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Charlie felt this unsettling sense of dread pooling in his gut.
Tara’s surprise birthday party had been going smoothly. Despite his distaste for larger crowds in smaller spaces, he had been happy to celebrate his friend’s sweet sixteen. He had done his very best to ignore Ben’s presence, even when the older teenager’s gaze seemed to strip his soul bare, and had remained by Nick’s side. If the side of his slim figure had been pressed closer to Nick’s broader frame, the latter hadn’t said anything; he had merely grinned at him, his eyes twinkling in a way they only did when he looked at Charlie.
At some point, the couple had shared a calm, intimate moment on the balcony, taking in the cool Paris night air as the party had raged on behind them. “We keep escaping parties to hang out with each other,” Nick had spoken, a soft chuckle escaping both of their lips.
“Are we gonna do it every time?” Charlie had asked, never letting his boyfriend out of his sight.
His smile had grown wider when Nick had replied, “I hope so.”
Their moment hadn’t lasted long, what with Darcy getting them to taste the world’s foulest drink, and none other than Harry Greene showing up, demanding to be let in so he could speak to Nick and Charlie. Charlie had been willing to hear Nick’s former friend out, he really had been, but the half-arsed apology hadn’t meant squat to him, and so, with a simple and final ‘no’, he had shut the door in the bully’s face. The following cheers—and the look of sheer pride on Nick’s face—had left him feeling quite satisfied with himself for the first time in a very long time.
That was, until Darcy’s shouts had echoed in his mind.
“Truth or Daaaareeee! Whooooo!”
Nothing good could come of it. He had heard horror stories from his sister, Tori, who, admittedly, had probably exaggerated some of them because of how wild they had sounded. And yet, he had fully believed her.
Hesitantly, he had sat down as close to Nick as he had dared, anxiety threatening to creep up his spine with every spin of the bottle. One look from his boyfriend had managed to drive it back for the most part, even if the only way it could have settled completely would have been to hold Nick’s hand. With a quiet groan, he had resigned to keeping his hand to himself, though he hadn’t missed the look of concern from his boyfriend.
Still, with a small smile of reassurance, he had attempted to keep enjoying the party, and had even been able to laugh when Tao had been dared to kiss him. A quick peck on the lips had earned squeals of laughter from the crowd before the game had moved along.
Which had brought him to now, when he felt himself drowning in the confessions and silly dares happening around him. He idly wondered what he would pick when it inevitably would become his turn, and the words seemed to catch in his throat before he could even think of letting them out.
What if someone asked about the hickey?
He hadn’t missed the whispers and rumors of the previous day, the jeers and whistles, the speculations and accusations. While the majority of the students on the trip had let it go, there were still some who remained curious, and he wouldn’t put it past them to ask him about it.
He couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t risk getting Nick outed against his will. God, he would never forgive himself if Nick ever came remotely close to experiencing the hatred that had plagued him in the previous year, when the entire school had found out he was gay.
So, internally, he was prepared to pick a dare if and only if the bottle would land on him. Anything to spare his boyfriend.
Which, it was just his luck that, at that very moment, the bottle did land on him. With a nervous chuckle, he blurted out, “Dare.”
The student sitting near him pondered, then said, “I dare Charlie to kiss…James.”
Ah, there it was, that familiar feeling of dread. The smile was wiped off both boys’ faces before Charlie spoke up. “You’re only saying that ‘cause of the hickey rumor, and…it wasn’t James.”
James hesitantly nodded, equally uncomfortable with the sudden attention on him. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t care, so…”
The student nodded to herself. “Fine.” She looked around the room once more. “I dare Charlie to kiss…Ben!”
At the sound of the teenager’s name, Charlie’s heart began pounding wildly in his chest, so loudly that he missed the collective groans in the room, missed Imogen’s remark about how fresh their breakup was, missed another student egging him on…
“No. No way,” he said, his tone final as he avoided Ben’s eyes, avoided everyone’s eyes. He gulped, hoping he was able to mask how terrible he felt, how his body seemed to vibrate with anxiety, hoping that no one had noticed. He couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that his evening had suddenly turned so sour, and how he regretted even coming, and how he just wanted to leave. He couldn’t even convey his feelings to Nick, who he knew was likely looking at him with concern again; couldn’t look anyone in the eye as he spiraled deep into his thoughts.
Across from him, Ben scoffed. “That isn’t even funny,” he said, and the look on his face only served to twist Charlie’s insides until he felt like they would explode. “I barely know Charlie.”
A few kids called him out on how boring he was, and how it was just a game, until someone else spoke up, and the whole room stilled with their words.
“Oi, but that just isn’t true, innit?”
Charlie’s heart stuttered in its beats, sinking to his stomach.
Oh. Oh, no.
“What’re you saying?” Ben asked, glaring in the general vicinity of the voice who had dared question him.
“We were all there when Imogen broke up with you,” the voice said again, revealing a Year 10 boy whose name Charlie couldn’t remember, couldn’t even try to remember with the ringing in his ears. “She said you had some sort of obsession with Charlie.”
“She was wrong,” Ben spat, but the venom in his voice was too dull to really deter the curious audience from their questions.
Another Year 10 student scoffed. “Yeah, right. You’ve been staring at him all night; don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
“So, Ben, I dare you to tell the truth,” a third student, this time a Year 11 girl from Higgs, said, a smirk visible on her face. “How well do you actually know Charlie?”
The room burst into shouts and hollers; on one side, students scrambled for answers, pressing Ben to spill the beans, while on the other, Charlie’s friends and acquaintances demanded to let it go, to just change the subject and move on, for God’s sake…!
“That’s enough!” Nick’s voice boomed, silencing the room in one second. He didn’t miss the way his boyfriend flinched beside him, and he fought the urge to take his hand in his and tell him everything would be okay. “What does it matter to all of you? Just leave them alone and move on!”
“Typical,” Ben sneered, ignoring the dirty looks sent his way. “Nick Nelson, Charlie’s knight in shining armor! Can’t let him fight his own battles, can’t you? Can’t leave well enough alone!”
“You’re the one who can’t leave him alone!” Nick retorted. His own body slightly shook with unreleased anger as he stood up to defend his boyfriend. “You couldn’t just take no for an answer! I had to pull you off of him! And you’re really going to sit here and lie about it?”
The gasps in the room didn’t go unheard by both teenage boys, but they remained locked in each other’s glares. Ben’s glare could pierce through anyone; anyone, except for Nick. “That was a misunderstanding and you know it! He wasn’t being serious; he would have said yes eventually!”
The other students gasped again, but a small voice coming from behind Nick shocked them into silence once more. “Sh-shut up…!”
Ben’s steely gaze shifted to Charlie, who, despite flinching at the intensity of it, slowly stood up, remaining by Nick’s side. Ben watched the display, seething. “What did you just say to me?”
The younger boy was determined not to let Ben Hope intimidate him. No more. “You…you heard me. I’m done letting you make me feel like crap. You really hurt me, Ben, and you have the audacity to pretend like you did all of it because I wanted you to…!”
“Oh, come off it, Charlie! You were so desperate for my attention that you came crawling to me every time I texted you, but the moment Nick breathed in your direction, you pushed me aside! You’re such a pathetic attention seeker, and how nobody knows you two are a thing is beyond me!”
“Shut up!” Charlie yelled again over the collective protests from the crowd of agitated students. The anxiety slowly but surely crushing him gave way to rage; the one thing he had worked so hard to prevent had just occurred.
Nick had been outed.
After all this time… their efforts had been for nothing. He wasn’t having it.
“You’re the one who insisted on hiding! You’re the one who acted like you didn’t know me when we would cross paths in the halls! I left you because I was done with that! I-I was done with you treating me like a…like a toy you could play with when you felt like it!”
“You’re such a filthy liar—”
“I’m not finished!” Charlie pressed on; everybody noticed the way his hand shook when he pointed at Ben, but he was too worked up to care. “I finally got the courage to let you go, but-but you just kept pushing! You couldn’t handle the fact that I ignored you and didn’t want to meet up with you; you had to keep harassing me over text until I agreed!”
“Yeah, and you came to me, like you always do,” Ben hissed.
“You forced me to!” Charlie finally revealed, raising his voice as high as he ever had. He ignored the sudden stream of tears trickling down his face, ignored the way his voice wanted to break, ignored how utterly small Ben had made him feel, still made him feel. “You just took and took what you wanted with no regard for what I wanted! You made me feel like I was worthless, like what I wanted didn’t matter, like I asked for too much! I still have nightmares about you pushing me and pinning me against the wall, about…about forcing yourself on me, about how far you would have gone if Nick hadn’t shown up! You fucking assaulted me!”
One could hear a pin drop. The room had grown deathly silent, the only sounds coming from Charlie’s heaving breaths following his declaration. And then, those became harder and harder to take, the pressure on his chest growing heavier and heavier until the gravity of the situation dawned on him, crushed him.
Nick immediately took Charlie’s shaking, gasping frame in his arms, lowering the boy until he fully sat in his lap, quietly working on quelling the intense panic attack. Because of Ben, he had been outed. And yet, he found himself utterly uncaring; it was time to take care of his boyfriend, secrecy be damned.
Nobody paid the struggling couple any mind; the students all stared at Ben, a mixture of emotions on their faces, ranging from disgust to disbelief.
Imogen was the first to speak up. “Ben…what…?” she asked, horrified. “Oh my God, when Nick told me you had done horrible things but couldn’t say why, I-I would have never thought…”
At Charlie’s revelation, Ben’s resolve had finally broken. In front of the crowd of hushed, judgemental voices stood a terrified teenager, one whose deepest, darkest secret had come to light, while total darkness threatened to consume him.
And nobody cared to help him. He was completely screwed.
And it was all Charlie Spring’s fault.
In a flash, terror transformed into wrath. He dashed forward, and the way Nick Nelson shifted his entire body to shield Charlie from him only served to further infuriate him. He swatted away the hands that tried to stop him on his mission to prove to Charlie just how much he could actually hurt him…
There was a knock on the door, then, “Oi! What’s with all the racket in there?!”
Mr. Farouk.
Nick had never felt so relieved to have a teacher step in, as he held Charlie tightly in his arms, the younger boy still shaking, albeit calmer now, the sobs having been reduced to silent, occasional tears.
The door busted open, revealing the teacher, arms crossed with his eyebrows cocked up in annoyance. Behind him, Harry Greene stood proudly, for he had complained to the teacher about how loud and annoying the party by his room had been out of spite. The smirk on his face, however, was wiped off as he and Mr. Farouk were met with the alarming sight of students who were frozen still, Nick Nelson holding onto Charlie Spring with Benjamin Hope standing menacingly a few steps away from them.
“Well?” the teacher gritted, his patience already running thin.
Ben huffed, making his way out of the room. “Whatever,” he spat as he stormed out.
His gait was interrupted by a snatch of his wrist; his head whipped toward the person holding onto him, revealing Harry, whose smirk had made a comeback. “I don’t think so. Mate.”
Mr. Farouk took one look at Ben, then at the group, and finally, at Ben again. “Alright, Mr. Greene, let go of the boy.” Harry rolled his eyes, but complied nonetheless. Before Ben could make a run for it, the teacher fixed him with a glare of his own. “If you know what’s good for you, you will follow me so we can settle this.”
With the situation finally dawning on him, Ben could only frown, following the angered teacher out into the hall and out of sight.
Nick wasted no time, ushering Charlie out of the room and in the opposite direction, away from the crowd and into the only safe space he could reach at the moment; their shared room.
The only person remaining by the door was Harry, who shrugged. “Guess the party’s over then?” Nobody told him off for being a rotten snitch.
Later in the night, while Nick and Charlie lay together in their room, the latter tightly wrapped in the former’s arms, there was a knock on their door. The two boys immediately tensed up, dreading a visit from Mr. Farouk, who would likely check in on them to get their side of the story. They held each other tighter, and Nick gazed into Charlie’s eyes, awaiting confirmation with one quick look. When he received a hesitant nod, so small he would have missed it had they not been so close to each other, he croaked out, “Come in.”
The door creaked open, revealing a rather frazzled couple of girls. Nick breathed a sigh of relief; it was Tara and Darcy. He could feel Charlie’s body melt into his embrace, trusting from Nick’s sigh that the guests were welcomed.
“Hey,” Tara softly spoke, waiting for Nick’s nod before inviting herself into the room, her girlfriend following closely behind. “We, um…we shooed everyone out shortly after Mr. Farouk took Be—him, and…shortly after you left.”
“We wanted to check if you two were doing okay,” Darcy sheepishly added. “It…it wasn’t the same without you.”
The older boy offered the two girls a soft smile. “We’ll be okay. Thanks for checking in on us, but…I think we’d like some more alone time, if you don’t mind.”
Tara’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Of course not. We’ll take our leave.”
“Take care, you two,” Darcy added, taking her girlfriend’s hand into hers.
Before they could leave, however, a small voice called out to them. “Wait…”
Charlie slowly sat up, not so subtly scratching at his arms through his long sleeves, though nobody cared. The girls didn’t mind how poorly he looked; they looked at his puffy eyes in concern. He remained pressed against Nick, his back flush against his boyfriend’s chest, making himself as small as possible. “I, um…I wanted to…” For a moment, he struggled with picking the right words to use.
Of course, Nick caught on to his boyfriend’s struggles. “It’s okay, take your time,” he soothed, smiling in encouragement when the younger teen’s eyes met his.
With another nod, Charlie took a deep breath, facing the girls once again. “I’m…sorry. So, so, sorry…”
He was met with confusion and soft protests from his boyfriend, who reminded him that the ‘s’ word was definitely banned.
“Charlie, you have nothing to apologize for,” Tara exclaimed, allowing herself to sit by the foot of the bed, keeping a safe distance from the anxious boy in front of her. He made no move to get away, but remained still in Nick’s arms, staring at the girl in disbelief.
“B-But…I ruined your birthday party—”
“Bullshit,” Darcy huffed, plopping down on the other bed. “You’ve done nothing wrong.” At the look on his face, the girls could tell he still didn’t believe them.
Tara made sure the boy was looking right at her when she affirmed, “None of this was your fault. God, Charlie, if we had known everything he’s done…he never would’ve been allowed near you, at any time!”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Darcy softly asked, her tone ever so serious.
Charlie took another deep, shuddery breath, remaining silent for a short moment. At that moment, the girls didn’t think he would answer, but then, he whispered, “I…I never wanted him to get in trouble. And, and honestly? I think I…I refused to believe that what he’d done was that bad…And then, it just came out, and…I couldn’t take the looks on your faces, and it got too much, and I-I just, I had to hide…!”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Nick shushed, pressing Charlie’s head to the crook of his neck. “Breathe, Char, you’re okay, you’re safe.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the younger boy muttered between gasps, shaking his head against Nick’s chest. The girls’ hearts broke at the sight of their distraught friend; they could only watch as Nick worked his magic to calm him down again, whispering sweet nothings into Charlie’s ears and pressing chaste kisses on his forehead while rubbing his back in soothing circles. The girls averted their eyes, not wanting to intrude on the intimate moment happening in front of them.
It only took about another minute for Charlie to settle, boneless in Nick’s embrace as his panic attack had thoroughly exhausted him. He then tensed, and Nick wondered what was going on, but his question was soon answered when Charlie took a quick look behind him, realizing that they hadn’t been alone through his attack. “…sorry,” he mumbled with a nervous chuckle, but this time, the boy caught himself fighting off a smile as his friends and boyfriend softly protested.
“Will I have to get an apology jar for you?” Nick gently teased, earning a shy giggle. “50p with every sorry I hear out of you?”
Charlie bit his lip, staring up at his boyfriend with a smile. “Well, I’m sor—”
“Don’t say it again!” Nick interrupted, but his own laugh betrayed the stern tone he had attempted to go for.
“Nick, you’ll get your next date paid for you in no time!” Darcy blurted, causing another round of joyous laughter as the group bathed in the now warmer ambiance.
“Speaking of date,” Tara began with a mischievous smile on her face, “how about you two make it up to me by coming on a double date with us?” At the look on Charlie’s face, she winked. “I won’t accept any apology, but a day out for the four of us would be lovely!”
There was a brief moment where Charlie visibly pondered the girl’s proposition. “What about Elle and Tao?”
“They’ll be too busy sucking each other’s faces off!” Darcy replied with a cackle.
Tara gasped. “Darcy!”
“Whaaat? We did that too at the start!” She nudged Tara teasingly. “We still do!”
“Darcy!”
A genuine grin broke on Charlie’s face, catching the two girls’ attention. “Deal,” he said, giggling when Tara squealed, coming in for a hug. He shrugged Nick’s arms off of him while wrapping his own around his friend, resting his chin on her shoulder while she squeezed him tightly. He sighed in contentment when he felt his boyfriend’s arms wrap around the two of them from behind him, while Darcy joined in by pouncing on her girlfriend’s back.
Here, in his boyfriend’s and friends’ arms, Charlie felt safe. He knew there would be tougher days ahead, but he refused to dwell on the night’s prior events. He pushed Ben Hope and Mr. Farouk out of his mind—and cussed his mind out when it pushed back—and focused on breathing in the familiar soothing scent of Nick Nelson, the fruity smell of Tara’s perfume, and the hint of alcohol on Darcy’s breath when she spoke.
And, in that moment, Charlie felt this settling wave of serenity wash over his worries.