Charlie doesn’t even exist. But there are these precious few minutes scattered throughout each week when Ben kisses Charlie until neither of them can breathe, and in exchange, Charlie lets Ben juice up all he wants.
That’s the number one rule to Charlie: you’re never, never, supposed to use your powers on somebody else without their consent. Unfortunately, Charlie sometimes seems to be the only one who cares.
But it’s different with Ben. There are a lot of bullies like Harry Greene who try to corner Charlie so that they can recharge from him without his permission, but Ben? Ben actually gives back something in return. Sometimes, Charlie even thinks Ben wants it, if not as much as Charlie does.
The bell rings, and Ben detaches himself from the crook of Charlie’s elbow. That’s another thing about him: he’d get the most power from using Charlie’s neck, but it would leave a mark, and Charlie tries not to advertise that he’s letting anybody draw from him. So Ben goes where Charlie can cover it up. It probably helps him as much as it helps Charlie, if Charlie’s being honest, to keep it secret, because that avoids questions, and Ben doesn’t like questions. Ben doesn’t want anyone to know anything at all, especially about what he’s doing in exchange for Charlie’s power.
It makes Charlie feel a little conflicted, actually, because consent is so, so important to him—and yet everything about Ben’s power goes against what Charlie believes. What really sucks is that Charlie’s willingly making Ben’s power stronger. Ben’s able to distort other people’s thoughts: specifically, to manipulate them into not noticing or remembering that certain things they’ve seen or heard with their own senses can be believed. Charlie knows Ben has used it on him, even, because there are times the effects wear off and Charlie realizes he’d spent a whole hour or day or even several days totally ignorant to the fact that Ben has ever kissed him. But then he remembers, and it’s always when Ben comes back. Ben never comes back until he remembers.
But it seems Ben doesn’t want to use it on Charlie today—wants to conserve his strength for something else—because he straightens up and Charlie still knows exactly what Ben was doing three minutes ago before he started charging. “Right, then,” says Ben, wiping his mouth clean with his fingers. “Same time tomorrow?”
xx
Mr. Lange has seated Charlie next to Nick Nelson in form this term, and Charlie is sweating bullets.
It’s not just that Nick is a king at rugby and the most popular boy in his year. It’s not even just that Nick is gorgeous, although that certainly contributes. No: the main point is that Charlie knows what Nick’s power is and is terrified of it.
After all, the thing Charlie cares about most in this whole entire world is consent, and just like Ben’s, Nick’s power seems to go right against that, too. Everybody knows that Nick is an empath and can feel other people’s emotions. And sometimes—most of the time, if Charlie’s being honest—he’s got no desire for anybody to know any of what’s happening inside his head, not even when he’s happy, not even on good days. Of course, he doesn’t have a lot of those, and that makes Nick’s power all the more terrifying.
So when Charlie sits down next to Nick in form on the first day back from Christmas break, he’s so nervous, he thinks he might puke. Worse, he’s positive that Nick can feel it on him.
But Nick doesn’t react with disgust or smugness or anything like that. Mostly, Nick just looks kind of constipated.
“Hi,” Nick chokes out.
And what else is Charlie supposed to do? He chokes out right back, “Hi.”
And he sits, and he goes the whole period without saying another word.
xx
It continues like that for a few days as Charlie’s nerves slowly, slowly, start to dissipate. If Nick can sense any of what’s happening in Charlie’s head, he doesn’t say a word about it. It makes Charlie feel a little safer, like maybe it is possible to protect himself around Nick.
And then Nick’s fountain pen breaks.
“I’m so sorry,” says Nick, and he holds up his hands, absolutely covered in blue ink. “You don’t have a tissue, do you? My pen just exploded.”
Charlie’s mouth hangs open stupidly for a second, and then he realizes and closes it. He feels sort of like a fish. An idiot, powerless, pathetic fish that can’t breathe on dry land. “I don’t think a tissue is going to be enough,” he says weakly.
Nick groans a little. “You’re probably right. The loo? Will you hold the doors open for me?”
All the progress Charlie’s made this week on not feeling like he’s going to puke everywhere in Nick’s presence evaporates. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, of course.”
So they walk out of form, around the corner, and into the bathroom—in dead silence, might Charlie add. He doesn’t have the first clue what to say to Nick, and Nick probably doesn’t want to say a word to him. Nick is up there in stature, and Charlie… isn’t. Charlie’s just Charlie, and he’s not good for anything, no matter what his family and friends keep insisting.
“Thanks,” Nick says as he snakes past Charlie in the doorway of the bathroom. Their chests brush together, and Charlie feels like he’s going to die.
Charlie clears his throat. “Right, then,” he says, and he makes to walk away—
—but Nick says hastily, “Will you stay?”
Charlie’s mouth is gaping again. “What?”
“Please. I want us to be friends.” Charlie is stunned as Nick continues, “I try not to use it, but I can’t help it. Your mind is way too loud. And I can tell I make you nervous, and I just—I don’t want to. I promise I’m trying not to use it. I try all day not to.”
Wrinkling his forehead, Charlie murmurs, “But… but using your power ought to deplete your power. You’re not supposed to be able to use it without trying. Everybody says they have to try to use it and run out if they try for too long.”
“I know.”
Nick is whispering now, standing there in the bathroom with blue hands he hasn’t even tried to put into the sink as Charlie keeps holding the damn door open, even though anybody in the corridor could walk by and hear all of this. Charlie’s just too shocked to move out of the way. He’s too shocked to do anything at all.
Nick goes on, “I don’t know why I’m like this. I don’t know why I’m broken. It’s, like, a proximity thing? I get too close, and I can’t make it stop. I have to try to make it stop, but if I try for too long, I use that up, and the power comes back. I can’t help it, but I promise I’m trying. I don’t want to see you without your permission, but… but I do want to see you, Charlie, with my eyes. I just want you to want me to.”
And this is a bad, bad idea. Everything about this is screwed. Charlie swallows hard and says, “Okay. Friends, then.”
Nick doesn’t relax his shoulders, not one bit. “You really mean that?”
“Yeah. I really mean that.”
And then Nick does relax, breaking out into a nervous smile. “All right, then. Um, will you wait with me while I try and wash this off?”
xx
So they’re friends now, apparently. It’s such a bad idea, especially when Nick can’t turn off his powers and the only thing Charlie cares about in this world is his privacy—his ability to consent. Does it count as consent that he’s keeping Nick in his life even knowing that Nick can’t help but basically read Charlie’s mind? Does Charlie want this? Or—he definitely wants it, but does he want it more than he fears it?
And then Nick asks Charlie to join the rugby team, and Charlie says yes. That’s a bad idea, too, because he’s putting himself directly in the path of Harry Greene and his cronies—but Harry seems to fall in line at least a little when Nick is around. Maybe it embarrasses him that Nick can see right through his tough-guy act to whatever insecure little sniveling child is underneath it—or maybe Charlie’s talking out of his ass here. Maybe Charlie doesn’t know anything at all.
But he thinks he knows that Nick likes him. Nick probably doesn’t like him the way Charlie likes Nick, but he likes him some way. Why else would Nick have explicitly asked for them to be friends?
It’s been a couple weeks of this before Charlie remembers about the Ben thing. Right: it’s all coming back, all the parts of it that Ben tried to block out from Charlie’s mind. They kiss sometimes, and Ben draws from him sometimes. That dark mark on Charlie’s elbow? It’s where Ben’s teeth clamped down on Charlie’s skin, hard enough to draw blood when Ben isn’t careful, and Ben’s not always careful.
And that’s when Charlie puts together why he had such a bad feeling the other day when he saw Ben kissing some girl outside the school gate.
Sure enough, Ben finds him one day after rugby practice, probably jonesing for another hit—but for the first time, Charlie maybe doesn’t want to give it to him. For the first time, Charlie doesn’t want the kissing he knows he would get in return, and if he can’t get something in return, then what is the point of a one-sided transaction?
He’s sure that’s all he is to Ben: a transaction. And it seems that, somewhere along the way, Charlie started seeing himself as better than that.
So Ben corners him in the corridor, and Charlie says firmly, “No. You’ve taken enough. I won’t let you take more. Go recharge on your own time. Go kiss your girlfriend, for god’s sake.”
“I don’t want her,” says Ben. He looks anxious as hell, raking a hand through his hair, panic written all over his face. “I want you, okay? I want you. I always have. And I know you like me back. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t let me charge up on you, and you wouldn’t keep kissing me.”
“Yeah,” Charlie spits. “Maybe I did like you. But I sure as hell don’t anymore.”
And then Ben crowds Charlie up against the wall—but he doesn’t try to bite down on Charlie’s elbow. He doesn’t even try to bite down on Charlie’s much more accessible neck.
He kisses Charlie.
And it’s the worst thing Ben could have done, worse even than draining Charlie would have been—but it’s confusing, too, because does all this mean Ben really does care for Charlie? Then again, if he really did—if he really cared for him—would he really be assaulting him without Charlie’s permission right now?
But it doesn’t last long. Specifically, it doesn’t last long because Nick bloody Nelson is pulling Ben off of Charlie and shoving him away.
Ben looks mortified. Nick looks furious. “Go on, then. Go. Leave.”
And Ben leaves.
Charlie’s left staring blankly at Nick, who’s still seething. “Prick,” Nick hisses. “And the worst part is, he thinks he’s justified. He feels harmed. He likes you. He sincerely likes you, and he thinks…”
“You shouldn’t tell me,” says Charlie uncomfortably. “He wouldn’t want me to know.”
“Right.” Nick collects himself. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have dumped that on you.”
“It’s all right.”
“It’s not. Are—are you okay?”
Charlie lets out an exhausted sort of laugh. “I don’t know. I have no idea how I feel right now. You could probably tell me what I’m feeling better than I could.”
Nick hesitates. “Actually, I couldn’t,” he admits. “I’ve been saving my energy as much as I can so that I can block you out every time I see you. I know my powers make you nervous, so…”
“You… you’ve been doing that for me?”
“Don’t sound so surprised.” Nick’s chuckle sounds about as nervous as Charlie feels right now. “I would do anything for you, Charlie. You’re my friend.”
And yeah, maybe Charlie has a problem—because hearing Nick call him a friend hurts as much as it helps.