Work Text:
Nick and Charlie had gone back to Kent for Olly’s birthday. They hadn’t seen Charlie’s siblings for a couple months, adult life just getting in the way of them visiting each other. Nick had spent the weekend watching Charlie interact with his siblings, Oliver who was only seven when Nick first met his boyfriend, was now sixteen and just as full of exuberance as he was all those years ago.
He watched the way Tori interacted with her brothers in a way she doesn’t interact with anyone else. The soft smiles reserved just for them and the playful teasing, Nick was sure he had only ever heard Tori laugh when she was with them, if anyone was going to break through the carefully crafted mask that Tori had put up to protect herself it was going to be Charlie and Oliver.
Three siblings, who banded together, two older siblings who fiercely protected the younger one, an oldest sibling who provided for the younger two when their parents weren’t as present as they could be.
Nick excused himself from the festivities for a moment, the grief of the lack of relationship with his own brother becoming overwhelming. He went up to Charlie’s room, the room where Nick had retreated to on numerous occasions when his brother was at home. He sat on Charlie’s bed leaning his back on the wall allowing tears to flow down his face, he was angry, fuming at his brother for being so hostile to him, he was angry at himself for letting himself to be so affected by his brother's actions.
He heard a knock on the door and when Nick looked up he saw Tori standing in the doorway. He quickly wiped his face and cleared his throat, trying to rebuild the façade he’d let slip.
“I thought you’d be in here,” she started. “What’s wrong?”
“Just watching you, Charlie and Olly. Sometimes I wonder about how mine and David’s relationship could be if things had been different. If dad didn’t leave, if I didn’t come out, if everything was different. Sometimes I wish we had a better relationship, I wish he cared the same way that I care, even if I try to pretend I don’t.”
Tori walked over and sat next to him on Charlie’s bed, “You can grieve something you don’t have, you can grieve a relationship that could’ve been or has been lost but Nick, please always remember you’re an honourary Spring, you have been in Olly’s life longer than you’ve not been in it. You will always have us Nick.”
“I’m so grateful to have the three of you, I really am, but it’s not the same as having my own brother. He should be someone who I can laugh about stupid things from when we were kids, he should be the one whose shoulder I can cry on instead of being the one causing the tears.”
Tori pulled Nick into a hug, she didn’t always know how to help but she did know that hugs were Nicholas Nelson’s love language and maybe, just maybe, she could pour all the love she couldn’t verbalise into the embrace.
“Love you Nick. You should feel special, I only tell my brothers that I love them.”
“Love you too Tori.” He said softly, returning the hug.