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It’s the first day of Year 2 and Charlie is all of six and a half when he notices it for the first time. Tori had started getting an allowance when she was seven, so his mum tells him it’s only fair that Charlie also gets his today.

“And also because I’m the best in class for counting,” he says, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he sticks his hand out in anticipation.

“Yes, and that too,” his mum smiles as she pulls her wallet out of her bag.  

Charlie gets momentarily distracted by the other students streaming by him when she’s counting out the coins, so when they pass into his hands, he’s shocked to see a flash of bright green where there shouldn’t be.

At first, he thinks he’s seeing things – maybe it was just the sun reflecting off the metal or… or… something – but he opens his fist, and he’s right; a singular coin in the heap is burning a fierce emerald. There is a slight shimmer, an obvious movement in the colour that reminds him of looking through a kaleidoscope. If the kaleidoscope was from outer space aliens.

He looks up at his mum in surprise, but she just looks so confused that he’s confused.

“You know how to count them, right? We practiced,” she says slowly, then kneels down to go through each one with him again. When her hands drift past the green glow multiple times, that’s when Charlie knows she doesn’t see it. Not the way he does.

He forces himself to close his gaping mouth, she presses a kiss against his forehead, and that’s that. That’s the first day of his strange life.

He doesn’t get the packet of Oreos he really wanted during break, choosing instead to keep the coin safe in his pocket, where it feels like it’s warming a small circle on his upper thigh throughout the day. It takes almost all the patience he has to wait for the bell to ring so he can sprint to the bus stop to meet Tori.

It’s a while before he spots her – he’s still so short, so he has to stand on his tippy toes to see past everybody’s shoulders – but the moment he does, he runs up, plucks the coin out of his pocket, and shoves it straight in her face.

“What are you doing?” Tori squeaks, surprised by the sudden invasion of her personal space.

“Tori! Tori! Do you see this?” Charlie waves it before her eyes.

“Yeah?” Tori frowns, vaguely annoyed. Being in Year 3 is very hard work and if her head wasn’t already hurting, it definitely is now. “It’s a penny.”

“Do you not see it? The colour?”

“Yeah,” Tori says, and Charlie’s face brightens immediately. “It’s dirty,” she says, and his face falls.

“No, it’s not. It’s green. You don’t see it?” he continues waving it around, like doing that might somehow change things.

“Are you blind? It’s brown.”

“Look!” He frowns, jerking it forward until Tori has to step back so she doesn’t get hit in the face. 

“Look at what?”

“I said! It’s green,” Charlie insists, stomping his new converses into the ground. “Like, there’s a green light.”

Tori places a clumsy hand on his forehead to check for a temperature, even though she doesn’t really know what she’s doing – she’s just copying what she’s seen adults do. “Are you feeling okay?”

Charlie swats her hand away, “You really can’t see it?

“I can’t. It’s just a coin, Char,” Tori scowls, finally noticing the other people at the bus stop that are staring at them. “Stop it. You’re being irritating.”

Charlie’s questions grind to a halt then, and he no longer knows what to say. Tori has always been the only other person in the world to see things the way he does, and he can’t believe this is where they’ve diverged.

He stares at the coin couched in his hand all the way home, half-expecting it to return to normal in a final flash of green, but its otherworldly glow persists. If he listens closely, he swears he can even hear something murmuring in his heart, but he can’t make out any of the words.  

◍◍◍◍◍

For weeks and months after, Charlie finds other coins that are similar to that very first one – a cloak of colour that’s not supposed to be there, and a weird energy that compels him. Not all coins; maybe 1 in 10, but they might as well be every coin because of how wholly they occupy his every waking moment.

Still, he’s convinced for at least the first few weeks that the whole world is just playing a very elaborate, well thought-out joke on him. He tries to catch them out, leaving out the shiniest coins around for someone to find, but no one ever wants to pick them up. 

The realisation after the second month that this is real, that this is his life, is dizzying.

He starts researching as much as he can and sets up a system for cataloguing his coins. Sometimes their colours and energies are as bright as the first emerald green penny he saw at the gates of primary school, inspiring and as sure as the sun. Other times, they’re hard to see unless you’re really looking, sparkling at certain angles like films of oil on water. Sometimes they’re dark, demanding, and these coins could probably swallow you whole and spit you out a different person if you let them.

They all tell him different things. He tries to the best of his ability, and he starts off clumsily at first, but as he spends more time listening, it starts to become second nature to him. He knows immediately from looking which coins are good, which coins are bad, and which coins need more time before they can tell him what they want.

It’s a feeling deep in his bones, something as familiar as looking at his own face in the mirror. Or falling asleep on the couch downstairs but somehow waking up in his own bed in the morning. No real how or why; just is.

◍◍◍◍◍

He makes the grave mistake of saying, “I think coins speak to me,” as his fun fact at science camp when he’s eight, solely because he can’t think of anything else about himself to say, and it’s disastrous. The bullying starts almost as soon as the camp leaders turn their backs, and Charlie spends the rest of the week being the target of the cruellest pranks – his swimming trunks being thrown up into a tree right before they’re about to go swimming, lights being turned off when he’s in the shower, his pillow being snatched from under his head in the middle of the night.

All the people he met at the same camp last year no longer want to talk to him, except to tell him that they don’t want to be friends anymore. 

He’s exhausted by the time he gets back home. He remembers laughing away the dark rings under his eyes at the dinner table when Tori asks, and thinking while clutching kitty in bed later, “at least school is starting soon. Everything will be okay again”.

◍◍◍◍◍

Except one of the science camp kids is a cousin of a friend of another kid who goes to the same school and by fourth period, everyone is giving him funny looks along the corridors. By the end of the week, everybody knows him as the kid who actually believes he has superpowers, how embarrassing. And while Charlie was never very popular among his peers, it’s the first time in his life that he experiences being picked last for any team sport or group project.

Every single day.

The worst of them is this kid named Sean. He’s in the same year with dirty blonde hair, an obnoxiously neon orange Lacoste sling bag, and an unnerving talent for rallying people to make up untrue things about Charlie.

It’s the first time Charlie has hated anyone truly, and there are many afternoons where he trudges home from school on the verge of tears, all the mean things people say ringing out in his head.

But all things considered, and besides Sean, it’s really really not that bad. Most of the bullies are still small enough in primary school that their insults or shoves aren’t really that hurtful, and some kids still talk to him as long as it’s not any where that the more popular people can hear.

He also has his coins, if nothing else. He secretly slips the bad ones into Sean’s Lacoste bag from time to time and, even if nothing bad really happens, he can pretend he feels better.

Then he enters Truham Grammar for secondary school the year he turns twelve, and that is the definition of bad. Sean is swapped out for a Harry Greene, and Harry has his own lackeys the same way Sean had his, except now it’s at least ten times worse because everyone is trying so hard to be people that they’re not. To be cool.

They do things that don’t make sense, like making banal “your mom” jokes, or shoving each other in the corridors as if they need to take up as much space as possible to prove to the world that they exist, or laughing obnoxiously at a joke no one can hear so everyone else not laughing can feel like they’re not part of the in group.

They do things that don’t make sense, like throwing food across the cafeteria, or tripping people for fun, or secretly tearing up the pieces of art hanging on the drying rack in the art room.

They do things like… calling Charlie “freak” and “loser” and… and, newly, “faggot”. He didn’t even know what that was until people started calling him it non-stop. 

It doesn’t make sense why they do these things, because it doesn’t even add any value to their lives. Or maybe it does, and Charlie doesn’t get it because he has no one to talk about these things with.

So he just focuses on school and keeps his head down. It’s not so bad keeping your head down – you get to spot coins on the floor sometimes, the ones people never see.

And it's only because he has no friends that he has the time to spend with his coins. He figures out that some of his strongest coins have tangible, real-world effects that go beyond sheer coincidence or luck. He doesn’t know how to explain it, doesn’t know if it can even hold up under any sort of scientific testing, but unexplainable good things happen in his day when he hangs on to a coin that feels “lucky” – the questions that come out in the Maths quiz are eerily similar to the ones he’d revised just last night, he gets the last ham and cheese sandwich at the cafeteria, and the usually-punctual bus arrives late to the bus stop just as he does. 

He thumbs through his pennies, his Spanish dollars, his Moroccan dirhams from their last holiday, and his singular rare Icelandic króna from his aunt. He starts thinking that his coins are all he really needs, and that they’ll singhlehandedly get him through the thick bog that is Truham. 

(On some days, when he’s feeling particularly brave, he can admit that that’s just something he says to comfort himself.)

But then he meets Tao in English on the first day of the second semester of Year 7, and Charlie makes a best friend for the first time in his life. Partly because Tao’s the only person who dares to talk to him, but mostly because they both know that they’re better than anyone else at this stupid school. They see things nobody else can – Charlie with his coins, and Tao with his movies and a prescient insight into all the bold things he’s going to do in the future. Charlie listens amusedly across the lunch table as Tao cycles through future career goals like nobody’s business: he wants to be an astronaut one week, then an epidemiologist the next, then a director like Wong Kar-Wai.

Charlie doesn’t say anything to the contrary, because he knows it’s probably less about the jobs Tao actually wants to hold and more about the endless possibilities of who he can become.

Tori’s asked Charlie once before: why he won’t just lie and say the coin thing was all made up, so all the bullying can stop. 

Charlie thinks about it for a long time and is disappointed to come to the conclusion that he doesn’t want to. He has a best friend who knows exactly who he wants to become, and Charlie doesn’t know, not yet, but he knows what he doesn’t want to be. He doesn’t want to be a liar.

◍◍◍◍◍

Tao is the most bubbly and outspoken person he knows, which is why Charlie was shocked to find out a month into their friendship that Tao’s dad is not doing well. But Tao had gotten more and more withdrawn as winter approached and Charlie had to pluck up the courage to ask, desperate to figure out whether it was because of something he did or whether Tao was trying to tell Charlie he didn't want to be friends anymore. Tao then confessed hesitantly that he's just worried - his dad is in the hospital, and always gets horrible, painful chest infections in the colder seasons. 

Unable to offer anything else, Charlie starts accompanying Tao at least once a week to the hospital – they take the hour bus each way. He leaves his best coins behind on the windowsill of the room whenever they have to leave, even if Tao’s dad laughs and calls him a “strange boy”, and Tao’s mum jokes that he’ll never be a rich man if he keeps giving away money like this. He’s embarrassed, but he doesn’t stop doing it, because his pride is nothing compared to what the coins can do. 

He knows it.

That winter, Tao’s dad doesn’t get any infections. In fact, he doesn’t even get so much as a cold, and he manages to do Christmas with Tao and his mum for the first time in three years. It snows on Christmas day, and they take family pictures at the park. Charlie’s never seen Tao smile wider than in those photos. 

Nothing can stop the cancer from getting worse just a few months later, but he knows Tao knows just how hard he’s tried. Because Tao hugs him at the funeral, tears dampening the plane of Charlie’s neatly pressed shirt, and whispers, “Thanks for letting us have one final Christmas with him”.

◍◍◍◍◍

The seasons change and, eventually, Tao’s unapologetic bad-assery rubs off on him.

His clammy hands become fists. He turns the mirrors of his mind to face outwards, no longer wanting to internalize all the shit he hears along the corridors, because he realized at some point that he was starting to believe them. He becomes someone who fights back rather than someone who just takes it in silence.

It draws attention to both him and Tao, and Charlie gets nasty bruises he doesn’t tell his parents about, but it’s all worth it as far as they’re concerned because someone approaches them by the picnic tables one rainy afternoon to say: “I see you guys arguing with the rest of them lot all the time and it’s really brave.” 

The both of them stare up at her as they’re mid-way through their sandwiches, eyes narrowed in twin slits, unsure if this is a prank or something worse. They’ve hardly ever seen this person, but they know she’s always in the Art Room painting. 

She just continues, chest puffed out in unabashed pride, “I know I’m in Truham, and I know how I look, but I think I want to be called Elle. Can I join you guys for lunch?”

They look at each other then say “Sure”, because why not. It’s just one lunch. But then one lunch turns into two, turns into five, turns into every day, and it quickly becomes impossible to imagine a life without the gorgeous Elle Argent.  

They have the pleasure of meeting Isaac Henderson very shortly after, where he’s also hiding in the library from Harry Greene’s projectiles in the courtyard. Under Tao and Charlie’s watchful eye, he ventures out for the first time in weeks to join them at their lunch table. 

The four of them very quickly become an unbreakable group of friends. Tao and Charlie stick up for Elle and Isaac with their words – and when even that fails, with their bodies. 

But he doesn’t come clean about his ability, even though Elle and Isaac have asked a few times. It doesn’t feel like that much of a dirty secret to be ashamed of now that he’s older, but his heart still keeps threatening to run away from home whenever he even thinks about talking about it.

So he doesn’t go too much into detail; just tells them: “they’re good luck” as he slips them the best ones from time to time. They stop asking after a while, knowing that pushing won’t get them anywhere, and just accept the coins with an amused expression.

That’s good enough for him, knowing that they’ll be protected even when he’s not physically there to fight for them. That’s the best he can do.

Charlie’s not quite sure what this is, but this is definitely not magic. Magic would be cooler than this. People wouldn’t leer and shout at him for it if it was magic. It’s probably just an ability, or predisposition, or something trivial like that. 

He listens to the way Tao appreciates every small thing (whether it’s a single shot in a movie or the tiny habits they didn’t even know they had until Tao pointed them out), laughs over book memes with Isaac, stares in awe at the way Elle looks so divine in a skirt, and thinks: if there was any magic to be found in the world, it’s right here with his friends.

◍◍◍◍◍

By the time he’s fourteen, he has a head of unruly curls, his limbs are lanky in a way that is definitely not enviable, and he’s openly gay. By all accounts, he should be the biggest victim in this all-boys school. 

Instead, he’s fucking untouchable.

He’s the fastest on track, the top in most of his subjects, and his comebacks almost rival Tao’s in ruthlessness, all: “Keep talking, boys. Rugby’s really fucking gay if you think about it” and “Yeah, Harry, you didn’t hear me with your dad last night?”

Like sharpening a knife by sliding it over, and over, and over across a water stone, he’s removed anything soft about him with a brutal efficiency.

When he walks down the corridors of Truham, most people don’t even dare to meet his eye.  And those who do, he stares down and fights off until they know not to come anywhere near him. Unless they’re actually nice, of course, but those people are truly few and far between in Truham. 

Some guy called Ben Hope’s been nice. Been trying to butter Charlie up since the start of term, actually, for reasons that are unclear.

If Charlie was eleven, he would probably have been flattered. Would probably have fallen head over heels for him and his nice swooping hair, but fourteen-year-old Charlie knows so much better. Fourteen-year-old Charlie notices the way Ben only talks to him when nobody is around. Hears the way he still deadnames Elle, even when she’s all the way at Higgs now. Sees the way Ben inches closer and closer to the jock table at the front of the gates, his need to impress Harry in public stronger than his need to impress Charlie in private. 

So he keeps his defences up, but sits back to see what this guy’s deal is.

After a while, it becomes as clear as day. With a big, bright rainbow right smack in the middle of it.

It doesn’t even take any deductive work on Charlie’s part. Because Ben starts leaving fucking love letters in his locker, the same one he pushes Charlie into daily. What a cliché.

Charlie tries to be nice about it, because being out at school is fucking brutal, and maybe Ben is just figuring himself out, so he smiles politely at Ben’s attempts at flirting. Lets Ben stands close to him in science class. Doesn’t say anything about the fact that Ben is clearly only shoving him in the corridors to get his hands on him.

It finally comes to a head in the music room, just when Charlie was starting to wonder if Ben was ever going to come out of the closet, or if he was going to stay hidden forever like those sad old homophobes who sleep in separate beds from their wives.

He’s not even 5 minutes into his drumming when the door is flung open and Ben walks through. Ben squeezes in next to him on the tiny seat. Doesn’t even bother asking him what he’s practicing for (it’s the school concert). Talks a big game about how brave Charlie is to have come out at school. Tells him he’s sorry for not being able to help him out with Harry. Charlie stands up, still listening, still wondering when this fucking charade might come to an end – Ben has a whole-ass girlfriend, he’s seen them at the school gates – but Ben just follows him. He falls in step behind him like he’s actually looking to Charlie to lead the way, make the move.

Fat hope.

But then Ben gets impatient, and Charlie guesses that he runs out of small talk, runs out of nice things to say. Ben herds him against the wall, leans in, tries to press a kiss to his lips –

And Charlie’s smile is no longer polite. It’s a satisfying smirk as he draws back a fist and punches Ben as hard as he can across the bridge of his nose.

For how many shoving matches he’s been in and for how many rumours there are around school that Charlie probably gets in a lot of fights while he’s off underage smoking or something, he’s never actually punched anyone before. Turns out he’s a natural, because Ben’s head snaps backwards with a sickening crack and blood immediately starts gushing out of his nose. Charlie’s own knuckles don’t even hurt that much. Huh.

“What the fuck!” Ben screams, holding his hands over his face gingerly. His eyes are darting around, like he’s so surprised he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. “What the fuck!”

Charlie shrugs, the smirk still on his face, so wide it’s almost tearing his mouth apart. He watches in satisfaction as blood starts to drip down Ben’s hand, landing on the beige floors of the music room like blooming camellias. 

Ben stupidly goes to pinch his nose to stop the bleeding, then shouts and lets go from the shooting pain that follows, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Charlie raises an eyebrow, “A lot of things, probably. But you can’t even admit you’re gay to yourself and you’re trying to bag me?”

“Who the fuck do you –”

“Maybe try asking before kissing me next time. I might even say yes,” Charlie interrupts to say, neutral like he’s discussing the weather.

“You fucking bitch,” Ben bites out, blood continuing to spill onto the floor. “You fucking fag.”

Charlie scoffs, thinks for a moment about the potential implications for the gay rights movement everywhere, then gives up and says while looking directly into his eyes: “Right back at you, Ben.”

Ben doubles over with pain, now that the adrenaline has all run out, but Charlie doesn’t spare him a second look; just grabs his Kanken and leaves the music room with a bounce in his step, absentmindedly shaking out the tense muscles in his wrist. There’s a smile on his face the rest of the week, especially when he sees Ben around with a bandaged face. When Ben’s teammates from the soccer team try to jump him 2 days later, some of them come out with black eyes and Charlie comes out of it swinging. 

Point is, Charlie is fucking untouchable because he’s made himself be.

If you put eleven-year-old Charlie and fourteen-year-old Charlie next to each other, you wouldn’t even be able to tell that they were the same person. And Charlie fucking loves it.

◍◍◍◍◍

Alas, you cannot erase everything.

Charlie is completely impervious by now to the bullying, and being made a pariah at school, and the fact that he sometimes comes across coins that are so dark they feel like they’re physically hurting him, a blunt object planting itself in his sternum and twisting.

But it’s that original, unsharpened part of him that still waits patiently for Olly to also gain the ability to see what he can see.

Olly’s sixth birthday passes, then his seventh, and his eighth. Charlie keeps asking, but Olly doesn’t see anything. Eventually, Olly gets way too prickly to tolerate his older brother asking him every other month whether he can see any silly little colours emanate from some silly little coins, so Charlie has to stop.

Even then, he leaves out coins for Olly to see and, still, nothing.

If Charlie is being honest with himself, he’s impervious to everything except the fact that he might be the only one in the world with this ability. That it might be this way forever. He’s not impervious to the crippling loneliness that comes with it.

The thought that he's condemned to walk this world alone, forever unable to explain the things he sees to anyone who will really understand, sits on his chest like a lead balloon and holds the rest of his body captive.

He’s a knife that could take the forging of fire but could never withstand the soft caress of a human heart. He's not sure if that makes him a good or bad weapon. 

When the constant fighting stops, when he’s alone in his room under the pale cast of the moonlight and there’s no one to defend himself against except himself, the fear and loneliness consume him so wholly that he sometimes cannot breathe. Cannot sleep. Cannot even dream.

When he’s feeling badly, the only things he looks for are his coins. So on these nights, he sometimes falls asleep accidentally clutching the bad ones in his fist.

While he always thought that bad coins were meant to stay bad, he’s woken up on some mornings to a lack of pain. And when he opens his hands, the bad coins have become good – their energies galvanized, fortified in gold. They say, thank you. Thank you for seeing what we can become.

Charlie is baffled as much as he is comforted. Because no matter how often Truham forces him to be a thing he doesn't want to be, his coins remind him at the end of the day that he’s still a person. And he can carve good things out of the universe without anyone even knowing it. 

◍◍◍◍◍

Charlie carries some of his coins around in a handmade pouch. It’s mainly because he could never find a pouch that was just the right size in the shops, but also because he took up sewing with Elle in Year 8 and really liked it.

Unfortunately, the problem with handmade pouches is that the cheap fabric he manages to scrounge from around his house strains under the weight of all the metal.

There’s a hole already threatening to form in the corner, so he’s mending it now in the changing room before it gets any worse.

It’s not the safest place to do this, and Charlie knows he’s not alone here in the changing room, but he can’t really be arsed for some reason today. It’s just one other guy anyway: that Nicholas Nelson rugby captain guy, who’s always hanging around the likes of Harry Greene and Ben Hope.

He’s never actually spoken to Charlie – never even spared him a glance – which, Charlie thinks, makes him even worse than his active tormentors.

Because there are only two reasons why you would do that: you either agree with the bullying and just don’t want to do the grunt work yourself, or you don’t agree with the bullying but can’t be bothered to stop it. Both reasons are cowardly and, honestly, plain old psychotic.

Charlie thinks he might actually thank the heavens if this is the day that Nick decides to bully him for being sissy enough to sew in school, because then it would at least be proof that the guy at the top of Truham’s social hierarchy has any semblance of a backbone. Charlie would seriously lose even more faith in humanity if literally all social rules here were set to the tune of someone who doesn’t.

The thought breaks his focus, and the pouch almost slips out of his hand. He curses softly – he really should have emptied it out before doing this, so it’s at least not so heavy as he makes the stitches.

But no matter, he’s almost done.

He’s finishing up the final few passes and tying the thread off (which makes the coins in the pouch sing out) when he feels eyes on him.

He snaps his head to the left. And there is Nick Nelson, staring blatantly at Charlie’s pouch, his own hand midway through to getting his blazer down from the coat hook. His hair is damp from the shower and Charlie can see some parts of his white shirt sticking to his skin in misshapen circles.  

“What?” he barks out, when Nick continues to say nothing at all. “What the fuck are you staring at?”

Nick’s eyes jerk upwards, and then around the room, and when he sees that there’s no one here besides him, turns back and points at himself. “Me?”

“Yeah, you,” Charlie says, and it doesn’t matter how physically tiny he is because he looks ferocious now, almost a looming ten-foot beast. “Who the fuck else would it be?”

“Oh,” Nick swallows.

“You got something to say?” Charlie snaps out.

“Er,” Nick stammers, and his shoulders cower slightly. “No?”

“Stop fucking staring, then,” Charlie scowls, tucks his needle back in his sewing kit, closes his now-mended pouch then picks up his bag in one smooth movement. “You’d think people would have learned some manners by now.”

He purposely shoves into Nick’s shoulder as he leaves the changing room and doesn’t apologize. Nick hardly budges from the impact anyway, so no harm done. All these gigantic rugby idiots can all go fuck themselves, as far as Charlie is concerned.

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick wasn’t meaning to stare. He didn’t even realise that he was.

It’s just that this Charlie guy is the last person he would have expected to be… sewing. Nick has seen him around school sometimes, but he’s always either glaring at everyone else who dares to meet him in the eye, or shouting some insult. 

It’s like Charlie has no personality other than being an asshole. Nick would understand if he was like that to Harry and some of the others, but he’s heard stories about Charlie lashing out at people who’ve seemingly done nothing to him.

Nick hates it. How hard can it be to just be nice? 

But Charlie’s fingers were so slender and delicate in the changing room as they made the stitches that Nick was just… His curiosity had been piqued. He was wondering what on earth could draw out so much care from a boy who always holds himself like the tense string of a bow. 

It’s so mystifying that Nick finds himself spending the last month of Year 10 stealing glances at him sauntering through Truham every day like he owns the place.

And it’s not after he starts really looking that he can see Charlie is not who Nick thought or heard he was. He sees Charlie laugh softly with his friends at the picnic tables, volunteer to help out Mr Ajayi with the art room, help some of the younger ones fend off bullies. 

But then the tender moments always end and he’s immediately back to default again, all frowns and sharp edges. It’s like a checkerboard – chess piece jumping between black, white, black, white, asshole Charlie, kind Charlie – and there’s no in between whatsoever.

Except, now that Nick is really looking, he can understand why Charlie is… like that. Nick’s not sure whether he just wasn’t noticing before, or whether the bullying has ramped up recently, but people are fucking vicious to Charlie. People stare as he walks down the corridors, talk about him behind his back, and some of his rugby mates are especially vocal.

He wants to put a stop to it, which is his right as captain and, well, someone in the friend group, but he doesn’t know why he’s so scared about standing up to Harry and the rest. He sees Charlie doing it all the time and Charlie doesn’t even have a fraction of the social pull he has – but Nick’s heart just beats so painfully whenever he wants to open his mouth, and his ears ring loud enough that it drowns out everything he wants to say.

So he just stays silent and does whatever he can. Most days, doing whatever he can just means trying to steer the group in the opposite direction from Charlie and his friends and, when he can’t, to try and not flinch too obviously at whatever comes out of Harry and Ben’s mouths.  

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick purposely arrives early on the first day of Year 11 just so he can catch Charlie coming into school. He had spent the entire summer break debating whether or not to press “Follow” on Charlie’s Instagram, but ultimately decided not to because he really doesn’t need more reasons for Charlie to dislike him.

When the bus pulls in at the front gates, Nick subtly fidgets and adjusts himself so he has a clear line of sight to the bus doors creaking open.

Charlie walks out. His uniform fits perfectly on his shoulders, which means that he must have gotten a little broader and taller since Nick saw him last. There’s a new trans flag pin on his backpack, although his converses look like the same pair. He has new wireless headphones, and they make him look even cooler than he did before the summer. 

Nick forces himself to look away casually, remembering the way the admonishment in the changing room a few months back had cut so strangely deep into his core. He’s determined to try and become friends with Charlie this year, and there’s nothing that can stop him. Not even his idiotic self.

“You have a good summer, Charlie Spring?” Harry shouts out from across the tables. Nick can tell Charlie hasn’t heard through his headphones because his eyes only narrow when Harry – miming sucking dick, tongue poking rhythmically at the inside of his cheek – comes into his line of sight.

Charlie raises two middle fingers at the entire group of them, a tired fire dancing behind his eyes, as he walks through the gates.

◍◍◍◍◍

The universe has it out for Charlie Spring, because he’s sat next to fucking Nicholas Nelson this year in form. Annoying, cowardly, no-manners Nicholas Nelson.

What a fucking start to Year 10.

He wants to tell Mr Lange that he should really think twice about putting his outcast students next to more popular ones but, by that logic, Charlie would probably have to sit alone the entire year since there’s not a single soul in school less popular than he is. So he trudges over, places his bag on the floor, and dumps himself in the plastic chair. 

“Hi,” Nick says, and he sounds way too chirpy for 7.50AM, for one, and for two, being an absolute stranger who is also a passive participant in Charlie’s bullying.

The absolute fucking nerve of him, honestly.

Charlie doesn’t have anything to say that wouldn’t involve cussing Nick out – and he promised his mum he was going to try and get less detention this year – so he just glares then puts his head down on the desk for a 10-minute nap. 

◍◍◍◍◍

“I can’t believe you’re sat next to Nicholas Nelson,” Tao says the second he reaches their lunch table.

“Yeah, me neither,” Charlie grumbles, opening his lunchbox to scrutinize its contents. “Out of everybody in this fucking school.”

“Better than Harry, at least,” Isaac speaks up, and only his eyes are visible above the top of his novel.

“Yeah, but he’s like… bottom 5 people I would want to sit with in this entire school. And there’s, like, a thousand of us.”

“So maybe it’s fate,” Isaac says brazenly, and dodges the peanut Charlie throws at him.

Tao glares at Isaac before turning back to smile at Charlie, sickeningly sweet: “Now that Elle’s not even here anymore, I have nothing to lose. Let me know if he says anything mean. I’ll destroy him with my bare hands.”

Charlie snorts.

◍◍◍◍◍

“Hi!” Nick says, even though he knows it’s not going to be any different today.

He’s right. Charlie just puts his bag down, sits, and faces the front. Form time passes like honey, sluggish and sticky in his ribcage. Beads of sweat collect above his brow at how tightly he’s holding himself. 

“Bye, Charlie. Have a good day,” Nick says as the bell rings and he can finally exhale.

Charlie doesn’t even look up as he leaves.

◍◍◍◍◍

“Hi,” Nick directs at Charlie as they pass in the corridor. Tao is next to him.

“What?” Tao stops, half-shocked and half-confused. 

“Just… hi?” Nick says, looking intimidated.

Everyone around them slows down to stare. Charlie imagines that it must be the equivalent of watching Regina George offer to carry books for Janis Ian. 

Charlie quickly walks off, dragging Tao behind him by the sleeve.

◍◍◍◍◍

Charlie has no idea what the fuck Nick is trying to do.

Charlie hasn’t had much experience with making friends, and he hasn’t given a shit about what anybody at Truham thinks of him in years, but it’s been almost a month and he’s puzzled as to why Nick hasn’t stopped trying to talk to him. 

He practices glaring at himself in the mirror and finds that it’s the same as it’s ever been – daunting and cold. So why isn’t Nick stopping?   

If Charlie didn’t know any better, he would think that Nick was genuinely trying to be friendly. There are some moments where Charlie even gets the impression that Nick is trying to be cute as he says it, squeezing the corner of his eyes so there are crows feet there, or grinning so widely his face looks like it might crack.

But Charlie does know better – Charlie knows just how people like Nick can be around their mates, so he doesn’t dignify Nick’s stupid greetings with any response. He also doesn’t much care that Nick’s face falls every single time.

His coins have been taking much longer to warm up to him of late. It feels like a sign, but he can’t quite figure out what it is.

◍◍◍◍◍

The next time Nick sees Charlie, he’s on the way to practice with Harry and the rest of the rugby team.

“Oh look, it’s the freakshow,” Harry says loudly, voice pinging off the metal lockers and barrelling down the corridor. Nick can see Isaac duck his head down even as Charlie and Tao continue walking forward, heads high and unbothered.

Nick hasn’t heard the word “freak” in years.

The last time he did was when it was used to describe some kid a few years below them. Someone who could see stuff in coins, or whatever, and mostly kept to himself.

Nick doesn’t know who that kid is, doesn’t have a name to call him by – either because it’s slipped his mind, or because people never actually bothered to refer to him by name – but he hasn’t heard about him for ages.

He still thinks about that kid from time to time. He really hopes he’s doing okay. He really hopes he just found another better school to transfer to, and that he’s happy.

Nick catches Charlie’s eye and quickly tries to communicate a silent “sorry for this idiot”, but the thunder behind Charlie’s expression scares him into blankness. 

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick doesn’t see Charlie in form for two days. He finds out from the rumour mill that he had been suspended for cursing at a Year 9. He also finds out from the rumour mill that the Year 9 hadn’t gotten so much as a warning, even though he was the one who started shouting slurs at Charlie first.

Something about the whole situation unfolds an insidious apprehension in Nick’s centre. 

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick waves lightly at Charlie as he comes into the Hamlet classroom.

His headphones are still on, and Nick is about to mime for him to take them off when Mr Lange says loudly, with an outstretched hand: “Charlie, how many times do I have to remind you? Headphones, please.”

Charlie rips them off his head angrily and puts them down on the teacher’s desk before going to sit down. Mr Lange shakes his head at the annoyance clear in the angular lines of Charlie’s body and the way he doesn’t bother to lift up the chair before dragging it out, but Charlie doesn’t look like he cares about written up anymore. 

Nick glances to his left nervously, uncomfortable with the sheer fury emanating off Charlie which shrouds them both in an awkward silence. 

Charlie moves again after a while, but he doesn’t flip the table, or do anything crazy like that.

Instead, he takes out his old wired earphones from his pocket, plugs it into his phone, slips one end through his blazer sleeve, then leads it out until it rests in the centre of his left palm. He leans his head on his hand – like he’s just taking a nap – but he inserts the earphone in his left ear, and presses play on a Muse song on his phone. 

Nick forces himself to look away before he’s caught by Charlie.

God, he’s like, the coolest person Nick has ever seen.

◍◍◍◍◍

All these “hi”s and “bye”s aren’t really getting him anywhere, so Nick decides to up the stakes.

He asks Charlie for help on his Maths homework.

Charlie just gives him a withering look and turns away. 

Nick pulls his worksheet back, a breath getting caught midway in his chest.

Maybe he’s got this all wrong: maybe Charlie just doesn’t want to be his friend because he thinks Nick is dumb, or not good enough for him, or annoying.

Now that he knows Charlie is different from what people say about him, Nick has recently been thinking of what people see when they look at him. People probably see him as a confident, brainless jock with nothing interesting to say. But what if people see something worse than that? What if Charlie sees something worse than that? And now he’s asking for help with sets, a chapter that Charlie probably sailed through – maybe that’s why Charlie doesn’t want to be friends, maybe he should just give up before he humiliates himself any further –

A small stack of notecards drops on top of his paper. It says “Maths notes” on the top, in a handwritten scrawl.

Nick looks up in surprise.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Charlie says icily, then he goes back to rolling a coin between his fingers under the table.  “Return it to me before form ends.”

“Thanks,” Nick whispers back, and the fire in his chest lights up a smile on his face.

◍◍◍◍◍

“Er…. Charlie,” someone says nervously, and Charlie looks up to find a sheepish Nick standing next to their desk, both hands a vibrant blue. “You don’t happen to have a tissue, do you?”

Charlie is about to say no and go back to his work when Mr Lange notices them, “Nick, what’s the matter with you?”

“I… My pen exploded,” Nick replies, and his face goes bright red at the singular focus he’s receiving from the rest of the students in the room.

“You’d better go clean up in the bathroom,” Mr Lange says. “Charlie, can you go with Nick and open the doors for him?”

Charlie contemplates rejecting the suggestion, but decides he really doesn’t need to be in more trouble with Mr Lange this semester, and grumbles as he gets up from his seat. He points a middle finger at that one Sixth Former who snickers, “bet he’s been waiting a long time to get alone with Nick. Fucking disgusting”, drags his feet to open the classroom door and shows Nick out with a displeased swing of his arm. Nick ducks through like he’s actually sorry for all of this. 

In the bathroom, he watches on as Nick rushes to the sinks, presses down the tap with the knob of his elbow, and scrubs at his hands. But the relentless ink doesn’t show any signs of sloughing off.

“I have a really big match later,” Nick exclaims, an edge creeping into his voice. “I can’t go onto the field with blue hands!” 

“Blue’s our school colour. I don’t get what the big deal is,” Charlie says unaffectedly. He’s standing at the far end of the toilet, as far away from Nick as he can get.

“I look like I’m wearing gloves!” Nick raises both his hands, and Charlie doesn’t point out that this is making dyed water drip onto his rolled-up sleeves; just stares blankly. 

Nick figures it out just before another dark blue rivulet runs down and he does an awkward dance to bring his arms over the sink again. For a long time, the only sounds are the running of the tap and the panicked sounds escaping Nick’s throat. 

“Okay. I don’t know how I’m supposed to help you, honestly,” Charlie says, thumbing the 2003 Malaysian 5-sen coin in his pocket. It’s cold and violet now, but he can see its potential – it just needs a little love, then he can give it to someone who might need it. “Why did Lange even… You could’ve just pushed doors open with your foot.”  

Nick continues scrubbing furiously in the sink, pretending like he hasn’t heard.

A few moments ooze by slowly. 

Charlie sighs heavily. He removes the soap bottle from the sink nearest him and places it next to Nick, before announcing: “Okay, I’m leaving.”

“Wait!” Nick calls out, and his voice sounds strangled. “Did I… Did I do something to you?”

Charlie frowns, “What?”

“Just –” Nick pauses. “You just seem like you really hate me. Did I do something wrong?”

Charlie could get into it right now, in this dim, humid toilet. He could launch into a tirade, could educate Nick about how being neutral in the face of violence is being on the side of the aggressor, but right now he cares more about the fact that he’s late for covalent bonds than about handholding Nick into being a decent person. He’s already behind, there’s a test next week and, frankly, it’s not his responsibility to help other people see past their own two feet.  

But he knows Nick isn’t going to let it go – or, for that matter, stop bothering him every morning with his pathetic “hi”s and “bye”s – so he guesses he should spare some time now. Short term loss, long term gain.

“I don’t hate you,” Charlie says tersely, not even bothering to hide his annoyance. For how big Nick’s head is, it really must be empty. 

Nick’s eyes widen, and he flinches back as Charlie steps forward, as if the sharp spikes of his displeasure have fully extruded, physically creating a radius of space that’s pushing Nick away. Charlie has been known to do that – another thing Truham has forced him to perfect – he just wasn’t expecting it to work on rugby captain Nicholas Nelson. 

He chooses to push down his instinct telling him that there’s something obvious here he’s not seeing, and continues, “But people see the people you hang out with. Maybe think about that for a second when choosing your friends next time.”  

Then, just because Charlie is spiteful and has three years full of injustice in his belly (maybe more), he gets in a final jab before he opens the door to leave: “You can’t just stand around, watch me get bullied, and then expect me to say hello back like we’re friends.”

“I…” Nick fumbles, and his face flushes so red it’s almost violet. 

“Does that make sense?” Charlie asks, seething. The whole bathroom feels like it’s full of his venom. 

“Yes,” Nick says after a beat, but he doesn’t look like he really understands. He looks lost, and it’s such a genuine expression that the tension in the bathroom spontaneously disappears like a popped bubble.

Charlie blinks slowly and, for some reason, feels like he’s kicked a puppy. He wants to let himself out of this dank bathroom, because the sharp pinch of guilt under his skin is so uncomfortable, but he can’t seem to make himself move, except to dodge a little when the door swings shut again. It’s like someone that’s not him is keeping his feet planted to the floor. He’s rapidly running through his mind the possible next steps to take, when he realises that the tap hasn’t re-started.

He turns around and Nick’s head is hung as low as it could be. He looks… he looks lost in thought, which is something Charlie didn’t think was even possible for jocks like him. 

“You–” Charlie starts before he can stop himself, and Nick snaps to attention, like he heard the toilet door swing shut and genuinely didn’t think Charlie was still here. “You said you’ve got a big match later?”

“Oh. Um, yeah,” Nick says, abashed, but looking directly at him – not that much of a coward then, Charlie thinks. Nick’s face is ashen but his eyes are warm and grounding in a way that Charlie’s never really seen in anyone else. There’s another emotion there that he cannot name – he’s not sure Nick could even name this emotion, it looks so goddamned new. 

Charlie forcibly breaks eye contact before he gets sucked in any further and pulls out his cloth pouch before he even has the time to really process what he’s doing. He rifles through the pile, looking for the one that’s suitable – difficult because of all the bright colours crowding for his attention – but he finds it eventually. It’s not a British coin; it’s a 1972 Turkish Lira, something he found on the pavements near the West End when he was there last, energy so strong it’s almost rising like steam off of the metal.

It’s one of his favourites, and he can’t believe he’s giving it to fucking Nick Nelson. He just feels so guilty about being harsh: he really was intending to give Nick something to ponder about, not break his fucking brain.

“Have this nearby during your game,” He walks over briskly and hands it to him, wiping away the blue wetness that transfers from Nick’s fingers to his. “Put it in your pocket or something, I don’t care. It’s good luck.”

It’s not actually for good luck – as much as Charlie isn’t a part of the regular gossip circuit in school, even he knows rugby king Nicholas Nelson doesn’t need luck to play well. It’s actually for bodily protection, but people are almost always more likely to accept lucky charms than amulets, so that’s what he usually says.

He steps out of the toilet without a second look backwards, though he lingers outside until he’s certain Nick hasn’t just thrown the coin in the dustbin. When he hears water running again, he picks up his feet and goes to Chemistry.

Time to try and not fail covalent bonds.

◍◍◍◍◍

The first thing Charlie hears along the corridors the next day is that Truham had won the match and beat St. John’s for the first time in the school’s history. Nick had scored two tries and made all the kicks, but on the last try, he had taken the full force of a St. John’s player’s knee to the face, the result of a less than legal tackle. Sai picks up the penalty, and they win by four points.

He hears the constant chatter along Truham’s corridors that afternoon about how lucky Nick was to have walked off the field with nothing but a black eye. Apparently, from the videos, which they play repeatedly frame by frame, it definitely should have been a broken nose and a nasty concussion. Nobody can understand why it didn’t happen.

Charlie smiles to himself and continues working on his Malaysian coin while walking to class. Now that he thinks about it, Nick does have a really nice nose – he’s kind of glad it didn’t get broken.

◍◍◍◍◍

Charlie doesn’t see Nick in form until three days later. Nick pulls out something from his pocket and slides it across the table, his fingers nudging slightly into Charlie’s forearm. 

Charlie looks down, and he’s shocked to find there the 1972 Turkish Lira coin.

Or… He thinks it is.

The coin looks entirely different from the one that he’d passed to Nick. Where it used to be a demanding amber, the colour of a flashing warning sign, now there’s almost no energy to even speak of. It’s completely devoid of colour. The coin looks even more dead than brand new ones straight out of the bank.

“Fuck,” Charlie breathes out. “Shit. Must have been a really bad tackle.”

Nick is confused as to why Charlie’s said that while looking at the small metallic disc on the table, instead of at his face, where the bruise has grown even larger since the match, now a blooming splotch of sickening green.

But then he connects the dots. The kid. The kid, who sees stuff in coins. The kid that Nick has been worrying about for years. That kid is… That kid is Charlie. Charlie is – God, he’s an idiot. 

Charlie is that kid!

“You can tell that from the coin?”

Charlie looks up sharply and juts his chin out, as if he hadn’t noticed that he had spoken aloud at all, but daring Nick to follow up with some rude remark anyway.

“So it’s real then?” Nick whispers and startles a little at the way Charlie’s face immediately softens slightly at the edges. Not all the way, of course – Nick has never really seen Charlie look soft. “It’s good luck?”

Charlie is speechless. No one’s ever asked him straight up like this, at least not with such respect for something they certainly do not understand. It’s usually pretty obvious when people ask – it’s to gather bullying fodder, or out of disdain, or purely to humour him, the way he used to pretend to sip from an empty cup when he played teatime with Olly. But Nick looks like he’s genuinely curious.

“Not… Not really good luck. It’s for protection,” Charlie winces internally, not liking the way it sounds when spoken aloud. He should find a better way to say these things, at least, if he’s going to say them.

But Nick has follow-up questions, of course, and his voice inadvertently rises in volume, “And it looks different now?”

“Nicholas,” Mr Lange warns, and he ducks his head sheepishly. “Please pipe down. We’re supposed to be working.”

Nick pretends to go back to his Geography worksheet, but he steals glances at Charlie until the coast is clear, and Charlie finally says begrudgingly: “Yeah. There’s, like, nothing left in it. It’s completely spent.”

“Oh,” Nick’s face falls and he feels like he’s broken a vase, or something fragile, even though it’s hard to reconcile that feeling with the sight of the coin, which looks exactly the same as the day he received it. “So it’s ruined?”

Charlie picks it up hesitantly and runs a quick thumb across the surface, all the while looking at Nick and waiting for a scathing remark to come. But it doesn’t, and the stern side profile of the man embossed there crackles under his skin. Both of those things make him feel strangely relieved. It tugs loose a fear in his chest that he hasn’t felt for years.

“Nah,” he says. “I… Um, I think I just need to hold onto it for a while and it’ll come back.”

Nick contemplates whether it would be too much to ask if he could buy it from Charlie after it’s fully charged again. Because it’s his St. John’s coin. It’s his first kindness from Charlie.

He’s still figuring out how to word it in the least offensive way (although Charlie seems to be offended by literally everything that comes out of his mouth), but his expression must be obvious, because Charlie says, carefully neutral, “You want another one?”

Nick bobs his head enthusiastically. That might even be better than his original plan. 

Charlie nods jerkily and slides over a 2007 British penny. “I don’t know what its purpose is yet, but it feels… l think it’ll mould to whatever you need if you hang onto it.”

Nick picks it up and cradles it in his hands.

“Don’t get kneed in the face, though,” Charlie continues, but the expression on his face is unplaceable, almost odd. “I don’t think it’s going to protect you. It’s not that kind of coin.”

“You heard about that?”

“Of course I did,” Charlie deadpans. “Everyone has. And, no offence, your face is kinda fucked up.”

“Don’t get kneed in the mug. Keep this coin close. Easy enough,” Nick beams up at Charlie and, for the first time, Charlie smiles up at him.

Okay, that’s a strong word. More like there’s an upwards curl of his lip which could maybe be a desiccated grimace, but that’s way more than Nick has ever gotten from him.

Nick walks around school for the rest of the afternoon with a spring in his step. He actually had a normal conversation with Charlie! And now he has a new coin. That Charlie gave him. This is the best day ever. 

◍◍◍◍◍

It’s only later that evening that Nick remembers he hadn’t actually thanked Charlie for the coin which saved him from a broken face at the St. John’s match. So he picks up his phone and nervously clicks follow on @charlie_spr1.  

His follow request is accepted in a matter of minutes, and he quickly sends a DM before Charlie has the chance to second guess his decision and block him. He’s definitely not leaving anything to chance now that he has an in.

Charlie opens the message right away, and he’s typing for a long while, which keeps Nick on the edge of his seat, but Charlie must end up deleting whatever he’s typed, because what eventually comes through is just a thumbs up emoji before Charlie goes offline.

Nick smiles anyway, even wider than he means to. He takes to keeping the coin on him everywhere he goes.

◍◍◍◍◍

It’s been a few days, and Charlie is still waiting for things to fall apart.

He gets to school every day, waiting to see Nick leering at him from the tables or maybe sharing a conspiratorial whisper with Ben before lobbing something at him. But it doesn’t happen.

In fact, Nick gets even friendlier with him, and his smiling face is sometimes the first thing Charlie sees when he alights from the bus every morning. Charlie always looks away as soon as he spots it, because it gives him a weird feeling in his chest, like something is poking up against it.

“Why the fuck is he smiling at us?” Tao says, looking suspiciously at Nick. “Or is it at you?”

“Probably me,” Charlie sighs, stuffing his hands in his pocket, jostling the coins that are there.

“Why is he smiling at you?”

“We… talked.”

Tao scoffs, “What do you guys have to talk to each other about?”

“I gave him a coin,” Charlie says. “For his rugby match.”

“Why the heck would you do that?” Tao’s face scrunches up even more in worry and disgust.

“I dunno, he’s kind of…” Charlie trails off, or simply doesn’t want to continue that thought. “Because I think I hurt his feelings.” 

“Okay, I’m so lost,” Tao stops in his tracks and Charlie does too. “Start from the beginning.”

Charlie sighs dramatically, “You know how we sit next to each other in form?”

“Yeah?” Tao says slowly.

“He’s been trying to, like… talk to me and stuff. Trying to be friendly, you know? But I couldn’t be arsed so I hadn’t been responding, and one day he just straight up asked me why I hated him,” saying this now feels painful, and for the second time in his life, Charlie actually wonders whether he really is unreasonably mean to people who aren’t his friends. “I told him that staying neutral –”

“Staying neutral in the face of violence is being on the side of the aggressor, yes, continue,” Tao interrupts.

“Then he looked kind of… pensive. I don’t know if it actually made it through that fucking thick skull of his, but I felt bad. So I gave him a coin. And he didn’t even… He didn’t even say anything bad about it. He looked like he actually believed it.”

Tao arches his eyebrow, “You sure?”

“It’s been, like, a week and a half. I still see him carrying it around,” Charlie says softly.

Harry shouts at them all the way from the tables, “Ain’t nobody wanna see a bunch of queers kissing in front of the school gates.”

“Shut the fuck up, Harry,” Tao and Charlie turn to shout at the same time, their annoyance scratching its way across the distance. 

“Just because you haven’t managed to bag anyone since like, Year 6,” Charlie continues, relishing in the stares of everyone else. “I really wonder why, given your daddy’s money. Must be your star personality.”

Harry makes a move to get up – and Tao readies to put himself between the two of them – but Christian holds Harry back so firmly by the arm that he has no choice but to sit back down. Charlie looks at Nick, but Nick isn’t looking at them. His hands are just fisted in his lap, and he keeps shifting uncomfortably.

A strange disappointment passes over Charlie like a grey storm, but he doesn’t know why. Was he really expecting more out of Nick, who’s never said a single word against his rugby friends in all the years that Charlie’s been in Truham? He wasn’t. He can’t have. He doesn’t believe in people like that. 

“Nick’s just like the rest of them, Charlie,” Tao says surely, glowering at Harry until the tension in the air finally breaks. “Be careful. Especially with your… coin thing.”

“Yeah,” Charlie says quickly, eager to change the topic. “If anything happens, you get first dibs on punching him. Promise.”

Tao grumbles and slings an arm around Charlie’s shoulders as they start walking into school again, ignoring everyone else who’s whispering around them. “I can’t believe you managed to punch someone before I did. My sweet, sweet, innocent Charlie.”

“What can I say, you taught me too well,” Charlie laughs, expertly dodging a Year 9 who tries to stick some note in his bag. “The pupil has surpassed the master.”

“Indeed he has.”

◍◍◍◍◍

One week later, Nick pulls the penny out of his pocket and slides it across the table.

“Has it changed?” Nick asks under his breath. Charlie hasn’t said a single word to Nick in the past week or so, because there’s a void growing inside him that he’s been packing with anger and even more anger.

There’s a lot where that comes from, but this week it’s fury at the fact that Nick is clearly a decent person, but he just refuses to be a good one. If he actually stood up for Charlie and his friends – just once – Charlie would agree to be his friend in a heartbeat.

But he refuses to do it, so Charlie is stuck in this weird limbo of imagining what it would be like to spend hours on end chatting with Nick but then remembering that he shouldn’t.

Charlie looks down at the coin on the table between them. 

It has, Charlie wants to respond. It’s taken on a light coral pink, a colour so rare that he can’t even imagine what it might mean.

He wants to study it so badly. He wants to talk about the spectrum of colours he’s seen in thousands of coins over the years, and how he’s somehow never seen this particular one. He wants to ask Nick what he’d been doing the past few weeks, that it’s become so… special.

But he doesn’t want to know how Nick has been enjoying his life as Truham’s top dog while Charlie’s been frustrated at him.

And if he started talking he probably wouldn’t know how to stop, so he just doesn’t. He looks back at his paperback and doesn’t move a muscle even when Nick taps him timidly on the arm and repeats his question.

After a while, Nick turns back to face the front again. Charlie picks up the coin and folds it into his pocket. Even the side profile of Nick looks disappointed. Charlie tries not to care. 

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick’s not sure how to actually become friends with Charlie. Charlie ignores him for most of form, and he only sometimes says a quick “ hi ” back in the corridors, although Nick suspects it’s mainly just to get Nick to stop embarrassing him where other people can see.

Nick can’t possibly keep asking for coins (for no reason at all) or for help on his homework (because then he’ll just make himself look even more incompetent), so he’s running out of ideas. He hasn’t really had to work this hard for someone’s friendship before.

But then Nick catches a bad cold near half-term and he’s being miserable in bed on a Friday morning when his phone buzzes at 8.10AM.

charlie_spr1: wru? r u late? lange is asking.

He bolts upright, forgetting why he was in a fetal position in the first place, and the pain from his congested respiratory system shoots straight into his brain. He groans loudly and has to take a few pained breaths through his mouth before he can bring himself to look at the brightness of his phone screen again.

nick_nzzzz: My mum is going to call me in sick soon.  I’m down with a bad cold 🤧

He rolls onto his back and then proceeds to cough his lungs out. By the time he returns to his phone a good two minutes later, there’s a new message.

charlie_spr1: of course you’re the kind of person who would have auto-caps on

He smiles but has to school his face to a neutral expression after a while because, right now, the choice is between smiling and breathing, and he’d really like to not asphyxiate while Charlie is texting him.

nick_nzzzz: Hey! I’d argue that it makes me hipster, now that everyone is typing in lower caps.

charlie_spr1: i guess that makes sense.

Then there’s nothing else, and Nick thinks for a depressing moment that he’s ruined yet another conversation, when a new message pops up.

charlie_spr1: u ok though?

Nick’s heart abruptly beats out of time, and it’s painful enough that he lets out an uncomfortable groan.

nick_nzzzz: Not really. Had a 41 degree fever last night and went to the ER.

charlie_spr1: shit

nick_nzzzz: Yeah 😔

charlie_spr1: is there anyone at home looking after you?

nick_nzzzz: I’m alone, unfortunately. My mum had to go to work.

charlie_spr1: you still live on Brittania, right?

nick_nzzzz: Yes… How did you know that?

charlie_spr1: when i collected those consent forms for our home room. i remembered because we actually live pretty near each other.

nick_nzzzz: Oh. Yes, I still live on Brittania.

Bubbles appear, then they disappear. Nick double-texts, desperate to keep the conversation going. 

nick_nzzzz: Where do you live?

charlie_spr1: river crescent

charlie_spr1: ok lange is on my back, gotta go. feel better soon

The message somehow makes Nick feel lighter, even though he’s congested to hell. 

nick_nzzzz: Thanks!

◍◍◍◍◍

There's a ring at the door which rouses Nick from his fitful sleep.

It takes a long, long while for him to make it down the stairs, and when he finally manages to get the door open, he’s not entirely sure he hasn’t lost his damn mind.

Because here is Charlie Spring in a blue mask, saying “Sorry, I’m late” and holding up a flask in his left hand. His hair is all wild from the wind, but it’s not just that – droplets of water cling to the entire front of his wool jumper, and Nick can see some clumps of soil stuck to the sleeves.

Nick wants to say something like “Oh my god, why are you here” or “Hi” but the fever has clearly fried all the ends of his mental faculties, because what he says is: “What happened to you? Did you fall off your bike?”

“No,” Charlie’s eyes narrow, like he’s genuinely offended that Nick would even think that.

But after a while, he sighs and opens his other fist to reveal a penny, which is just an ordinary oak colour to Nick. “Had to dig through a bush to find this guy.”

“You’re so cool,” Nick hears himself say, and his eyes feel glazed over with something more than fatigue.  

“Shut up,” Charlie makes a face like he’s annoyed, but the redness in the tips of his ears give him away.

Nick takes pauses to breathe through his mouth and wince at the pain in his throat before he says: “You are. You’re like the coolest person I–”

“Okay, enough talking,” Charlie holds up a hand and Nick shuts up. Mainly because Charlie is right here, on his doorstep, and he doesn’t want him to leave. “Should I come in? This is chicken soup from the Vietnamese place in town, but I’m not sure if I trust you to not die while pouring it out.” 

“Oh,” Nick blinks, then moves to the side, which takes a lot more energy than he was expecting. “Yes. Please, come in.”

Charlie side steps him and for a second, Nick wishes his nose wasn’t blocked because he kind of misses the way Charlie smells. He also wishes Charlie wasn’t wearing a mask, because this is the first time he’s seen Charlie out of the Truham uniform, and he… he looks so good. Nick wants to see his face so badly and, at the back of his mind, stuck behind a fevered fog, he knows this is the furthest thing from missing someone in a normal, platonic way.

Charlie stands awkwardly in the hallway while he waits for Nick to shut the door and show him to the kitchen. But when Nick turns, he stumbles into a tsunami of dizziness and the world whizzes around him in a confusing circle.

He feels himself tip backwards until someone’s hand suddenly wraps around his waist and the momentum rocks slowly to a stop. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to throw up or over-correct the other way and faceplant into the carpet. But then someone is looping their arm under his armpit and over his shoulder, helping him find his feet and guiding – half-dragging? – him into the living room. 

Nick is almost halfway there when he remembers that the someone holding him is Charlie, so he says miserably, “You shouldn’t, I – I’m going to get you sick.”

Nick tries to push him off, but Charlie silently presses his hands back down and wrestles him into the couch. He feels a blanket being tugged over his shoulders and watches, blinking blearily, as Charlie backs away from him. Is he dreaming? Why is Charlie Spring in his living room? 

“I’m wearing a mask. And I’m going to wash my hands. And I also tried not to breathe in when I was touching you,” Dream-Charlie says slowly, carefully. 

“That’s good,” Nick nods, his words already beginning to slur from the effort of making it all the way down the stairs. He wants to stay awake because Dream-Charlie is obviously more talkative than Real-Charlie, but his body is giving up by the second. “You’re so smart. Honestly. You think of everything.”

Then he’s out.

Charlie scoffs at the sight of Nick snoring on the couch and moves to the kitchen to wash his hands, making sure to scrub all the way to the elbow just to be safe.

He stares at his hands after they’re pat dry with a paper towel. 

He knows his ability only works with coins. So, really, there’s no explanation for the otherworldly feeling under his fingertips where they’d made contact with Nick’s skin. 

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick is awoken by the feeling of something sharp poking into his shoulder. It’s a shoehorn. The one that looks like a red snake, from Ikea, that his mum had bought when he was a young kid.

“Wha–?”

The snake is being held at arms’ length by one Charlie Spring. His curls are unmistakeable, and his eyes above a blue mask even more striking. 

Another hard poke.

“Have you had lunch?”

Nick heaves himself up and blinks for a good 30 seconds. “No” – then after a confused tilt of his head – “I’m hungry.”

Charlie snorts. “I heated up the porridge on the stove, I hope that’s okay. I assumed it was for you. I also poured out the soup.”

“Oh,” Nick says, realising now that there’s a full tray of food and liquids on the coffee table in front of him. “Oh. Thanks.”

A tortured gasp escapes him as he shifts towards it, but it’s more than worth it for the feeling of a spoonful of soup trickling down his parched throat. He drinks a few more sips and takes a bite of the porridge when –

“Wait,” he says, blinking owlishly. “You’re here.”

“Yes, I am. You’re not hallucinating,” Charlie sounds amused, then he frowns. Nick doesn’t like it when Charlie does that, even if his eyebrows still look nice furrowed. Charlie has such nice eyebrows, but he wishes he would smile more. What is he talking about? Wait, he’s not talking. Charlie is. His brain feels like mush. His body feels so hot he’s surprised steam isn’t coming out of his nose. 

“– hope it’s okay? I’m just doing my schoolwork at the kitchen table.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Nick nods his head slowly, but even that small movement feels like a fight. “Yeah. Of course.”

Charlie sits down at the far end of the living room, tucking his knees into his chest and resting his chin on the peaks. He watches carefully as Nick eats.

It looks unbelievably painful. It looks like Nick is bracing himself before every bite, then struggling through every swallow, then suppressing an urge to cough after it goes down, before repeating it all over again. He keeps clearing his throat, like he’s trying to dislodge phlegm or find a more comfortable place for his tongue to be. It’s horrid and Charlie wants to tell him something to distract him from the pain, but he doesn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even planning on coming over here until 2 hours ago, when his brain wouldn’t stop providing him with images of Nick, sick and home alone. 

“Do you have medicine you need to take?” is the best he can come up with which, even for his unsociable standards, is pathetic.

Another hacking cough comes and goes. Charlie winces throughout the whole thing, silently begging for it to stop as soon as possible. He wouldn’t have thought that he had any difficulty seeing people suffer (the rush he got seeing Ben with a bloody nose and the rush he gets whenever he sees Harry getting hurt at rugby stay between him and God), but seeing Nick in pain now is so much more difficult than he could have ever imagined.

Nick looks so small right now, and there is a deep crevice between his knitted brows that’s never there. He’s the complete opposite of the guy who’s always trying his 200% to annoy Charlie with his chattering, and seeing someone who’s usually larger-than-life suddenly so fallible is putting Charlie on edge.

“Yeah. I gotta…” Nick sighs. “I gotta take it… What time is it?”

Charlie clears his throat and wills the twisting in his stomach to go away, “It’s 2 PM.”

“I gotta take it at 3. I think.”

“Okay,” Charlie says calmly. “Finish the Lemsip, then you should try to sleep again. I’ll wake you up at 3.”

“I just woke up,” Nick says, frowning.

“Your eyes are closing,” Charlie points out. 

Nick brings his fingers to his face, and finds that Charlie is correct, “Oh. Right. But you don’t… You don’t have to stay.”

Charlie shakes his head firmly. “No offence, but you sound like shit. And I really don’t want you to die on this couch, because I’d immediately be, like, prime suspect number 1.”

“Romantic,” Nick says suddenly. Charlie thinks he was probably going for something sarcastic, but he’s so exhausted that it doesn’t come out that way at all – it’s just warm, and genuine, and funny.

Charlie smiles, amused, “Your standards sound about right for a straight boy.”  

“I’m not straight. Might be bi,” Nick says sleepily, words blurring into each other. “I dunno.”

Oh. Oh.

But before Charlie can even start to process what Nick has just said – before he can even think of what to say in response – Nick starts keeling face first into the food tray and Charlie has to rush forward to save him.

“Oh, fuck. Fuck, you’re so heavy.”

Charlie knows this isn’t so much Nick trying to annoy him but more of him completely losing all sense of direction, because the way he leans his entire body weight into Charlie is painful and clumsy.

“Oh, oh god,” Charlie squeaks, snaking a hand around Nick’s shoulders to lean him back into the pillows. “You’re really –”

The thump of a body into a nest of pillows. A shuddering, wet breath. A Charlie, panting from the exertion. A Nick, eyes half-closed and turning over to bury his nose into the back of the couch.

“Fuck. Fucking hell,” Charlie says to himself. “He passes out after dropping that bombshell?”

He’s about to leave when Nick mumbles under his breath, so soft Charlie almost misses it entirely: “I’m sorry people are so mean to you about that. I wish… I wish...”

Then there is a wet exhale, and Nick is out again like a light. The silence that settles on the rest of the room somehow feels more comfortable than just a minute ago, like someone’s turned up the heating and turned down the lights. 

“Well, fuck,” Charlie rests his hands on his hips and stares down at the idiot before him, now sexual orientation: unclear. “Good night, I guess.”

He runs a rough hand through his hair, trots back to the dining table, and finishes the rest of his Spanish essay. He’s writing a short story about a boy who can talk to animals, or at least he hopes he is – his Spanish really sucks.

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick has vague memories of Charlie pushing medicine and lozenges and cups of water into his hands maybe once or twice, but it’s dark out by the time he’s fully conscious again, and there are only the familiar sounds of his mum moving around in the kitchen.

“Mum?” he calls out. His throat feels better and there’s a thin sheen of sweat on his skin, which means that his fever probably broke at some point.

“Nicholas?” his mum steps into the living room. “How are you feeling, baby?”

“Horrible,” he sits up and peers over the couch. There’s no trace of anyone else. “Was there… Was there someone here when you got home?”

“Yeah! Charlie, his name was?” His mum places her hand on his forehead and looks relieved at the temperature that she finds there. “Really nice boy, very bright.”

“Like… smart?” 

“No, like, he was chatty,” she says. “We had a good talk about how he’s finding school. I didn’t realise you made a new friend outside of rugby, Nicky.”

Chatty? Charlie Spring?

“Oh,” Nick frowns, declining the Lemsip his mum is trying to get him to take. His bladder is about to burst. “We’re in the same form. Not sure we’d be considered friends.”

“He did all the dishes in the sink. Kind of a weird thing to do if he wasn’t your friend.”

Nick scratches the back of his neck, his blunt fingernails feeling like knives across his fevered skin. This entire day has been supremely confusing. 

◍◍◍◍◍

A lot of other things about Charlie are confusing.

The oversized light purple wool sweater Charlie wore to his house, for example. He’s spent months watching Charlie, and if anyone had asked him what he thinks Charlie would wear outside of school, Nick would probably have bet an entire year’s allowance on all-black. Light purple would be his very last choice, but Charlie clearly has it in his wardrobe, and it looks well-worn.

Then his mum seemed so convinced that Charlie was a talkative boy. With the way Charlie usually talks to the teachers at Truham, Nick would never ever have pegged Charlie to be one for cordial small chat with adults.

But above all of that, the most confusing thing would still be Charlie’s Instagram.

All of Charlie’s posts are so different from what he would expect. Nick is equally comforted and jealous at the fact that Charlie is so… happy outside of school. There are photos of him pulling funny faces, photos of him mid-laugh while amongst friends (Tao, Isaac, and Elle feature the most heavily, although there is another group that he doesn’t recognize), even photos of him recreating cat memes. 

It’s also weird that they don’t have that many mutual followers, even though they’re in the same school and have been for years. He has more mutuals with some of the players from St. Johns, and they’re on the complete opposite end of town. 

But in spite of the lack of mutuals, Charlie has 2,932 followers. Almost all his posts exceed 500 likes, but the comment feature is always turned off. 2,932 followers is way more than anybody has at Truham – even Nick himself only has 897.

Nick can’t quite figure it out, and surely Charlie is not the kind of person to buy followers?

Then one day, Charlie reposts something on his story and it’s a black-and-white picture of himself playing the drums, curly hair wild in mid-motion and bokeh blurring out the background, Charlie in full resplendent focus. Nick squints at it for a while, briefly wondering whether this could be from a school event – he doesn’t remember there being any of late, he would’ve gone if he knew Charlie was playing – before clicking on the profile that posted it.

The profile is @queerintentions, and it’s a cover band that busks in London every Sunday with close to 7.5k followers.

Nick clicks on the pinned post of what is apparently the members of the band and there it is.

Standing to the very left is Charlie, holding up a pair of drumsticks. There is a smile on his face wider than Nick has ever seen before and he actually looks soft here, even though he shouldn’t – he’s wearing a silver necklace just barely visible under a roughly cropped MUSE tank top, with black jeans and heavy-duty Dr Marten boots. With that outfit he looks like he should be scowling, the way he always is in Truham. But no, he looks over the moon even as his eyeliner is smudged across his cheeks from sweat.

This is why Charlie has so many followers. He’s famous, and Nick doesn’t even know what to think. Doesn’t even know how to begin wrapping his head around the fact that there are so many facets to Charlie – he’s only seen the I-hate-the-world version of him in school, and only recently seen the less prickly version of him in an oversized purple sweater, but now suddenly there’s also a version of him rocking it out in London in makeup?

He spends the first hour stalking the page, looking first at the ones where Charlie is posing deliberately with the rest of the band, then combing through the rest for ones where he’s just hidden slightly off in the background, the momentary wink of a camera shutter capturing him riding some rhythm. He spends the next hour scrolling through some of the band’s bigger fan accounts in their followers list. He even finds a solo Charlie fanpage and although it hasn’t been updated in a while, there’s enough content for Nick to be enamoured for an entire afternoon. 

Nick gets it, he really does. He wonders if he should ask the admin of that account to pass him the log-in details so he can revive it. He would probably be a great admin, taking secret pictures of Charlie in school, hiding behind corners. Speaking of… 

Nick: Did you know about Charlie Spring’s band??

Otis: the band he plays with in london?

Nick: Wtf, you know about that?? How has this never come up in conversation?!?!!?!

Otis: why would this come up in conversation??

Nick: IDK? We have a celebrity in school?

Otis: ig?? he’s very lowkey, though. he rarely ever posts about it

Otis: and since when did you care about charlie?

Nick: We sit next to each other in form

Otis: okay…………

◍◍◍◍◍

Seriously, it was a mistake re-posting that photo on his story, because now Nick will not leave him alone.

“Can I come to your next show, please?” Nick is practically begging at this point, after a whole 15 minutes of whispering questions about the band that he pointedly ignores. “ Please.”

“It’s not a show, Nick,” Charlie says, exasperated and keeping an eye out for Mr Lange, who looks like he’s just waiting to catch them in action to shout at them. “We literally just show up on a random street that’s not too disgusting and play for tips.”

“Well, can I come then?” Nick pokes him repeatedly with his stupid fountain pen.

Charlie yanks his arm out of Nick’s reach with a thorny stare, “I mean, it’s a public place, I can’t really stop you from showing up. You can do whatever you want.”

“Okay, but where?” Nick hisses impatiently.

Charlie sighs, but it comes out a lot less angry than he wanted it to be. He’s losing his knife-edge when it comes to Nick, he needs to be more careful.

“We post our location on our Insta stories an hour before, but we normally play near Covent Garden,” Charlie tsks. “Now can you please stop talking to me? Seriously. I’ve got homework I need to submit by second period.”

Nick mimes zipping his mouth closed then writes on the corner of Charlie’s school diary, Covent Garden. I’ll be there! in a neat cursive font.

Not that Charlie hasn’t noticed it before, but Nick has really nice penmanship. He feels oddly pleased that now he has his very own specimen of Nicholas-Nelson-handwriting. 

But then Nick continues on to write: How are you getting there? Can I come with you? What time? and, okay, enough is enough. Charlie snaps his school diary shut, fixes Nick with a glare, and turns back to his homework. Nick raises his hands in cheeky mock-surrender.

Charlie rolls his eyes and goes back to solving a logarithmic equation. His cheeks feel tight and he’s confused at first, before he realizes he’s smiling.

Fuck.

◍◍◍◍◍

They do end up making plans to take the HS1 into London together, because Nick just won’t quit pestering him. There’s only so much spam that Charlie’s Instagram can take before he has to respond, or buy a new phone.

He would totally block @nick_nzzzz, but Nick literally keeps saying “ Plz don’t block me ” every other message so if Charlie does do it, then he’s just playing into Nick’s hands. Which would annoy him. So he doesn’t, and the conversation that begins with Charlie telling him to quit it inadvertently gets the ball rolling, and the ball which was a tiny pebble at first is now a boulder that’s all wrapped up in moss and its own ecosystem.

Really, this is all Charlie’s undoing. 

Nick texts him “I’m here!!” 5 minutes before their agreed time and when Charlie peeks out from the curtains of his bedroom on the second floor, he can see Nick on the first floor. The expression of impatient glee on his face is so endearing that Charlie has to make himself look away.

It would be a lie to say that Charlie hadn’t noticed Nick before being put in the same form. He’s pretty sure everybody in Truham has noticed – notices Nick. He’s the most good-looking guy in school by far, but there’s something else about him that attracts adoration. Charlie used to think it was a cool factor, or something, but honestly… look at him. He’s in Charlie’s driveway, hands in the pockets of his jeans and bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet. That’s not the kind of cool that most secondary school kids would go for, much less the entirety of the Truham population.

No, it must be something else. And Charlie thinks he might have finally figured out what it is: Nick may not be the smartest or subtlest person, but he is astonishingly perceptive.

Nick had turned to him a few days ago in form and said, “I bet the coins you get from playing in London are insane”, and Charlie was only a hairs’ breadth from having a heart attack right then and there. Because he’d been playing with Queer Intentions for almost half a year before Tori had even caught on as to why he was doing it, and his friends still haven’t – they just think he likes drumming so much that he’s willing to pay 40 pounds a week to take a train into London to burn half his weekend hauling instruments around.

Nick hasn’t even seen him play, hasn’t even seen the “Foreign coins accepted, but no foreign cash please, thank you!” cardboard sign that they put up before they start playing, which means he must have spent time thinking about it then figured it all out himself.

Charlie thinks that’s probably why people like him so much, and probably why he’s supposedly the best rugby captain Truham has ever seen. He’s nice enough to think about other people – so nice that he even thinks about how they think. It’s pretty impressive.

It makes Charlie want to be his friend. Find out what makes him tick, what he’s like in private. Whether someone like that could exist outside of other people. 

Tao would disapprove of Charlie’s curiosity. 

Which is exactly why he’s enlisted Elle's help to make sure that Tao isn’t showing up to Covent Garden today.

Charlie takes a final look at himself in the mirror, runs a finger under each of his necklaces so the pendants fall in the middle, and opens the front door. Nick turns around so quickly to say hi that he almost falls into the flowerbed and Charlie has to fight to keep his practiced scowl in place.

“You pierced your ears?” Nick asks incredulously, mouth agape. 

“No, Nick,” Charlie sighs, adjusting the Kanken on his shoulder and closing the door behind him. “They’re just ear cuffs.” 

“You lo–” Nick swallows. “It looks really good.”

Charlie scrunches his nose and says, unimpressed, “I know. Let’s go.”  

◍◍◍◍◍

There are many things contributing to Nick’s yapping this morning. First, he was so excited about going into London with Charlie that he hadn’t really managed to get much sleep last night. Second, he’s done his research on the kind of bands that Queer Intentions normally covers, and he’s listened to so much good music in the past week that he needs someone to show off all his new-found knowledge to. Third, there’s a peculiar sort of nervousness sliding around under his skin.

While they sit next to each other every weekday morning, making their way across town together like this feels so intimate. In school, they both hide that they’re friends, but out here, anyone looking at them would probably think they’ve been pals for forever. It’s exhilarating, especially since Charlie looks so cool that Nick’s cool factor has probably gone up by a thousand points just by being seen next to him. 

All his non-stop chatter is making Charlie loose instead of tense, thankfully, and by the time they’re halfway to London, they’re actually having a full-blown conversation about Marvel. Nick could see himself yielding to Charlie on many things, but definitely not if the debate involves Marvel.

He’s speaking around a full mouth of sandwich, fringe poking annoyingly into his eyes as he’s chest deep into his second point as to why the Marvel movies are so much bigger than just a money grab, when Charlie reaches over to slowly tuck the offending lock of his hair behind his ear.

“You know?” Charlie starts, and Nick’s breath stops in its tracks. 

A thousand years rush past them outside the window. 

Charlie pats the side of Nick’s head fondly and says, “You really are the worst.” 

Nick's face takes on a scarlet red hue and he sinks minutely in his seat as Charlie draws his hand back. His entire body braces against the rapid pounding of his heart in his chest and the intense twisting of his stomach, as if he’s spun around too many times and suddenly stopped.

His fringe is no longer falling down his face – in fact it doesn’t move from where Charlie had tucked it tightly behind his ear – but Nick doesn’t continue his Marvel spiel. He doesn’t even remember what he was talking about before Charlie went and did that. The rest of the way to London, he focuses on staring at the seat in front of him and ignoring the sudden tightness in his jeans.

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick meets Matthew (strictly-Matthew-don’t-even-try-to-call-him-Matt) on the platform, and the three of them walk out to the pick-up point where Sahar is waiting in a van, where all the band’s equipment is scored. Jay is scouting where they can play today, so they’ll meet them there. 

Nick can’t believe how gorgeous and interesting everyone in the band is, and he bears down on a slight twinge of insecurity about his own intelligence when they start arguing in the vehicle about a recent NHS legislation that’s apparently about to be read in Parliament. Nick hasn’t even heard of it and Nick thanks his lucky stars that they reach Covent Garden before they have an opportunity to ask for his thoughts on it.

Nick helps to unload everything from the van. He’s a little worried about damaging the drums at first but realizes after a while that Charlie probably wouldn’t even care what happens to them, because he isn’t staring at anything else except Nick’s arms. 

(So sue Nick if he flexes a little more than necessary to show off.)

It takes a little while for the band to set up everything and Nick snatches up a spot on a nearby wooden bench in the meantime.

Nick swoons a little as he watches Charlie steal puffs from Jay’s cigarette, laughs when Charlie dodges Sahar trying to smack the cigarette out of his hand, and feels a painful twinge when he watches Charlie interact with Matthew – there’s definitely something going on between them, small fleeting touches as they pass each other, and Matthew can’t seriously be so funny that Charlie laughs at everything he says. Nick feels like he’s an outsider looking into Charlie’s life through frosted glass while Charlie dances inside with someone else, and even just a thought of it sends a dagger of something sour up his throat.

He doesn’t know if it’s because he wants to be friends with Charlie so badly, or if it’s because he wants… more.

He’s been questioning his sexuality lately, timing coinciding suspiciously with when he met Charlie first time last year in the changing room, but he’s always felt an inexplicable resistance to describing himself as “straight” and a strange affinity to the word “bisexual”. Like he’s been dressing in ill-fitting clothes his whole life, but he’d stumbled upon something in the display window when he was thirteen on the internet that just might fit right. He just doesn’t know how to try it on for size, or how to separate between what he wants to wear versus what he needs to.

Because he knows he does like girls. So why is he going looking for trouble? He’s never been that sort of kid, and if he does find a nice girl to marry someday, then he won’t ever have to deal with telling people (mainly his brother and dad) that he might also see himself finding a nice guy to marry.

But then now there’s Charlie, who’s adjusting the height of his hi-hat (Nick is an expert in all things drums now, thank you) with a cocky smile, and the sun is shining on his face in a way that makes him look like an angel. 

Also, his awkward erection on the train when Charlie had touched his face – not as saintly, but equally compelling. That was… that was something. For sure.

◍◍◍◍◍

Charlie can’t seem to tear his eyes from Nick, even though he’s not the only person who stays to listen to them play through the whole 3-hour set

He’s wearing a plain white t-shirt, a pair of jeans with incredibly dirty Vans and the outfit is, even in the most generous sense of the word, uninspiring. But the t-shirt is tight enough to leave nothing to the imagination and the blue denim fits fucking deliciously around his thighs, cuffs dropping right above the tongues of his shoes… Charlie can’t stop staring.  

Someone comes up and drops a coin into their box just as their last The Aces song comes to a close. Its energy is a shiny gold, and Charlie nods at the man in appreciation.

On a normal weekend he could play for hours, fuelled solely by the thought of collecting as many coins as he can, but his focus has run out very early on today. He kind of just wants this to be done with, so he can drag Nick across London to his favourite doughnut place. He doesn’t know why that makes him more than a little giddy with anticipation.

“Okay guys, we’re on our last song. Thank you so much for being here with us,” Sahar says, as she plucks a few lazy chords on her bass, which wobbles down the streets of London. “It’s Charlie’s turn to pick our closing song this week” – she turns around and holds the microphone closer to him – “Everybody give it up for Charlie Spring on the drums! An absolute talent!”

His face burns at the rapturous applause that follows and tries his best to drown it out by playing a short drum solo, something bright and chaotic. He can see Nick whooping and cheering from where he sits, louder than anyone else in the crowd.

“Hm, I don’t know,” Charlie taps absentmindedly on the cymbals after the noise dies down. “What does everybody think about some classic Oasis?”

The crowd shouts in agreement, and Charlie brings a dramatic hand up to his ear, “Is that a yes? I don’t think it’s resounding enough.”

The crowd cheers louder, a girl shrieks “I love you Charlie!”, and he smiles, satisfied, before mouthing something at Sahar, who lets out a sigh and returns to her space at the front of the house.

“Our very own Charlie Spring, ever the darling. He’s ending off with my favourite song. Again,” Sahar shakes her head fondly. “This is Some Might Say by Oasis, and we’re Queer Intentions! Thank you very much!”  

He loses himself in the music, excited that this is the last one, and when he finally looks up at the end of it, Nick’s gaze is aimed directly at him, keen and brimming with utter admiration.

◍◍◍◍◍

The doughnut is as good as ever.

Charlie’s already on his second one but Nick, who’s still picking on his first, is being quiet, which is eerie and unsettling. Charlie almost wishes he was talking his ear off again about Loki even though it gives him a headache, because as much as he tries to deny it, he’s gotten used to the daily headache that is Nick. He feels a little bit too empty without Nick annoying him. 

Charlie puts down his doughnut on the napkin in front of him and folds his hands neatly on top of his lap.

“Look,” Charlie takes in a deep breath and tries not to look too defensive, the way he always does. “I’m sorry.”

Nick’s head snaps upwards, “What for?”

“I shouldn’t have gotten so close on the train. I didn’t know it was going to make you so uncomfortable, and –” Charlie lets out a breath. “I’m sorry.”

Nick doesn’t say anything.

Charlie presses on just because the silence is overwhelming and he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, “It’s just… You said you might be bi, so I thought –”

“What?” Nick whispers, and his face becomes as white as the marble table between them. “I’m not… When did I say that?”

“When you were sick,” Charlie frowns, and there’s a spike of annoyance, because maybe Nick is trying to pull some sick joke on him, but then his heart drops into his stomach. “I… Oh shit, you don’t remember.”

There’s a flash of mortification over Nick’s face before he buries it in his hands.

“Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry” – Charlie hasn’t had to apologize to anyone in ages, and now he’s said it more times than he can count – “I… I should’ve thought –”

Nick looks up, and his face is splotchy like his heart has only just started pumping blood into his head again, “Why would I even… I don’t know if I am. Am I?”

Charlie’s hands move of their own volition, gesturing wildly in the air, “I don’t know! Why are you asking me?”

“Oh,” Nick chokes out an awkward laugh, two distinct syllables of ha ha before looking away. He looks exactly the same as when he was actually running a temperature – physically pained, or just wanting to escape from his own body. Maybe both. 

Charlie blinks a few times, before he reaches out and touches his fingers to Nick’s forearm, light enough that Nick can pull away if he wants to without it being weird. “Hey, don’t… Don’t freak out.”

Nick’s voice is so brittle that it shatters and falls to pieces as he says: “I’m just… I’ve been so confused.”  

“You can take your time to figure it out, Nick. There’s really no deadline. I didn’t just wake up one day like, guess I’m gay now,” Charlie says, disliking the way his words sound so awkward and un-practiced, shooting their way out of his mouth like the weapon he’s fashioned himself into. What the hell do normal people say in response to things like this?

Being out is fun? It’s all going to be okay? Charlie hates lying.

People walk into the bakery. Bells ring out as the door swings open and close.

“How did you… Um, how did you figure out you were gay?” Nick whispers, eyes darting to the new people around them. The silence shrouding their table barely breaks. 

“I don’t… I don’t think I even really knew, until all the kids at school started telling me that I was, you know?” Charlie says. “I always thought everyone felt that way towards their friends, but looking back, it’s… It’s always been boys. I’ve never felt that way towards girls.”

Nick doesn’t say anything but, slowly, he goes back to picking the rainbow sprinkles off his doughnut with shaky fingers. He stops looking like he wants to cry, or throw up.

“Do you think you’re bi? Or was it mostly, like… just fevered talk?” 

Nick’s face scrunches up, and Charlie can see him biting the inside of his cheek.

“I’ve been trying to figure it out the past few months, I guess,” Nick says miserably after a while. “I think I always had kind of… Like, I would fantasize about other guys? But I always thought it was because I wanted to be them or be friends with them rather than… you know. Gay stuff.”

Charlie can’t help the snort that leaves him, glad that he’s not the only one here who’s out of his depth, but Nick immediately backtracks, looking genuinely terrified, “Shit, sorry. I mean like – you know, wanting to date them. I didn’t mean –”

“You’re fine, Nick,” Charlie placates, touching his arm again. “Gay stuff. Indeed.”

Nick flushes and picks up his doughnut, “I’m sorry people are so shitty to you about that, by the way.”

“You said that as well, when you were sick.”

“God, that’s so embarrassing,” Nick groans, “But I’m serious. People shouldn’t be saying those things about you.” 

“We’re surrounded by Neanderthals with underdeveloped brains,” Charlie smirks. “But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. And I’d be happy to help wherever I can.”

Nick blinks slowly, and gives him a look, “You’re… Thanks. You’re actually really nice outside of school.”

He winks and smiles, before biting into his doughnut: “Yeah. Don’t tell anyone, though.”

Nick laughs.

When they part ways back in Kent, Charlie’s right hand comes up briefly to squeeze his shoulder before their paths diverge. Some Might Say by Oasis swirls around in Nick’s head the rest of the week, together with the sensation of hair being tucked behind his ear, and the new knowledge that a genuine smile on Charlie’s face can calm his racing mind in a second.  

◍◍◍◍◍

They start talking a bit more in school, even though Charlie is never as warm to him in real life as he is over text. 

One morning Harry slings an arm around Nick’s shoulders and asks just as Nick takes his seat at their usual table, “Yo G, why are you talking to that freak Charlie Spring anyway?”

“Don’t call him that,” Nick murmurs softly. It’s way too early for this – it’s 7.30 in the morning, and he hasn’t even put down his bag.

“What?” Ben asks from where he sits on the table next to him, even though there’s no way he couldn’t have heard – the condescending arse just wants him to repeat it for the rest of the group.

“I’m just being polite,” Nick says louder, trying not to feel like he’s correcting a mistake. Because it wasn’t a mistake. Nick would repeat what he said if he had the nerve, but he hasn’t had nerve in a while. “He sits next to me in form.”

Yeah, Charlie sits next to Nick in form. And he spent an hour last night explaining to Nick his coin sorting system and how he decides which coins to give to which people, just because Nick had asked. And he spent another 10 minutes this morning texting Nick about his school schedule. And he coached Nick to a 79% on his Chem paper last week (he's a very scary tutor). And he got Queer Intentions to play Nick’s favourite song on the streets of Covent Garden last weekend, even though he pretended it was completely by audience request. And he recently lost a bet, so he had to begrudgingly confess his comfort show: it’s Ben 10, which is the cutest thing Nick has ever heard.

Yeah, he sits next to Nick in form all right. Nick spends half the day talking to him over Instagram and the other half wishing they were talking. 

“He’s really fucking weird, dude,” Harry sniffs. “You should stay away from him in case you catch any of his… weirdness.”

Nick wants to scoff, because what kind of an insult is that?

“Maybe Charlie has a crush on him,” Zach grins, and the rest of the table jeers loudly. Nick feels a red-hot boiling creep across his chest and up his neck. They don’t fucking know anything. They don’t know that Nick’s the one that caught feelings and Charlie has been the perfect gentleman, willing to be around him even when he’s friends with all of his bullies, even when he’s a coward who’s still scared to openly stop him on the corridors for a chat no matter how badly he wants to. They don’t know that Nick is almost at the end of the rope; he’s about to burn all the bridges to the rugby team (and everybody on them) if they keep –

“Charlie definitely wants to turn him. All gay people are like that,” Harry punches Nick on the arm in jest. “Be careful, dude.” 

Nick dreams of punching Harry back, in his smug fucking face, but in reality nothing happens except for a minute twitching in his hands.

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick invites Charlie to Harry’s party, and Charlie shows up, even if he knows he’ll be the target the whole night. 

Nick would feel more guilty about it, except Charlie’s found the nook in the kitchen where Harry’s parents keep their expensive whiskeys, and he’s taking sips from each bottle like he’s doing a cheese tasting. Nick watches on amusedly, feeling a little giddy just from being next to Charlie in this tiny, hidden corner of the world. 

charlie_spr1: oh this last one was really good?? very chocolatey notes. im so glad i came to this this stupid party

nick_nzzzz: Wow! I did not know you were a whiskey connoisseur!!

Charlie throws him a mock glare, then goes back to his phone. 

charlie_spr1: stellar spelling from someone who’s 3 pints in? 

nick_nzzzz: 2 pints. And I actually had to use autocorrect on connoisseur. 

Charlie snorts, but the smile on his face drops as the door to the kitchen swings open. A few Year 11s spill in, looking for chilled cans of tonic water.

“You okay, Nick?” Emma asks as she manages to pull him into an awkward side hug that he can’t dodge. 

At the corner of his eye, he sees Charlie snicker as he takes another sip of whiskey. What a dick. 

Nick nurses his beer to avoid talking to her, but she doesn’t take the hint and holds onto his arm, “Come outside and dance with us!” 

He slowly pulls his arm out of her grasp, “I’m good here, thanks.”

“Here, like… here?” Emma frowns, then she notices Charlie’s presence and says: “Who the hell invited him?” 

Before Nick can even react, Charlie turns and says, “None of your business, Emma.” 

She rolls her eyes then looks back at Nick, like she can’t even bother dignifying Charlie with a response, “You sure you’re good here?”

“Yup,” Nick says plainly, and she finally takes her friends with her after a while, one of them saying loudly, Fucking freak probably snuck in, and Nick downs the rest of his beer. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket. 

charlie_spr1: wanna go somewhere quieter? i’m sure we can find somewhere in this huge house. 

Nick’s heart skips a beat at the sight of Charlie looking up from his phone to smirk at him, comfortable in his own skin in a way that Nick never learned how to do. He has no idea how Charlie manages to take all this bullying on the chin and still remain steady on his two feet. 

nick_nzzzz: I’ll meet you on the third floor? 

charlie_spr1: see u there. i’ll have another sip of the hibiki first 😌

Nick smiles, and goes. 

They eventually find a quiet room to hang out in on the fourth floor. 

“You know my coins sometimes look like that?” Charlie says, eyes sparkling as they blink up at the gigantic chandelier that’s hanging above them like their own private sun. 

“Not the same,” Charlie hums thoughtfully. “But quite similar.”

Nick looks up at the chandelier, then back at Charlie. Over the last few months, he’s wanted nothing more desperately than to see the world through Charlie’s eyes, and the growing feeling has gotten so large lately that it feels like he’s drowning with both his feet on land.

The strange thing is, despite Charlie being the direct source of this drowning, Nick has never felt more at home than right next to him. Nick has never felt more at home than with anyone else, and they’ve only really been friends for a few months. 

Nick takes a deep breath – drowning, drowning, drowning –  then he flexes and relaxes his hands, where they were curled into loose fists. He lets his mind run through the possible outcomes of asking the question he’s wanted to ask for ages. It flips through the images of the two of them sitting next to each other in form, messaging through late nights, running through London. It stops on what Charlie said at the bakery with the doughnuts, genuine and sweeter than processed sugar could ever be. And latches onto the fact that Charlie is a good person – even if the answer is a no, that he doesn’t like Nick that way, he’d probably be unbelievably nice about it. Nick is one of the few people in the entire school who has had the privilege of knowing just how kind Charlie is. Surely, that must count for something?

So Nick holds his breath and makes the dive, figuring that he’d regret it forever if he let his feelings disappear without a chance to even surface: “You know when I was talking to you about being bi?”

Charlie looks at him, eyes amused but unguarded.

Nick ignores the sound of water gushing through his own ears, the painful beating in his chest, and swallows roughly. “When you… You said you’d help wherever you can. Does that include kissing you?”

“Oh, that,” Charlie says softly, smiling like he’s surprised but not that surprised. “Yeah. Sure.” 

Charlie looks at him for just a second, making sure that this is what he wants – Nick feels himself nod minutely – before he leans in, closer and closer and closer. Nick is still frozen in ice, but Charlie’s slender fingers curling slowly in his hair stokes a flame that melts him. Slowly, but surely. 

And then it happens, rapid seconds oozing by them like thick molasses; Charlie presses his lips to his. 

The first kiss is chaste, followed by small, soft ones that build up Nick’s confidence and chips away at his nervous anticipation. Until the fear that Charlie might hate him for asking peels away completely, and the only thing that’s left is desire, pulsing in time to the beat of his racing heart. 

The acceptance that this is happening, that this is everything Nick had hoped for and more, slowly shakes apart his stiff limbs and joints. He brings up a hand to lightly stroke against Charlie’s bicep, his long-sleeved maroon shirt soft against Nick’s fingers. Nick might have imagined the soft sigh of relief that escapes Charlie’s mouth with the change in position, but it’s unmistakeable that Charlie leans in even closer, and glides a wet tongue against Nick’s bottom lip. As they both relax, the kiss transforms into an open-mouthed one, and Nick gets to share in the smokiness of whiskey that he normally doesn’t enjoy, but tastes so lovely on Charlie.

Downstairs, the music pounds through the ceiling and crescendoes into the marrow of their bones. Or maybe Nick is just hypersensitive and hyperaware – he can feel every burst of hot air against his skin, every scrape of Charlie’s light stubble against the top of his lip, every single one of Charlie’s fingers still tangled at the nape of his neck. 

Their lips fit so well together and the kiss feels so organic, that Nick is more than a little surprised. His first kiss was an awkward tangle of limbs and noses bumping painfully into each other. This second one feels primordial, like every decision he’s ever made was to bring him right here, underneath a diamond sun. 

He surrenders. Surrenders into Charlie’s tongue, surrenders into everything Charlie is willing to give him. But it doesn’t feel anything remotely close to losing – it feels like coming alive for the very first time, Charlie holding him up above the violently rising tide. He’s not sure if his lungs, or his heart, or his body have ever felt fuller. Safer.

He very briefly wonders who exactly taught Charlie to kiss like this – maybe it was Matthew – and he has a second of burning jealousy before deciding, you know what? This feels so fucking good that thank you whoever-it-was, because now he gets to have this all to himself.

Nick is starting to settle fully into the thick haze of being in Charlie’s arms and just about learning to lean fully into the gentle waves of pleasure, when Harry comes banging up the stairs. His obnoxious laughter rings down the corridors and rattles Nick’s heart between his ears. He pulls away and stands up, adrenaline pumping through every cell. 

He looks back at Charlie once, twice, but the fear of being caught is too much, crushing his throat in a tight fist, gripping until he can’t even think of forming a single word.

The drowning feeling is back like it never left. So he runs away, because he doesn’t know what else to do. Because he’s always been a coward. 

Turns out he’s not that much of a coward, because he ends up telling Harry that he hates him. He can’t pinpoint exactly where the sudden burst of courage comes from, just that it spreads quickly throughout his body and gives him wings, heavy and powerful on his back. 

By the time he goes looking for Charlie again to tell him that he’s finally managed to do the one thing he wishes he could’ve done months ago, he’s gone without a trace. The chandelier spins, lonely in an empty galaxy. 

He runs around frantically, asks around the party, but nobody knows where Charlie’s gone, and everybody asks him why he’s looking for that freak in the first place. Nick is so angry, red-hot and eating him alive, that he wants to raze the entire goddamned place to the ground. Maybe even while he’s still in it. Let the remnants of whiskey on his tongue light the way. 

Or maybe he just wants to fly away with his new wings, to the heavens where he can confront god to his face – ask him why the hell the world is so messed up.

He lays in bed awake all night, wondering if Charlie feels this furious all of the fucking time. And if he does, then what a downright asshole Nick has been to be complicit in all of that. What a downright asshole Nick has been to worry about his own feelings when Charlie has been dealing with all this crap for years. Nick is… Nick doesn’t fucking deserve him at all.

◍◍◍◍◍

Charlie has had a fun morning. By his standards, anyway. 

He’d woken up early despite the amount he'd had to drink last night, and spent the last two hours sorting through his old and new coins, experimenting with different sorting systems before eventually reverting to his original one. He hasn’t managed to spend this much time with them in a while, but it still feels like coming home. 

All his things are put away neatly, and Charlie is mid-way through brushing his teeth when there’s a ring at the door. He runs down to open it, fully expecting their regular mailman, but almost jumps in surprise at the sight of Nick standing in the pouring rain. He looks rough around the edges, like he hasn’t slept a wink all night, and his hair falls on his forehead in sopping wet sections. 

Charlie invites him in and watches, bemused, as Nick paces the length of his room, muttering to himself and finally dumping himself on top of his covers (rainwater and all) just when it looks like his knees are about to buckle. 

“What the hell is going on?” Charlie frowns, worry curling and cresting in his chest. “You okay?”

Nick takes a couple of effortful breaths, “Yeah, I just… I’m so sorry for running away last night.”

Charlie’s smiles. So that’s what this is about. “Yeah, I mean damn, was it really that bad?”

Nick frowns at him, “It wasn’t. It was – I just… I didn’t want to be caught.”

“I know,” Charlie cajoles. “That’s fine. No hard feelings, dude.”

He’s about to tell Nick to get the hell off his clean bed when he blinks and Nick’s eyes are suddenly narrowed. 

His voice is shaky when he opens his mouth next, “Where… Um, where did you go after the party?”

Charlie picks up a discarded shirt on the floor and throws it in the laundry basket, making his way through the room, “I wasn’t sure if you were coming back, so I just went to Tao’s movie night.” 

But when he stops moving and looks up, Nick is still gazing at him expectantly. Was that not enough? Nick looks like he wants to hear more. 

“Then… I went home?” Charlie pauses again but, still, he’s met with silence. “And… went to bed? And now… You’re here?”

“Oh,” Nick’s face falls, like it was just waiting to. Charlie is sure that if he listens closely over the sound of the rain, he could probably hear something in Nick tear down the middle. “Oh.”

The pattering outside the room, which sounded calming just a second ago, suddenly sounds oppressive and unyielding. 

“What’s happening?” Charlie frowns, nervousness squeezing his stomach. 

“What did you… What did you think I meant yesterday when I asked if I could kiss you?” Nick whispers, so soft that Charlie has to lean forward to hear.

“What?” Charlie unconsciously cocks his head to the left. He’s fucking confused, and he’s not sure if this is a joke, but Nick looks so scared, eyes wild and chest heaving like he’s about to have a panic attack. “Er… I thought you meant that you wanted to try kissing a boy to figure out whether you’re bi?”

There is a long silence.

“Um… So did you figure it out?” Charlie asks. 

Nick gets up from Charlie’s bed in a hurry, says “Sure, I guess so”, and there’s a flash of blue that passes in front of his eyes before he realizes that Nick is trying to leave. He reaches out and just barely manages to hang onto the sleeve of Nick’s sweater before he can reach the door handle.

“Hey, wait! Where are you – I’m so lost.”

Nick takes a sharp inhale and stops in his tracks, face turned purposefully away from Charlie. 

Charlie leans over to look at him – Nick is chewing on his lip, and he looks so fucking uncomfortable standing there, or maybe being in Charlie’s presence, that Charlie has to let go of his sleeve.

“Talk to me, Nick,” he whispers, getting truly scared now. Did someone tell Nick something about him yesterday at the party? Did something happen to Nick at the party? 

Nick’s eyes flick upwards and back down again. 

Then he hears: “I was trying to – I was trying to tell you that I… that I like you.”

Oh.

Oh.

Shit.

Charlie’s heart screeches to a stop and his body freezes over, seized entirely by a tsunami of images now flashing across his mind: images of Nick brushing his arm against Charlie’s in form, Nick always asking about his day then listening so closely even when Charlie never has anything interesting to say, Nick having post notifications on for Queer Intention, the way he’s always the first to comment something nice, Nick trying so fucking hard in school to steer the rugby team away from him and his friends.

It all… It all makes sense now. Why hadn’t he seen it before? 

This wave of realization hits him – crushes him. When the water recedes, he finds that his fingers are numb and what’s washed up on the shore of his chest is everything Charlie thought he knew for sure but actually didn’t. 

Nick whirls around and goes back to sit down on his bed. He barks out a nervous laughter that breaks Charlie’s reverie. “I… It’s okay if it was just a kiss for you. I’ll get over it.” 

Charlie has noticed that Nick does that a lot around school – laugh a laugh that is not really a laugh, smile a smile that is not really a smile, and he never ever wanted Nick to have to do that around him. Because that’s Charlie’s thing; Nick, with all his friends and popularity shouldn’t have to be doing that. But Nick does, all the time, and the sight of it up-close here in his own room is so painful that it makes him nauseous. 

Everything inside his body is begging him to fix it, before Nick breaks any further. So he walks right up to him, hedging so close that Nick has to raise his head, has to look up. Has to stop hiding behind a fake laugh to act like he’s fine. 

He cups Nick’s face in his hands and just… stares. He traces Nick’s features with his eyes, the freckles that spill across his face, the texture of his skin begging to be touched, the gentle curve of his eyebrows as they’re raised in surprise, and it suddenly hits him just how much he’s wanted this. It’s so enormous it was impossible to see before this point, like standing in the shadow of a mountain and not being able to comprehend the sheer size of the actual thing.

He comprehends it now. It’s like someone’s parted the curtains obscuring his vision, and that someone is a person he would never have expected: it’s Nick, fumbling all the way here in the rain and sitting on top of his sheets while wet, like a complete idiot.

God, Charlie likes him so much. He can’t believe he hadn’t realized it till now. 

He leans down, and slowly presses a kiss against Nick’s lips, all the while feeling the minute changes in Nick’s expression against the pads of his fingers, pulling this way and that. 

But this is so different from last night. This is vulnerability and openness. This is with feeling. 

They both smell and taste like toothpaste, so fresh it’s almost unnatural, so delicate it feels like they’re balancing a sheet of glass between them. There are droplets of water running down Charlie’s hands from the rain in Nick’s hair, like the first time they spoke in the Truham bathroom.

“I like you,” Charlie leans his forehead against Nick’s and whispers, eyes closed even though he can tell that Nick’s are still open. “It wasn’t just a kiss to me. I like you. I like you. I like you.”

Like maybe if he says it enough, Nick might understand just how much he means it. Maybe if he says it enough, it might stop making his insides shudder in fear.

Charlie opens his eyes after a while, when Nick doesn’t say anything back, and… fuck. What he sees in front of him punches all the air out of his lungs.

Nick is looking at him like he’s looking at something he’s always wanted but never thought he could have. Charlie knows that look so acutely, because it’s the same one that he has when he looks at everyone else – the people who have friends everywhere, who never have to worry about not finding group mates for their projects, who don’t view every social situation as a battlefield. Charlie has always wanted that, no matter how much he says he doesn’t, and Nick looks like he might actually understand: might understand that Charlie has successfully fashioned himself into a weapon, but even a gun needs someone to hold it in hand. Even a knife needs to be kept close to the body to be of any use. 

Might understand that Charlie has been debilitatingly lonely, being on his own, even though he hides it so well he can sometimes trick even himself into thinking it doesn’t exist. 

And then now to be the object of desire, the person on the other side of where the gun is pointed, to be read like an open book when he’s been closed off for most of his life…

He doesn’t know what else to do with the intensity of this feeling but to kiss Nick again.

This time it’s Nick who takes his face in his hands to pull him even deeper, all purpose and desire and relief. Charlie can feel a shift in the air as Nick’s eyes flutter closed.

Something in the back of Charlie’s brain howls, tells him, “you shouldn’t be doing this. There’s no way Nick doesn’t get hurt in all of this, getting involved with the school freak”, but all his heart can really feel is: “fucking finally”.

◍◍◍◍◍

They’re standing in the hallway of Charlie’s house when Nick says, “Wanna go on a date tomorrow?”

Charlie wants to nod casually, wants to say something cocky and confident, but instead what slips out is: “I don’t think I’ve ever been on a date before.”

“Me neither,” Nick smiles, reaching out to trace Charlie’s cheekbone with a thumb, and it’s so tender that Charlie doesn’t know what to do. He’s not very used to this – tenderness. “But I think it’d be easy, me and you.”

Charlie thinks of them making their way through London almost every weekend, peering into shops and taking turns to pick what to eat, and he lets out a hum.

He sees Nick hesitate for just a second before he pulls him into a hug and lifts him off his feet, spinning him round and around in the tiny space. 

“Oh my god, you’re so wet!” Charlie tries pushing him away but it’s futile. “Get off of me!”

Nick just laughs, leans down to peck him on the lips and…

“EW!” Olly screams shrilly where he stands at the foot of the stairs, hair mussed from sleep but eyes wide in disbelief. “TORI, CHARLIE IS –”

Charlie runs to wrap a hand around his younger brother’s mouth, gesturing for Nick to please fuck off right now and Nick does, letting himself out and sprinting away in the pouring rain. The squelching of Nick’s shoes that Charlie can hear as he makes his way down the street is hilarious. 

When Charlie finally gets back to his room after doing disaster control with both Olly and Tori, almost all the coins in his jars wink knowingly at him, dazzling his room with vibrations of colour. They make fun of him for not seeing any of this earlier. 

He snorts, says, “I know, I know,” and flops down on his bed. He can’t even find it in himself to be annoyed at the rainwater left behind by Nick on his clean sheets.

◍◍◍◍◍

The date the next day is amazing. They go far away, have fish and chips by the beach, and Nick can barely contain his excitement at being able to call Charlie his boyfriend. Actually, he probably wasn’t even trying at all, because he shouts it multiple times into the Atlantic Ocean – Nick tries going to pick up Charlie bridal style, but the look he gets is enough for him to surrender.

“Okay, fine. Fine, I won’t,” Nick pouts, plopping himself down next to Charlie on the beach towel. “You seriously scare me.”

“Good,” Charlie smirks, pushing another chip into Nick’s mouth before sealing it with a kiss, “Now can you stop moving around for a second and make out with me?”

Nick obliges, and he’s so out of his mind with joy that he barely feels the rocks that dig into his elbow as he leans over to kiss Charlie.

◍◍◍◍◍

They keep them a secret. To be honest, Nick is kind of disappointed that Charlie didn’t only suggest it but also seems completely fine with it – if Charlie had pushed, he very well might have agreed to come out at school. He doesn’t know if he could actually go through it, but he knows he could force himself to, if Charlie wanted it.

For the first few weeks of their relationship, Nick had been a little insecure, unsure whether Charlie was keeping them a secret because he didn’t want people to know he was with Nick, or whether it was for some other reason. There were many questions asked and answered, among which was whether Charlie had feelings for Matthew.

(The answer was no, that Matthew is as straight as an arrow, although he’s had on and off flings with a guy from London. Nick had been unreasonably jealous, but the make-out session Charlie coaxes him into shortly after more than short-circuits that part of his brain, and he’s quickly back to feeling gratitude for this one-night stand guy. After he made Charlie pinky promise he’ll never see him again. Charlie had rolled his eyes and grumbled a bunch about how childish this whole thing was, but he’d linked pinkies with Nick anyway. Charlie did, however, draw the line at creating a secret Nick-and-Charlie handshake but, to tell the truth, Nick wasn’t actually pinning much hope on that in the first place.)

The best thing about dating Charlie is getting to discover him again, and again, and again. 

Charlie rarely ever smiles in school, but Nick gets to see him smile all the time outside of it, unrestrained and free, and Nick has started keeping a ledger in his mind. There’s the smile that Charlie has when he’s listening to good music, which is different from the one he has when he’s listening to Nick’s rambling, which is different from the goofy one he has whenever they make out lazily on Charlie’s bed. 

Then there are the secret smiles in school, fleeting moments as they pass each other in the corridor or sit next to each other in form. Those smiles are Nick’s least favourite, even though they brighten his day, because he knows acutely what they mean. They mean restraint, and fear, and hiding. All because Nick isn’t out. 

Nick thinks he loves Charlie. He just doesn’t know if he’s allowed to say it without actually coming out of the closet, because what is love without any sacrifice?

Nick has been cruising on nothing but pure bliss since they started going out. It just feels so unfair that Charlie has to deal with so much crap at school and Nick is only contributing to it.

◍◍◍◍◍

Charlie loves Nick. He fucking loves him. 

Charlie doesn’t want to say it first because, well, he’s emotionally constipated from all the years of keeping to himself, all the years of expecting the worst out of every little damn thing. But there are some moments where he’s almost bursting at the seams from the effort of not saying it.

Like now, when Nick is looking nervously at him as he hovers a hand over the button of Charlie’s pants. Charlie is straddling Nick’s lap, knees on either side of his outstretched legs, and Nick’s dick has been throbbing steadily against Charlie’s ass for the past 10 minutes that they’ve been making out.  

“Um… Can I? Please?” Nick says, tucking his chin in shyly. 

“You’re so polite, even like this” Charlie smiles against Nick’s lips, then grinds downwards, making sure to cover the entire length of him. 

Nick throws his head back from the satisfying friction through their satin smooth school pants and lets out a broken groan, gripping Charlie’s hips so hard there might be bruises there later. If you ask Charlie how they’ve made it this far fully clothed, he wouldn’t have had an answer.

He can tell Nick’s completely forgotten what he wanted to do initially, lost in a thick haze of pleasure, and Charlie decides to help him out. He runs his fingers over Nick’s hairline until he has his attention, then he brings those very fingers down to slowly unbutton his pants. 

“Wait, wait,” Nick sputters. “I wanna do that.” 

Charlie laughs for a moment, then releases his grip on the fabric, “Okay. All yours.” 

Nick swallows and brings his shaky hands to the front of Charlie’s navy blue. In the meantime, Charlie runs his hands up and down Nick’s arms, trying hard not to grind back down on Nick – it’s the poor guy’s first time, and Charlie has been desperate for this for months, he’s not trying to make this end so quickly – 

Then Nick rubs a rough thumb against the sensitive head of Charlie’s dick through his boxers while he’s distracted and then Charlie thinks he might be the one to cream his pants first. 

“Fuck,” he pants and squirms again on Nick’s lap, trying not to shout. 

“You’re gorgeous, Charlie. You’re absolutely… You’re just gorgeous,” Nick breathes, rubbing his thumb and index finger along the outline of Charlie’s dick, where it’s straining against the fabric. Even with Charlie moving on top of him, Nick looks like he can’t feel it – he’s just mesmerized, absolutely taken by the hips of the boy in front of him. 

People have called him gorgeous before – his hookup in London always does – but the words are weightier and more sincere out of Nick’s mouth. Charlie is blushing like a virgin, which is embarassing, so he quickly lifts his hips off and starts to tug his pants and boxers down. 

Nick helps out, even though it’s really not a job that needs two people, just so he can run his palms down the curves of Charlie’s ass, grabbing and pulling in a way that stings slightly. 

Charlie’s cock finally springs out of his boxers and he catches a flash of Nick’s tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip before he’s back to staring again, focused on the length in front of him. Charlie almost, almost guides his dick towards Nick’s mouth, because Charlie is up on his knees and the height couldn’t be more perfect if they tried, but they haven't talked about it, and Charlie knows he’s going to shoot the moment those lips wrap around him. It would be every fantasy he’s had and more. 

So he sits back down again, noting (for future use) the way Nick looks a little disappointed, and gives himself a few slow strokes. Slow enough that it pulls him back into his body, and he can breathe through his diaphragm to calm down. But also slow enough that it looks dirty as hell, and sensual, and Nick’s eyes are starting to lose focus again. 

He lets go of himself and leans in to kiss Nick. If Charlie thought Nick was a good kisser before, he's an even better kisser once he’s turned on – he’s lax, almost pliable, letting Charlie take and take and take, but still pushing his tongue desperately against Charlie’s when it’s his turn to reciprocate. Charlie’s hands unconsciously come up to rub Nick’s nipples through his school shirt and Nick – honest to god – whines into his mouth, snapping his hips upwards, and Nick’s cock, under all those layers is right between the crack of Charlie’s bare ass now and – 

“Your turn,” Charlie pulls away and starts untucking Nick’s crumpled shirt from his crumpled pants, before he lets himself think about guiding Nick into him dry. That would be terrible, and painful, and just… no thank you. 

Nick nods and unbuckles his belt rapidly, like he can’t get it off fast enough. Then he’s in such a hurry to get his pants off that he lifts his hips way too quickly, nearly launching Charlie off the bed, and they both take a second to laugh once Charlie is safe and situated again. God, this must be why people say you should always be good friends with the people you have sex with, because this is so unbelievably fun: even this awkward fumbling, which Charlie didn’t think he would miss. 

Then Nick’s penis tugs free and, fuck, he’s so hard it’s pressing up and spreading pre-come against the strawberry blonde fuzz of Nick’s own stomach. Charlie is a little bigger than he is, but Nick’s cock is so fucking pretty it’s almost unbelievable – it looks like he should be in porn or a dirty magazine, for goodness sake. Charlie wants to press a kiss to that perfectly pink head, but he doesn’t want to move from this position, where the cleft of his ass is adhered against Nick’s warm thighs with sweat, so he does the next best thing and reaches out to touch. 

Nick gasps with every slow stroke, and then purses his lips at the very last minute, like he’s remembering just barely that this is Charlie’s house, and even though no one’s home, it’s still weird to be so loud. 

Charlie smiles, and scooches a little closer, so their dicks are right up against each other. It’s just the tiniest bump, the tiniest slide of skin against skin, but they both inhale sharply. 

“Ready?” Charlie says after a few moments, collecting the pre-come from both Nick’s stomach and from the head of his own cock on his palms. 

Nick looks up, “For wha–”

Charlie wraps both his hands in a tight circle around their dicks and runs it all the way from top to bottom. 

“Oh FUCK,” Nick shouts, then bites his thumb between his teeth, as Charlie strokes upwards and back down again. 

“Shh, calm down,” Charlie smiles, even though he’s falling apart a little bit himself. He can’t even imagine how much more intense it must be for Nick, this being his first time, and the fact that his legs are pressed together so tightly that he must be squeezing his core muscles a little to stay upright with Charlie’s weight on this soft bed. 

“This feels so… oh my god,” Nick says brokenly, and his hips are undulating subconsciously in the rhythm that Charlie is jerking them off in. A few more pearls of pre-come leak out of Nick and Charlie just makes sure to twist his wrists so he can spread the new wetness all over them with his palms. 

Nick lets out another soft whimper at the new feeling, and he looks directly into Charlie’s eyes. 

Charlie knows he's going to remember this picture forever. There’s no way he could forget, and it’s not just the physical sensation of Nick’s cock against his, so erotic, and slick, and perfect; it’s the way Nick is looking at him. Nick looks like he couldn’t think of a better place in the world to be than right here. 

“You wanna try cumming together?” Charlie murmurs in concentration after a while, just as he feels Nick’s thighs ripple a little under him. “I think we can.” 

Nick nods his head frantically, biting his lip, eyes wide and unfocused. Charlie has noticed that his hands are next to him, like he’s trying so hard not to take over and do it himself already. He’s so cute.

“Okay, but you have to hold on for a bit, I’m not there yet,” Charlie says, adjusting his grip so his left palm is flush against his own dick instead of the side of both of theirs. He loosens his right hand until the Nick can really only get the feeling of being palmed off and not stroked. 

Then he goes to town on himself. 

He can tell Nick is desperate for more contact by the way he’s trying to cant his hips upwards, trying to get more than just friction that’s barely there, but they’re only half-successful attempts with the insistent weight of Charlie on him.

“Cha, Char, Char,” Nick whines after a minute, but his hands are still fisted nicely in the sheets next to him, arms extended and muscles flexing. “Are you close? I can’t –”

The new nickname and the look on Nick’s face as he struggles to hold on does it in for Charlie.

“Okay, fuck, fuck, I’m ready,” Charlie huffs and he closes his hands evenly around the both of them again, stroking deliciously hard and fast. “Come for me, baby.”

Nick – like he always does – obeys, and the force of the orgasm is so strong that his hips lift clear off the bed for a good while, pushing Charlie’s entire body upwards as he lets go at the same time. Charlie feels aloft, lost in the sensation of their thighs shuddering against each other before a sticky warmth floods over his hands.

Charlie doesn’t remember coming back down, thinks he might have moaned embarrassingly loudly when he came, but his head is slumped against Nick’s chest by the time he’s lucid again. He tries to keep their cocks away from their stomachs (it’s quite impossible and quite belated) as he breathes heavily. The thin sheens of their sweat are already cooling off, leaving behind a satisfying chill. 

“Oh my god,” Nick says softly, still catching his breath but laughing at the same time. “Oh my god. I’ve never come harder in my life.”

“You’re welcome,” Charlie kisses Nick’s cheek then smiles against the bridge of his nose, instead of confessing that it was the same for him. He always thought his hook-ups in London were amazing but this is… This is transcendent. Charlie is fucking addicted.

They stay like that for a while, until their breaths even out, and then Charlie can’t not praise: “Nick, you’re such a good boy, I swear.”

Nick’s hips twitch even before his eyes fly open, which tells Charlie it’s a completely instinctive, uncontrollable response. He puts his hand in the middle of Charlie’s chest and nudges him back slightly so they can meet eyes.

“What?” Charlie asks innocently, like this isn’t the precise response he knew he would get. 

“You –” Nick’s dark eyes narrow. “You know exactly what you’re doing.”

Charlie laughs, throwing his head back before diving back in to take Nick’s bottom lip into his mouth.  

◍◍◍◍◍

They walk their separate ways out the Truham gates to throw people off their scent, even though they have plans to spend the afternoon at Charlie’s house. 

Where Nick gets fond “bye, Nick”s as he leaves the grounds, he watches as Charlie gets heckled by the idiots in his year. He watches as some guy he’s never seen before – and Charlie probably hasn’t ever spoken to – shout: “nobody would care if you didn’t show up tomorrow, fuckface” after his boyfriend, so loud that there’s no way Charlie couldn’t have heard, even through his headphones. 

Nick wants so badly to haul this stranger up by his collar, to throw him into the ground, to ask him why the fuck he felt the need to say shit like that. But he can’t, because Charlie would get angry if he did, and because everyone would ask questions. He’s not sure which one is a bigger reason anymore. 

He glues his eyes to the pavement in front of him and continues walking, counting the steps until he can hold Charlie in his arms and kiss the hurt away again.  

The pressing problem is that his words and physical affection have felt less and less useful as of late. The open sores are just too deep, too many for Nick to be a sufficient balm, and today must be one of those days. Because Charlie melts quietly into him the moment the bedroom door closes behind them, instead of leaping into bed and gesturing excitedly for Nick to join him. 

Nick’s not that much taller than his boyfriend, but he can rest his chin on the top of Charlie’s head if Charlie is tucked in small, which is how he’s holding himself right now.

“You okay?”

Charlie nods, then tilts his head to the left so that Nick can get more access. He rubs his cheek gently against the cold shell of Charlie’s ear. 

“Yeah,” Charlie murmurs. “People are so annoying.”

The fact that he isn’t cursing about it is worrying, but Nick stays silent.

Because what can he even say? He just presses a kiss to the side of Charlie’s neck and hopes that it’s enough, even if he knows deep down that it isn’t. 

◍◍◍◍◍

“What made you notice me?” Charlie asks one day, out of the blue. One of his hands is curled into a fist on Nick’s sternum, the other is on his own. They breathe in time; it’s one of Charlie’s favourite things to do. 

Charlie believes this makes all of it worth it: the gritting of teeth to get through the school day, with Nick watching on uncomfortably as he gets bullied, just so they can be delivered into the late afternoons, when it’s just the two of them in Charlie’s room. Charlie lives for these moments; he doesn’t ever want it to change. 

“You sewing,” Nick’s answer comes without hesitation. “At first I thought it was just going to be just that one thing. But as I noticed you more, you kept surprising me at every turn. You surprise me every day.” 

“But what made you like me?” Charlie asks, letting Nick hold his hand. “I’m such a bitch in school.” 

“No you’re not,” Nick hits Charlie’s hand once into the carpet to make a point. “If anything you’re like… a cat. A murderous, and black, and kind of feral cat.” 

Charlie snorts, “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Nick smiles to himself, then he says seriously: “You’re not a bitch. You’re just someone who did his best to survive.” Charlie doesn’t turn to look at him, afraid of what he’ll find there. He still doesn’t like being read so openly like this. “When you scolded me in the bathroom… I don’t know if that can be counted as liking you, but I knew I had to have you in my life somehow.” 

“You liked when I ignored you, then told you what a shitty person you were without having even spoken to you?” Charlie asks softly, and he’s only half-joking. 

“I deserved it,” Nick shrugs. “What about you? What made you like me?” 

“Okay, very presumptuous of you,” Charlie grins.

Nick squeezes his fingers before he says, “Yeah? Well, stop holding my hand if you don’t like me.” 

Charlie laughs and attempts to squirm out of the hold, but it’s either impossible or Charlie isn’t actually trying that hard. Nick holds on tighter and tighter anyway, scrunching up his face like he’s putting in real effort. 

“Okay, okay, I give up,” Charlie lies back down, panting lightly. “You’re going to crush my hand, you giant rugby idiot.” 

“Say you like me,” Nick leans over and pokes a finger into his cheek. 

“This is duress, I just want to make it clear,” Charlie says seriously, even as Nick continues poking. 

“No it’s not,” Nick jabs his fingers into Charlie’s side – “This is” – and does it again and again until Charlie is in hysterics from the tickling, and then he threatens again, with his hand hovered over Charlie’s stomach: “Say you like me.” 

“Okay, I like you, I like you!” Charlie wheezes, stomach cramping from laughter. “God!”

“Good,” Nick says, satisfied, and takes a second to wipe the sweat away from Charlie’s forehead with his free palm. “You better not forget it.”

Then they settle, and Charlie says after a while, his cheeks still aching dully: “You remember the second coin I gave you after the Lira?” 

“The penny,” Nick replies and Charlie nods. 

“You had it for a week, then you asked me what colour it was.”

“You ignored me,” Nick smiles. 

“It was coral pink,” Charlie says quickly, embarrassed that he’d been so angry at such a wonderful boy, even if he didn’t know it at that time. “I had never seen that colour before, and I didn’t look at it until a lot later. But when I dared to, eventually, the coral pink had become deeper, and it told me that it meant –” Charlie stops just in time before he says love, even though that’s the truth – “that it meant romance. I don’t remember when I started liking you. But my coins knew even before I did.”  

“Yeah,” Nick says softly. “I think I get that. Sometimes I think I missed you before I even met you.”

Charlie looks at Nick in surprise, but he’s staring at the ceiling with a focused look on his face, so Charlie turns back to look up and wonders what Nick sees. Wonders if he also sees things in the world that Charlie doesn’t. 

After a long stretch of silence, Nick turns to him and says, “Like how I couldn't possibly know how good handjobs could feel until it was actually your hand on my dick.” 

Charlie sits up and smacks him on the chest, almost having to shout to make himself heard over Nick’s deranged chortling, “You’re such a child.” 

◍◍◍◍◍

To Charlie, who has gone most of his life unloved and second place, love is unfamiliar. 

Love is forcing yourself to be gentle. Love is lowering your barriers after a lifetime of having them raised, just so your partner doesn’t get hurt. Love is going against your instincts. Love is sometimes small, tiny enough that Charlie worries just one snarky, careless comment taken too far would shatter it. Love is sometimes big, demanding enough that Charlie sometimes thinks it might squeeze out the person he’s painstakingly crafted over the years. All so it can leave behind only the soft core of who Charlie really is, and space for someone else to move in next to him. 

And that someone has turned out to be someone so fundamentally different from what he could have ever expected. 

Where Charlie sees details and obsesses over every little thing that could hurt him, Nick sees possibility. Where Nick rolls with the punches, Charlie calculates every single aspect of his life. 

Charlie wants to anticipate everything – both the beginning and end and everything in between. He actually could, up until the appearance of Nick. Nick’s appearance has tossed everything into uncertainty. 

And that scares him. Because, sometimes, when he smiles at Nick along the corridors but can’t school his expression back to neutral as quickly as he’d like, he feels like this was all a mistake. Nick is changing him in ways that he shouldn’t be changing – not if he wants to survive Truham. 

But then he looks at Nick and sees someone crafted lovingly for him, hand-delivered by the universe. Totally out of his control but so much more than he could have ever asked for. Maybe that’s why they work so well, even if they’re so different – they were meant to be two sides of the same coin. 

“You’re staring,” Nick says amusedly as his thumb hovers over the Wikipedia page for world currencies. 

“No I’m not,” Charlie quickly looks away, going back to writing in his coin journal.

“You’re never going to get this done by today if you keep ogling at me,” Nick reminds, gesturing at the small piles of coins surrounding them. 

He’s helping Charlie catalogue all his coins, and it’s been a Herculean task. 

“Nobody is ogling at your stupid face, Nick,” Charlie says, but a blush betrays him by spreading across his face.

“Okay, fine, if you insist,” Nick sighs dramatically, grabbing the collar of his own shirt and pretending like he’s about to yank it off. “Do you wanna do it here or on the bed?”

Charlie laughs and throws a pen at him, “Stop it. If I come another time today, I might never get it up again for the rest of my life.”   

“Honestly, same,” Nick settles back down and picks up his phone. “Okay. What year are we at again?” 

“2008. Almost done,” Charlie says, flipping through his journal. It’s a comprehensive book of every coin he’s ever had, kept, and then given away; sketches of how each coin looks like, a log of the colours they cycle through, and the things they tell him.

Nick nods. He picks up a bronze coin and hands it to Charlie, saying seriously: “This is a Dutch €1 coin. 2008. With the…” he squints, “Beatrix Koningin der Nederlanden. I definitely said that wrong, but it basically means Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. According to Wikipedia.”

Charlie smiles. 

“Thank you, by the way,” he says after a while. 

“What for?” Nick cocks his head.

Charlie really doesn’t want to answer that – but there has to be substitutes for saying I love you before he implodes from holding himself back – so he says: “For accepting me as I am” then quickly turns away.  

Nick pauses in shock before reaching over to pull him into a sincere hug, taking care not to knock over any coins, and says, “I could never do anything else. You’re my favourite person in the whole entire world.”

Charlie grumbles but lets himself get manhandled by this gigantic rugby idiot with no filter for affection – at least for him, anyway – and thinks that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to let himself be soft sometimes. In private.

Nick peppers tiny kisses down his face in one vertical line, forehead, nose, lips, then back up again. 

Charlie’s not going to lie. These days, most things seem kind of worth it as long as they’re for Nick.

◍◍◍◍◍

Since they’ve started dating, Nick has figured out most of the best ways to invert the perpetual downward curve of Charlie’s mouth. It’s a lot easier to do than Nick had previously feared, but it still doesn’t fix the fact that Charlie frowns to begin with. And Nick can’t prevent that if he doesn’t fix whatever is going on in school. 

He waits for Charlie to walk through the door to the Hamlet form room on the morning of the last day of term, but there’s no sign of him, even after the bell rings. 

nick_nzzzz: You okay?

charlie_spr1: sorry, morning detention 

nick_nzzzz: For what? 😡

Charlie takes some time to respond, but Nick already knows what the answer is. His boyfriend’s been getting morning detention more often lately, and it’s always for the same exact reason. Some kid probably shouted something at him, or got physical with him, and Charlie had fought back.

It’s like Groundhog Day, except Charlie doesn’t get to do any of the things he wants to do in this time loop. He just keeps getting hurt, again and again and again.

Nick’s mum has always told him that violence was never the answer, but he’s slowly seeing the other side of that equation. Because what else is Charlie supposed to do, when running away is not the answer, and neither is fighting back, and almost none of the teachers ever intervene? Charlie can’t possibly just stand there and take it; the poison would surely leach in, would surely kill him and all the smiles he keeps hidden away. 

charlie_spr1: same shit

nick_nzzzz: You okay though??

charlie_spr1: totally fine, dw. the other guy had it worse. i'll see u after school!!

Every time Charlie does this, it feels like Nick is being shut out of the parts of him that are the most intimate. He’s been invited into Charlie’s world and has been there for months, but all of Charlie’s hurt, anger, and dreams are still behind a locked door. 

Nick doesn’t know if he can knock on that door without Charlie shouting at him to go away, or if he should just wait for Charlie to trust him with the key. 

But he just hates thinking of Charlie being in there all by himself, and Nick doesn't know how much longer he can stand it. Recently, his palms have been filled with the permanent indentations of his nails.

He forces himself to breathe, and goes back to his phone. 

nick_nzzzz: Be careful, Char. Have a good last day of term, then we get the whole winter break together ❤️

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick, unsurprisingly, turns out to be a huge fan of Christmas. Like, starts preparing after Halloween, forces Charlie to do multiple advent calendars with him kind of fan. 

So even though this Christmas season has been the most fun he’s had in a while, Charlie is lowkey kind of glad when Christmas day rolls around. He seriously can’t wait for Mariah Carey songs to stop popping up on Nick’s Spotify queue just as they’re trying to get into a sexy mood.  

Now it’s 8AM and they’re seated in Charlie’s living room to open presents. They usually try not to do PDA in front of Charlie’s parents, but Charlie has to literally hold Nick’s hand (with both hands) in his lap today just to keep his boyfriend from bursting out of his skin at the sound of wrapping paper tearing open. Nick keeps leaning over to kiss him on his cheek, but Charlie can’t think of a legitimate reason to get him to cut it out, because even his mum is smiling fondly at the sight of them.

It’s embarrassing. It’s annoying. Charlie feels like his cheek is about to be pecked down to the bone if Nick doesn’t stop. Charlie is pleased to his core.

When he opens Nick’s presents in the privacy of his own room later, Charlie almost cries then and there. It’s a two-parter: a box full of coins Nick has bought from an antique coin shop from London – it must have cost him almost all of his savings – and Pantone’s full dictionary of colour, so that Charlie can put colour codes to all his coins now instead of just making a vague guess at their hue.

When he flips it open, he finds the neat print of Nick’s fountain pen on the inside of the cover: You’re the luckiest, brightest, and most colourful thing that’s ever happened to me.

He doesn’t even know what to say.

Nick couldn’t have known a fraction of the sacrifice, a fraction of the pain that Charlie had gone through – is still going through every day – in trying to keep his coins close to his chest. Nick couldn’t possibly fathom the soul-splitting effort of trying not to let down or let go of this ability that he has, even on the days where it feels less like a gift and more like a curse.

Nick couldn’t possibly know how important his coins are to him, without having seen them before, truly. How there’s no way to explain the fact that they’ve protected everyone he’s ever cared about – Nick, his family, his friends, Tao’s dad – but he's never wanted to explain it more to anyone else than Nick. His lovely, lovely Nick, the only person who has ever seen his full collection. He just… can never find the right words, and it frustrates him to no end. 

Turns out he doesn't even have to, because Nick has guessed all the right words, guessed all the right things. It’s clear from the presents he’s picked out. 

He loves Nick. He loves Nick so fucking much. 

Charlie thinks he might have fallen to pieces if not for Nick stroking the back of his neck, might have floated away if not for Nick hugging him back, tight and unwilling to ever let go. 

◍◍◍◍◍

Slipping into the new year changes things.

It’s not that things become bad – not at all – but Nick has been saying strange things as of late.

Like that day when Charlie was kissing his way up and down his neck, Charlie had said, pulling away and laughing, “I have to stop. If I keep this up I’m going to give you a hickey.”

But then Nick had tugged him back down by his tie, surprisingly gruff, and said, “I want people to see. And when it fades, I’ll want new ones.”

The words and the dark tone made Charlie want Nick so much it burned, so he did take more – went back in for seconds, for thirds, until his lips were almost sore from just kissing. By the time they’re done there are two huge hickeys at the bottom of Nick’s neck and his chest is littered with ovals of raspberry red.

Charlie didn’t think too much about what Nick had said at first, because he probably just said it to keep the mood going, but then Nick shows up at school the next day with his collar unbuttoned, low enough for everyone to see, and Charlie is horrified. He’s so horrified he doesn’t even care that a whole group of Year 7s are staring as he drags Nick into an empty classroom and slams the door shut behind them.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Charlie whispers. “Everyone can see your neck!”

“I did give you a heads-up last night,” Nick arches an eyebrow with an amused, cocky smile. He leans in to try and kiss Charlie on the lips, but Charlie quickly dodges it.

Charlie digs around in Nick’s rugby bag for his tie and pushes it in his chest. “Don’t you dare come out until you’re wearing this. And your blazer. You’re going to get another demerit point if you get caught without it in assembly again.”

“Am I not even going to get a kiss?” Nick whines, twirling the tie in his hands. “We finally found an empty classroom.”

Charlie goes up to him, pecks him on the lip but pulls away before Nick can chase after it – because as much as he can’t really say no to Nick, not anymore, he can definitely refrain from giving in all the way. He presses two fingers against the hickeys on Nick’s neck, hard enough that Nick stumbles backwards. “I am going to kill you if you try walking around school like this again.”

When Nick walks out of the classroom, he rolls his eyes at Charlie, who walks circles around him until he’s satisfied nothing can be seen. The tie loosens over the course of the day (much faster than naturally possible, so it’s definitely Nick pulling on it) and whenever Charlie sees him along the corridors, he glares daggers until Nick obediently tightens it again.  

Then there was last week, when it was Nick who pushed Charlie into bed, and he’d asked, “Is it okay if I tell people that we’re dating?”

“Who are you going to –” Charlie bites his bottom lip to stop from moaning too loudly, but they’ve gotten to the point where Nick knows every single one of Charlie’s sweet spots and can manipulate him until he’s putty, soft in his hands. “Fuuuck, Nick. Tell?”

“Dunno,” Nick mumbles, sounding extremely distracted by the way Charlie is grinding his hips upwards into his thigh. Mission accomplished. “Just asking.”

At the back of Charlie’s mind, he knows it’s a strange thing for Nick to ask, but the conversation ends there because Nick is rising to the challenge, flipping him over to unbutton his pants, and everything goes white in Charlie’s brain.

◍◍◍◍◍

“Char?”

“Hmm?”

It’s a change of scenery. They rarely ever hang out at Nick’s house, but Nick had invited him over today for some reason.

“I’m bi,” Nick says, staring into the ceiling, like he’s reading some pattern there and coming to a divine revelation. Like they hadn’t already figured this out together before Christmas.

“I know,” Charlie laughs, squeezing Nick’s hand so he knows he’s not being mean, “And after everything we’ve done in my room? I think all the signs are pointing to yes.”

“Shut up,” Nick reaches over to roll him on his side, but immediately stops when Charlie lets out a small “ow, fuck”.

“What?” Nick’s eyes widen. “What? Did I hurt you?”

“No, it’s nothing,” Charlie looks away, hurriedly shifting into a new position and trying to kiss Nick again.

Nick nudges him away then holds him at arms’ length with a warning stare.

“It’s nothing, Nick. Leave it,” Charlie says, trying to struggle out of his hold, and the desperate edge there makes Nick’s blood freeze.

“Charlie, take off your shirt,” Nick says. 

“No.” 

“I said, take it off.”

“No. Stop it. It doesn’t matter.”

“Take off your–” Nick’s hand darts out to lift up the hem and it’s only a second but the colour there is so striking that it sears itself into the back of Nick’s eyelids. When he blinks, he can still see it as if the hem of Charlie’s shirt never fell back down.

His entire side is bruised, yellows and purples smudging across the length of his ribs.

He doesn’t know what to say, except: “What the hell, Char?” 

“Some people were chatting shit about Isaac, okay? In front of everyone. I couldn’t just sit there,” Charlie insists, but even as it leaves his mouth he knows it’s not really an explanation. “You have no idea what they were saying.” 

“Who was it?” Nick growls loudly, fist wrapping firmly around Charlie’s wrist to stop him from turning away.

“Why the fuck does it matter?” Charlie tries to keep his voice even, tries to remember that Nick is not his enemy. But he’s never seen Nick this intense, and it’s making him scared. He’s getting so close to everything Charlie has kept locked away. “It’s nothing other people haven’t said or done before.”

“This is messed up,” Nick lets go and sits up, running his hands through his hair. “This is so messed up –”

“No, I mean, it’s never this physical,” Charlie blurts out resignedly, a last-ditch attempt to calm him down. “This hardly ever happens.”

“This hardly –” Nick turns to look at him, pupils dilated and dark. “And you didn’t think to tell me? You just wanted to pretend like nothing happened?”

The sudden probing accusation behind Nick’s eyes sends something lurching in Charlie’s stomach, catapults him from placating to furious in a split second.

“And what the fuck would you have done, Nick? Told a teacher? The same ones that give me detention for standing up for myself?” – At some level he tries to hold himself back, but the trigger’s already been pulled, and a bullet can’t be unshot – “Or would you have stopped them? Please. As if you dare,” Charlie scoffs condescendingly and the truth, so painfully out in the open now, blazes over Nick’s face like an inferno.

Charlie is shaking so hard he can’t control where he’s looking, but the moment he makes eye contact with Nick, he knows he’s made a horrible mistake. Nick’s eyes look like an oil field on fire but Charlie can’t stop himself – he feels like a freight train barrelling towards disaster, unable to stop either because there are no brakes built in him, or because he’s never practiced using them. Never had to. 

Charlie runs a rough hand through his curls, “Fuck. I just wanted a good afternoon with you so I could forget about it, Nick. Thanks for ruining it.” 

He clambers off the bed and gathers his stuff, his science homework from the floor, which he’d abandoned in favour of their make-out session, and stationery falls through his arms. He doesn’t care. He lets his pens and ruler lie on the carpet of Nick’s floor, and wonders for a terrifying second if he’ll ever get the chance to come back for them. He pauses for a while to wonder why there’s such a loud drumming in his skull, but then – oh. It’s just the pounding of blood between his ears, the ominous rumbling of a freight train hurtling towards the end – and he continues packing up his shit. 

He can’t stop moving. He can’t stay here any longer because if he does, then it might all spill out.

The fact that Tao hasn’t been talking to him lately, and he knows it’s because he’s started hanging out with Nick. Nick, who still sits with the people who made them feel unsafe for years: who deadnamed Elle non-stop, who made up shit about why Tao’s dad never comes for parent-teacher conferences, who purposely spill their sweet drinks in the library for Isaac to mop up.

The fact that he likes Nick so much he’s chosen him over his friends, and Charlie is horrible, and there’s a niggling suspicion in his gut that maybe that’s why he’s been increasingly reckless about standing up against Harry and his mates. Because maybe if he puts his body on the line enough then his friends will forgive his allegiance with Nick, they’ll see past all his sickening selfishness and take him back again.

If he stays here any longer his tears might spill out. And Nick will know just how much pain he’s been in: how he wishes it would all just stop, how the anger has been snapping at his heels since he was nine, like a rabid dog, and he’s getting really fucking tired of running, but he’s so scared of what might happen if he stops, whether he’d be torn to pieces in the jaws of an animal. How he’s 15 but feels about 30 whenever his alarm clock rings in the morning, how most of his life has been a war and he can no longer stop fighting. He doesn’t know if he even remembers how to stop.

More importantly, if he cries then there will really be no stopping Nick. He knows Nick has been thinking about it. He’s seen the way Nick looks like he’s closer and closer to getting up on his feet every time Harry or Ben says something untoward, the way Nick has been reading up on queer history, which inevitably includes Matthew Shepard and all the kids like Charlie who never became adults and… that’s the last thing Charlie wants Nick to have to worry about. The last thing Charlie wants is for Nick to be affected by these things, to be enlisted in this stupid, pointless war –

But then Nick, following from all the strange things he’s said the past two weeks, says the strangest thing: “I asked you to come over because I wanted to tell you… I wanted to introduce you as my boyfriend to my mum tonight.” 

And everything drains out of Charlie just like that.

“Fuck,” Charlie feels his hands loosen automatically, and the whump of the books as they hit the carpet sounds much louder in the sudden silence of the room.

If he thought he was choking on uncried tears before, he’s really choking now, on absolute shock and the emptiness in his lungs.

“Fuck. Are you serious?”

“Yeah. And if it goes well, I want to come out to the rugby guys this weekend,” Nick says, staring resolutely at his fists, which are now tangled in his own blue sheets.

When Charlie remembers how to move again, he inches slowly to the bed and sinks in next to Nick. His spot is still moulded to his body but it’s no longer warm, and that fact is way more devastating than Charlie had expected it to be.

He places his palm on Nick’s chin and guides him upwards until Nick is finally looking at him. Nick hasn’t been scared of him recently, not since he found out that Charlie’s bark was way worse than his bite, but he looks petrified now of what Charlie might say.

“Are you being serious?”

Nick nods, and his eyes are screaming this-is-too-big-I-don’t-know-what-to-do. He looks like he’s going to start bursting into tears, and Charlie’s heart breaks even more.  

“Hey, hey,” Charlie says softly. “Listen to me. It’s going to be just fine with your mom.”

“I know,” Nick says as he pulls Charlie closer to him. “I didn’t – I’m sorry for being mean. I didn’t mean to shout.” 

“You weren’t being mean,” Charlie says, hooking his arm under Nick’s and leaning into his shoulder. “You were just worried. I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t even… I didn’t even realize you wanted to come out.”

Nick shakes his head, “I didn’t think I wanted to, until recently.”

“Why now?” Charlie asks, marvelling still at the security that he can always find in Nick’s arms. Outside in the world, he feels like he’s always holding his breath, waiting for someone to tell him that he’s too annoying, or too weird, or too… much for people. But in here, nothing else exists except his true, authentic self, and a boy who accepts every part of him. Even after Charlie had gone and said the things he said. 

“I’m not sure,” Nick is silent for a long time before he continues again. “I was just looking at you in form one morning and I… It’s like, you know when something is so, so important that it seems like everything just… falls away? Like, it’s so important that you just want to devote yourself to it? I just… Looking at you that day, I felt it,” He pauses, collecting his thoughts. 

“You’re the most important thing to me, Char. And I can’t give you a 100% only when we’re alone, because that’s not fair” – Charlie wants to protest, wants to say that’s enough for me, but Nick has clearly anticipated it – “It’s not fair to me. I don’t want it. I don’t want to only give you 100% in this room. Because I need more.”

“Okay,” Charlie breathes, overwhelmed by the enormity of what Nick’s just said. “Okay.”

Nick looks at him thoughtfully, “Do you want more?” 

“Yes,” Charlie says softly, reaching out to grab Nick’s hand, as if he knows what he’s going to say before it even comes to him. “But –”

Charlie imagines them walking through the corridors of Truham holding hands, being able to talk to Nick whenever he wants instead of only in form or empty classrooms, and… He wants that so much. He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more.

But this is Nick. This is Nick, with so much to lose, and Charlie can’t see a way that Nick comes out unscathed. He’s almost certainly going to get bullied and if Nick starts getting called “faggot ” in the corridors, Charlie doesn’t know what he’ll do; he might actually break –

“I don’t think you should come out at school,” Charlie says, feeling like another thing has died within him, by his own hand. “It’s not worth it.”

“If it’s Harry, I can –” Nick starts.

“It’s not just Harry, Nick. It’s people talking about you, all the time, even when you’re not there. It’s walking into a room and wondering what they’ve heard about you or whether they approve that you’re there – It’s just… It’s just not worth it,” Charlie’s words congeal in his throat, and he shakes his head. “I don’t want you to go through that.”

“I can take it.”

“And you think I can’t?” Charlie counters, pressing his palm immediately against Nick’s chest before he has a chance to get up in protest. They’ve known each other for a little more than half a year, but they can read each other like they’ve never been apart a day in their lives. “I know you can take whatever they can dish out. But you’re graduating soon, I’m graduating a year after you, and then we’re free to be whoever we want to be. We won’t have to take shit from anyone when we’re out of Truham.”

He can tell Nick is surprised at this promise that they’re going to have years together ahead of them after school and, honestly, Charlie is kind of surprised that he’s so cock sure of it himself.

Nick looks at him for a second like he wants to argue, but then he must see something in Charlie’s face because he just sighs.

“I’ll think about it okay?” He reaches over to tenderly smooth out the knot between Charlie’s eyebrows, and the frigid ice in Charlie’s lungs melts slowly. “I promise I’ll think about it. But – the rugby guys. Otis, Sai, and Christian. I definitely want to tell them.”

“Okay,” Charlie says carefully, because he knows this is the best he’s going to get. When Nick gets stubborn, Nick really doesn’t budge. “We can think about how to do that. Your mum first, though.”

“Okay,” Nick blows out a breath. “Okay. One thing at a time.”

◍◍◍◍◍

It goes way better than Nick could have ever expected with his mum. 

They told Charlie’s friends last week, and while Tao did have an hour-long argument with Charlie in the next room over, Elle had simply turned up the music and forced Nick to play Overcooked with her throughout the whole thing. Isaac had fist bumped him, said “Tao will come around. He just… They’ve been through a lot. Don’t worry about it” and went back to his book.

How they tell Otis, Sai, and Christian is over an outing to the cinema.

Nick is sick to his stomach, sitting here in this dark theatre, and it’s not even because he hates horror. It's because he can’t stop thinking about the discrete possibility that this might be the last time he hangs out with his friends like this. He knows Sai and Christian are okay with gay people, but Otis has never made his views on the matter known.

Even though it doesn’t seem likely, Nick is being held hostage by his brain spiralling into imagined scenarios about Otis being a massive homophobe. He’s met Otis’ mum before, and she’s a conservative catholic, so maybe Otis agrees with her views? Maybe he’s going to tell them that they’re abominations, that they’re freaks of nature, that all of them have AIDs –

He’s starting to really panic, and his racing thoughts are convincing him to let go of Charlie’s pinky when a hand reaches across him. It’s Otis, and he’s grabbing Nick’s hand to put it on top of Charlie’s fully.

When he looks to his right in surprise, Otis smiles knowingly and whispers, “Fucking hell, mate. Just do it already.” 

Nick is stunned for a second, but his shock has nowhere to go except to dissolve into embarrassed huffs of laughter. The female lead on screen figures out a way to outsmart the ghost. He laces all ten fingers with Charlie’s and doesn’t let go for the rest of the movie.

◍◍◍◍◍

They’re sitting at McDonalds together after, and Nick is still thinking about how to broach the topic – maybe he shouldn’t have sat himself and Charlie on one side of the table and the rest of them on the other side. This feels like an interview, or an interrogation – when Otis says, “So… You and Charlie?”

Christian sucks his teeth and slaps Otis on the arm, “That’s not the way you were supposed to say it.” 

“The plan is off, idiot,” Otis says, rubbing his bicep with a scowl. “You didn’t see them holding hands in the movie? You need glasses, Christian, I’ve been telling you that for the longest –”

“We were in a cinema! It was dark! And that’s not the point. The point is, we had a plan, and you didn’t follow the plan.”  

Sai takes another lick of his ice cream, looking unsurprised at the chaos, “And I swear I emphasized at least 10 times that the plan was a top-secret plan. Definitely not to be revealed to Nick.”

Nick frowns, “What plan?”

Sai sighs and puts his ice cream cone down on the table. “We asked you out so we could ask you about Charlie, and we had a whole plan that we’ve been putting together for weeks.”

Otis continues in a rush: “Sai was supposed to start off with a speech about compulsory heterosexuality, which… I didn’t really know was a thing. But definitely makes sense. Then I was supposed to lead into asking whether you liked Charlie. Then Christian… there wasn’t a role for Christian. His role was just to buy the tickets. Which he almost forgot to do, then accidentally bought tickets for horror.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” Christian throws his hands up in exasperation. “It was either this or a Pixar movie. I didn’t think a Pixar movie would be very romantic.”

Otis gapes, “And you thought horror would be?” 

“They held hands, didn’t they?” Christian shoots back. 

Nick glances at Charlie, who’s looking nervously at his shoes. His mouth is pinched in a tight, straight line and his fingers are itching like he wishes he has his coins, which is Charlie’s only tell when he’s anxious or unsure about something.

“So, you guys knew then?” Nick asks and they nod. “And… you guys are okay with it?”

“Mate,” Christian puts down the nugget he’s nibbling at and looks at him with a really? expression. “We came here to convince you to ask him out.”

“Even though he scares the shit out of us,” Christian mutters under his breath. 

Some of the tightness in Charlie’s face dissipates, and so does the uncomfortable pounding in Nick’s chest that’s just shy of painful.

Sai glances up between the two of them. “Sorry if we made you feel like you couldn’t tell us.” 

Nick seeks out Charlie’s hand beneath the table, then nudges him to speak. This isn’t his story. This isn’t something for him to respond to.

Charlie narrows his eyes at him, but Nick refuses to back down. Charlie gives up after a while and even though he looks like he wants to say many things, he settles for a disaffected, forced: “It’s fine.”

Nick winces, because he’s very nearly forgotten that this is the side of Charlie that is most often presented to the world. This prickly, mistrusting one that doesn’t really want new friends; doesn’t even see the point of them. Nick is instantly transported to the weeks of trying to coax even a single word out of Charlie, to get Charlie to look at him without glaring.

But Christian, surprisingly, continues with a hesitant: “There was also another part to the plan. It was – um… It was to stop hanging out with Harry and the rest.”

Charlie looks up, with constrained anger on his face, “Why? Because your friend might be a target now?”

“Because we figured out that he was a shitty person, duh,” Christian shoots back, voice edgy.

“Right,” Charlie says flatly, the stillness of a bomb right before it goes off. “And you couldn’t have figured that out from the way he’s made my life hell ever since, like, Year 7?”

Nick wants to pull on Charlie’s arm, wants to… defuse the situation, or something, but Charlie is gripping his hand tighter and tighter, like he needs Nick to be there for him rather than against him right now. 

“Look,” Otis says after a while, leaning forward and splaying his hands on the table as if he’s trying to show that he’s not hiding anything up his sleeves. “You’re absolutely right. We knew he shouldn’t have done all the things he did. The bullying, and everything. We just… He has all these other qualities: like he’s loyal, and doesn’t have the best life at home,” – Charlie turns away sharply, like he knew that this is exactly what they’d say, and he’s disengaging from this conversation before he hears anymore bullshit – “and we… I thought that if I stuck around long enough, I would be able to see him change but… I see now how wrong that was.

“Nothing could excuse all the shit he’s put you through,” Otis pauses. “Nothing could excuse us not saying anything. And we’re really sorry, Charlie. We shouldn’t have been friends with him in the first place.” 

Charlie turns back hesitantly, unfolds his arms. 

“Yeah,” Sai agrees. “I’m really sorry.”

“Me too,” says Christian, after a while, who normally argues until the earth is scorched, even when he knows he’s wrong. “And you don’t have to forgive us if you don’t want to. We’ll… we’ll do better from now on.”

“I guess it took time for me to figure out what a dick he was as well,” Nick mumbles, and he feels Charlie’s hand slowly unclench in his.

Charlie looks at each of them, considering carefully.

“Fine,” he gives in after a long while and, with a weary sigh, like this is the worst idea he’s ever had, says: “Do you guys want to go bowling with my friends next weekend? Tao and Isaac can’t bowl for shit, and I’m tired of always losing to Elle.” 

◍◍◍◍◍

Bowling is surprisingly fun.

Tao sulks all the way there about Charlie dating a rugby boy and inviting other rugby boys into their gang, but he loosens up when the first thing out of Otis’ mouth is a compliment on Elle’s dress, and a request for the brand so he can bring his younger sister shopping on her birthday. Elle beams up at Tao after typing in the name of the brand on Otis’ phone, so genuinely excited by the prospect of new friends, that there's nothing he can do but let down his guard. Elle has always been his soft spot.

Isaac and Sai really get along; mainly because Sai is a science whiz and Isaac had recently re-read A Brief History of Time. 

Elle still beats them in all but one game, which the Nick-Sai duo wins by a few points. 

Charlie spots a penny on the wet ground when he’s walking home with Nick, shoulder to shoulder and bumping into each other flirtatiously. It’s pulsating weakly with a yellow glow. Charlie almost leaves it there, because he knows not every coin always wants to be found, but he picks it up anyway, just for the privilege of hearing Nick’s little comments of amazement as he quietly describes how it feels like between his fingers.

◍◍◍◍◍

The rugby boys keep their promise. They stop being friends with Harry and Ben and the rest overnight.

Well, Nick wasn’t really talking to them anymore, not since after Harry’s birthday party, but they now sit by themselves at a different table, which is a clear sign to the rest of the school that a war was waged and all ties have now been cut. 

The corridors are filled with conspiracy theories, which Isaac has been taking surprisingly well – it’s Tao and Charlie who are stressed at the sudden surveillance of their group and their possible relationship to the rugby boys. They’re used to things being speculated about them that are entirely false, and those are easy to deal with; those are hilarious, because they don’t even have a single shadow of truth to them. But now it feels like people are seeing details they’ve never cared to see before and putting the puzzle pieces together. People are getting closer and closer to the truth about Nick and Charlie as the weeks pass.

So, really, Charlie should have known that this would happen; it’s only the natural progression of things.

Except he’s nowhere near ready when Nick says the dreaded words, “I want to come out at school.”

Charlie feels like collapsing to his knees, and it’s only by sheer willpower that he doesn’t. He perches himself on Nick's beanbag and pulls his knees to his chest.

“You know I don't run from things,” Charlie says after a long while, under Nick’s careful stare, and his voice is shaking. “You know I never run.”

“But?”

“But this scares me enough that I want to back away.”

“Don’t,” Nick shifts forward and grabs his hand in a flash, before he can react. “Don’t do that. Don’t back away from me now.”

“Do you really want to?” Charlie finally asks, when Nick’s hand on his feels comfortable again instead of scary, even though the real question he wants to ask is Do you have to?   

“Yes,” Nick says, and he leaves it at that, like there’s nothing else he wants or needs to say.

“I really… I don’t mind that you’re not out,” Charlie tries again, softly, even though its a weak play at best.

He knows he can still scare Nick into doing things sometimes if he really tries – his glare has been forged over months and years, harshness his second nature – but this is not something he can choose for Nick. If he tries to force Nick now through brute intimidation, Nick would give in, but he’d be wildly unhappy. 

“I mind,” Nick says softly. “I’ve told you before. I have to be out if I want to give you what I want to give you,” – Charlie watches carefully as a breath hitches in Nick’s chest, the sharp rise and fall of his blue tie against his breastbone – “And maybe that’s selfish of me, but I think I’m allowed to be. I’ve never ever been selfish in my life. I’ve never… I’ve never done things solely because I wanted to do them, not until I met you. Before I met you, I was… I wasn’t me. I was someone who was trying to be me, but I was only ever becoming someone who I thought people would like. I don’t… I can’t go back to that.

"And every day that we have to hide, it feels like I haven’t changed from that person at all. I feel like… I feel small. I feel stupid. I don’t want to pretend anymore, Char. I can’t,” Nick's voice breaks and he pauses for just a second. “You have to understand.” 

Charlie does. He completely does, because how could he not?

He knows Nick like the back of his hand. He knows the frustration in the valley between Nick’s eyebrows whenever he has to watch Charlie be bullied in school. He feels so keenly the way Nick kisses him the second they get to their respective houses, desperate and silently screaming Charlie sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Charlie was just… He was hoping Nick could hang on like this for another one and a half years, no matter how painful it was. He had thought (or begged himself to think): if I could go through so much pain, if I could learn how to throw punches just to protect myself, what’s another one and a half years for Nick, when all he has to do is stay silent?

But that’s ridiculous, because it wasn’t just staying silent, was it? It was forcing Nick to bite his tongue. To smother his identity. To swallow his lies time and time again like a ball of lead, as if that wouldn’t contribute to the weight that all queer people already come into this earth with. 

Every single occasion where Charlie had forced Nick to stay silent – whether by sharp looks or outright warnings – jumps to the forefront of his mind. Charlie has to confront this fact now. The fact that the selfish person here has always been him, not Nick. This whole time, it was him. 

A searing hot snake twists its way up Charlie's throat and lies in wait at the back of his eyes.

He places his hand on top of Nick’s, fighting back the angry tears that threaten to fall, the shuddering of his own heart under the weight of guilt.

Their hands are folded on top of each other, like a stack of building blocks, something greater than a sum of their parts. “I understand. I’m sorry I was so…”

Charlie breathes out shakily. When he inhales again it’s a lot steadier, “I shouldn’t have insisted that you stayed closeted for so long.”

The dog that had been snapping at his heels since he was nine is now laid at his feet, confused and hurting. It says: I was never your enemy. I was also trying to survive.

He can tell Nick is a little surprised that Charlie isn’t putting up more of a fight, and he wonders just how long Nick has been thinking about doing this, how many times Nick has rehearsed this scenario in his mind. He wonders how his simulation is like in Nick’s mind’s eye – was he expecting a hateful Charlie? An unyielding Charlie? This is not a test – it’s not, because their relationship is the furthest thing from school – but is he passing?

“How do you want to do it?”

Nick squeezes Charlie’s hands, “Like this.”

Charlie tilts his head, confused. He can’t mean –

“Just like this,” Nick says again. “I want to hold your hand walking into Truham. You and me.”

Charlie’s throat dries up, and he can hear a clicking sound when he swallows. Everything inside him is screaming no, but this is… Nick wants to do it, so he’ll oblige. 

He has a towering suspicion that this will simultaneously be the safest and most dangerous thing he’ll ever have to do. Walking into the mouth of a tiger while holding the hand of a boy he loves – he can’t think of anything he wants more and less at the same time.  

“When do you want to do it?”

“Tomorrow?” Nick says it like it’s a question, but there’s something behind his eyes begging Charlie not to deny him this. “I don’t want to have too much time to think about it.”

Charlie nods, “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

Charlie nods again. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Nick says excitedly. It feels so good to finally be able to give Nick what he wants, even if his stomach won't stop lurching.

“Aaannd we have that language trip in the summer. Even if everything goes tits up, just think about us being out as a couple in Paris,” Nick swings their hands back and forth carefully like a lovesick schoolboy which, Charlie supposes he is. Charlie can’t help but smile for the first time since they began the conversation. “Holding hands in the Louvre? Kissing in front of the Mona Lisa? Walking down the streets of –”

“Okay, I get it, I get it,” Charlie laughs dreamily, letting himself get pulled by the waist into a loose hug. He loves it when Nick encircles him so fully like this. “You’re so needy.”

“You won’t be complaining about me being needy when I find us a quiet corner in the Musée de Montmartre and get to my knees…” Nick nips at his earlobe.

“I’m holding you to it,” the words come out as a breathy whisper, even though Charlie is trying not to let show how turned on he is by the thought of them running through Paris openly in love. “And since when was your French so good?”

“Many things you don’t know about me yet, Char” Nick says cockily next to his ear, and there’s something behind his tone that Charlie cannot peruse. He doesn’t have time to, because Nick is running his hands down Charlie’s chest and back and kissing him softly.

Charlie relaxes, the tension leaching slowly out of his muscles. Tomorrow is going to be just fine. He’s got his best boy right here with him. Whatever happens, they’ll have each other. Hopefully.

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick shows up to his house the next morning, just on time. Charlie slips 3 coins into Nick’s pant pocket and keeps 3 for himself in the inside of his blazer, the whole time pleading with them to please, please, please let us be okay.

The people sitting around him and Tori make confused sounds about Nick Nelson being on their bus this morning, but the ominous energy emanating off the Spring siblings is enough to keep the worst of it at bay. Nick listens to his music through his AirPods and stares out the window.

Then they alight, and Nick is holding a hand out to him as he gets off the bus. Nick’s hand is shaking, and he looks so afraid that Charlie pushes aside the nauseous feeling in his own stomach and straightens up, standing up as tall as a skyscraper. He can do this.

He’s braved the world by himself for so many years; he can be brave enough now for the both of them.    

“Keep your head up, yeah?” He says before grabbing Nick’s hand in his steady one and lacing their fingers together. Tori smiles astutely before shaking her head and walking off into the direction of Higgs. She’ll probably hear about how it went by lunchtime. 

Almost instantly, low murmurs rise around them like mountains, like they’re walking through the valley of death, and it feels… not too far from the truth. Charlie’s Truham mask slips back on as a matter of habit, and Charlie briefly wonders how they look like to everyone else – a sullen, angry, and smoky wisp of a boy gripping the hand of the well-loved school rugby captain, who appears to have no intention of letting go.

Charlie would laugh at the sight, the incongruence, if not for how utterly surreal and dystopian this whole thing is. 

He’s felt transparent in school his whole life, and maybe borderline translucent whenever he’s playing to a crowd in a big city, but now, walking through this courtyard, he’s suddenly completely fucking opaque. People aren’t looking through him at someone more popular behind – everybody is looking directly at him, and there’s nowhere to hide – not behind snarky comebacks, or middle fingers. Up until this point he hadn’t even realized people could perceive him like this, and the sheer sudden violence of suddenly having a physical body after being a ghost for so long is making his head buzz.

He forces himself to keep breathing, almost mechanically – in and out, in and out. He holds Nick’s hand only as tightly as Nick is holding his, and stares sideways at his boyfriend’s face.

Nick is doing well. He maybe looks a little green, but he’s doing well.

Nick turns to face him, and Charlie makes sure he sees an assuring smile. It works, and Nick smiles back, lopsided and small. Some of the sickly cast over Nick’s pale skin recedes, and some of the focus returns to his eyes.

He squeezes Nick’s hand, trying to communicate as much courage and warmth he can through his eyes. I’m here with you. Don’t fret, don’t fret.

Nick nods minutely and breaks eye contact as they get closer and closer to the gates of the school, closer and closer to the rugby table. 

Harry turns around to see what everyone is pointing at.

“What the fuck!” He shouts. “Nick, what the fuck are you doing, mate?”

Charlie glances at Nick, but Nick doesn’t slow down. He walks faster, trying to get past all his ex-friends, but Harry jumps off the table and makes his way towards them. It would look like a predator stalking its prey if Harry didn’t look so angry and personally affected by this. He has none of the calm coolness of a lion or tiger, and none of the upper hand.

Nick doesn’t respond, and Harry comes closer and closer until he’s just about to bump into Charlie…

And Nick jerks Charlie behind him by the hand, putting his body between the point of impact. Like that first day in the changing room, Nick doesn’t even budge.  

“Don’t fucking touch him,” Nick growls, and it’s not just the depth of Nick’s voice – Nick doesn’t particularly like to curse, and hearing him like this, in school no less, is exhilarating. “What do you want, Harry?”

“You gay now, or what?” Harry says, sneering at where Nick’s hands are intertwined with Charlie’s.

“I’m bi, actually,” Nick says without a second’s hesitation, and Charlie feels pride swell in his chest. “You got a problem with that?”

In the corner of Charlie’s eye, he sees Ben staring directly at him, eyes dark to the left and right of his slightly crooked nose (his parents had got him a plastic surgeon to fix his nose after Charlie went and broke it, but it never looked the same again). There’s a stillness in his eyes that cannot be the product of anger – it’s something softer, sadder. With the way Charlie’s caught him looking over the years, he’d bet his last dollar on the fact that Ben is jealous.

“That’s fucking disgusting, man, what the fuck,” Harry spits on the floor. “And you’re going out with this freak?”

Nick lets go of Charlie’s hand, stepping forward and crowding Harry, “Watch it, Harry. I’m bi, he’s gay, and we’re dating. None of your goddamned business. If you can’t keep our names out of your filthy mouth, you’re off the team.”

Harry scoffs. “Yeah, right. Who the fuck do you think you are to kick me off the team?”

Nick scoffs, “You don’t think I could?”

“Course not,” Harry laughs condescendingly, which is cut off when –

When Nick grabs Harry by the collar and pulls him so his ear is right next to his cheek, “Sure. But I’m captain until we graduate. I call the plays. I run the strategy. I pick our starting lineup,” Nick hisses. “Don’t fucking test me, Harry. I’ll ice you out and you know the rest of the team will follow me, not you.” 

Nick lets him go, and Harry stumbles backwards, the dense crowd around them letting out a collective “oooh”.

Nick’s fists are clenched so hard his knuckles are white. Charlie smiles. He wants to kiss them so bad. 

“You… you…” Harry stutters, face red, clearly grasping at straws but coming up with nothing. Nick’s tried explaining the rules of rugby and the dynamics of the Truham team to Charlie before – he didn’t get most of it, but he does understand that Harry is not that good or indispensable of a player.

He must be fast, though, because in the time it takes for Charlie to blink, Harry lunges at Nick with everything he has. And maybe Nick’s a good fighter, or maybe it’s the coins that imbue a lucky instinct, but he manages to dodge fractionally to the left just before he gets caught in the jaw. Harry falls to his elbows behind them, people laughing at the fail in the crowd, but he gets up immediately, uniform muddy, and tackles Nick to the ground.

Nick lets out a small “oof ” as he hits the floor, and Harry is on him in a second, hands trying to choke him, or punch him – Charlie’s not even sure Harry’s thought about what he means to do.

Nick pushes Harry off his chest with both hands, but not before the side of Harry’s elbow grazes his cheekbone, and that really really pisses Nick off. Charlie sees the moment the switch flips, the moment Nick defects from defensive to offensive. Nick growls and uses a knee for leverage as he flips Harry onto his back underneath Nick, and he looks like he’s about to smash a fist into Harry’s face when…

He stops just inches away, knuckles hovering over Harry’s left eye, which is squeezed shut in anticipation of a hit.

Nick scoffs. He puts his fist down and stands up, looming over the pathetic form of Harry in wet grass.

“You act like you’re tough shit, Harry, but it’s only because you know you’re nothing,” Nick says, and everyone jeers until he turns around in a slow circle to look each one of them in the eye. Then they all fall silent, atmosphere thick and heavy in the blue hue of morning light.

“Anybody else got anything to say?” Nick grits out, seething, his voice slicing through the tense quiet like a knife.

When nobody responds, Nick picks his bag off the ground, grabs Charlie’s hand again, and stalks off into school.

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick just barely makes it into the Art Room before the steel completely goes out of his spine and his knees buckle.

He watches his own body collapse onto the floor like it’s a forkful of spaghetti, watches his arms wind themselves tight around his knees, listens from far away as he trembles so hard that his teeth are chattering. The adrenaline and disbelief of what the hell just happened threatens to shake his entire existence apart, when he realizes that he’s still holding Charlie’s hand, and Charlie is rubbing a hand up and down his back.

“Oh my god,” Nick lets out a nervous laugh. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I just did that.”

Nick can hear the smile in Charlie’s voice when he says, “You looked so cool.”

Nick just focuses on breathing for a while, and Charlie doesn’t ever stop touching him. When the shell-shock, which kept his brain numb, starts to fade, Nick prepares himself for the horror, or mortification at what he’s just done. Surprisingly, what he finds is none of that. He finds that he’s just grateful that he’s managed to do it.

He finds that there’s something he’s been waiting to do for the longest time.

“I love you,” Nick says, turning his body to face Charlie, whose eyes are wide in surprise. “I love you. You don’t have to say –”

“I love you too,” Charlie says quickly, and the words spill out so easily that Nick knows he’s definitely rehearsed it.  

Nick smiles, still feeling like he’s not really in his body, “Were you just waiting for me to say?”

“Duh.”  

“I’m never going to let you forget that I said it first,” Nick says and Charlie smacks the back of his head lightly. He tries not to lean into it, because that’s probably not what Charlie is going for.

“Stop ruining the moment, idiot,” Charlie grumbles but he kisses Nick on the forehead, which is just who Charlie is – harsh words but the softest actions. Nick thinks it’s the best thing ever. 

He clings back, buries his nose in Charlie’s curls and says “I love you” again because he finally can. He’s not sure whether any of what happened was real; he just knows that the heat of Charlie’s body against his is, and that he loves him more than he can stand.

Charlie has always been the realest thing in this school, and now Nick belongs to him, entirely. Unreservedly.

He’s not sure how long they stay tangled like that – can’t be that long, because the bell hasn’t rung – when the Art Room door swings open. They freeze while intertwined, ready for another fight, or another leering look of disgust but refusing to let go of each other, when the person there just clears his throat.

It’s Mr Ajayi, in a deeply unserious patterned shirt.

Nick hasn’t spoken to Mr Ajayi before, but he knows he’s Charlie’s favourite teacher.

He frowns, “What on earth is happening with you two? Why are you on the floor?”

Nick sees Charlie heave a sigh of relief in the corner of his eye, “Nick just… I guess he just came out at school. We’re recalibrating.”

“Oh,” Mr Ajayi says neutrally, like it’s just another day, and claps his hands twice. “Congratulations to you, Nick. Welcome to the rest of your life.”

Nick’s mouth open and closes like a goldfish, and he’s still thinking of what to say when Charlie starts laughing at the bewildered expression on his face. Then Mr Ajayi breaks as well and Nick is pulled along, laughing harder than he’s ever laughed in Truham – or maybe just laughing different. Laughing as a completely different person.

◍◍◍◍◍

Many things change.

Nick has to learn how to filter out the nasty things people say about them (“gays are so gross” and “fucking cocksuckers” and “I wonder who fucks who”), although Charlie’s mostly by his side to do the shouting and fighting back. There are some school mornings when Nick wakes up to a trickle of fear and self-doubt dripping down his back, but it’s mostly rectified by opening his phone to a good morning text from Charlie.

Nick has a pin of the bisexual flag on his school bag now, the rugby lads table has officially expanded to include Tao, Charlie, and Isaac (it’s probably the other way around, because Tao did have the final say), and he holds hands with his boyfriend whenever they feel like, which is all the time (they get called into the principal’s office for that, because apparently some parents feel uncomfortable that their kids are around “non-conforming” relationships. He’s about to just apologize for it and move on when Charlie starts rattling off anti-discrimination laws without a second’s hesitation, together with which authorities he can make complaints to if they’re ever written up by any teacher for it. As a final point, Charlie points out that the principal’s son full-on snogs a girl from Higgs every morning at the gates, and they’re quickly chased out of the office before Charlie can get too descriptive. They hi-five outside of the office, in full view of the principal’s secretary).

The bathroom where Charlie talked to/scolded Nick for the first time? In a hilarious twist of irony, that’s their designated make-out (maybe more) bathroom now.

The rugby team kind of falls to pieces since Harry and his lackeys refuse to cooperate with a fairy rugby captain, but Ms Singh keeps conspiratorially silent about Nick’s game strategies and lets him recruit new players for their scrum half to replace the bigots. In the end, it works out for the better because they find a few people that can play better than Harry with half of the experience.

(Nick keeps trying to recruit Charlie, mainly just so they can spend more time together. Charlie always pulls a disgusted face and says “fuck no”, but he stays behind to wait for Nick after every practice anyway.)

Things are so fun and although Nick has always been big – taller and larger than his peers since that growth spurt in Year 8 – he’s never felt bigger than when he’s walking next to Charlie down the corridors of Truham.

And all the important things stay the same.

Charlie still has to get dragged away from shouting matches (Tao is usually also a culprit and now, sometimes, Otis), he still walks around like there’s a personal grey cloud over his head in school, daring anyone to look at him, and he still scolds Nick at least once a day. They still go into London together, Nick still helps him with researching coins, and every time they have sex feels even more fun than the last.

Nick spends more time with his family, his friends, Charlie’s friends, and everything feels so much more comfortable now that he’s out. He feels like he’s let go of a breath he wasn’t even aware he was holding. He feels like he’s finally learned how to swim and instead of having to watch from the shore, forcibly landlocked for fear of drowning, he’s splashing around in the water and trusting the currents to take him where he needs to be.

His life is amazing, and for once he actually likes it. For once, he actually feels like his life is his.

He spots the lanky figure of Charlie in the distance, brisk walking toward his Chemistry class, and Nick holds back the urge to pump a fist in the air. He quickly runs up, loops an arm around Charlie’s shoulders, and kisses him on the cheek.

“Ew,” Charlie grimaces, wiping Nick’s spit off his skin. He’s not even surprised by these ambushes in school anymore.

“I love you,” Nick says, uncaring that they’re surrounded by people.  

Charlie rolls his eyes and mumbles, “Love you too”, but Nick can see him clutch his Chemistry textbook that much tighter. He tackles Charlie into a tight hug he can’t get out of, then runs away to Maths before Charlie can chide him for making them late to their classes again.  

◍◍◍◍◍

They start an LGBTQ+ Society in Truham and Wednesday afternoons in the Art Room is the only place that Charlie fully lets his walls down in school. They don’t get many participants because, well, Truham is Truham, but there are participants, which is the main point. Charlie had always known, logically, that he wasn’t alone in school, but sitting here on plastic chairs and getting to actually know each other is surreal.

The first few weeks their anonymous box is stuffed full with crumpled post-its of derogatory words, but they die down after a while and then there’s finally space for legitimate letters, typed in non-descript fonts which could have come from anybody in their thousand-person school. Charlie replies to each of them and helps everybody that walks through the Art Room door on Wednesday afternoons.

Slowly but surely, the bullying situation improves.  

They still get shouted and sneered at, but the novelty of the rugby captain coming out wears off and the silent majority is emboldened enough to start calling out bad behaviour. The number of dirty looks Nick gets along the corridors decreases, and Charlie stops flinching as much whenever they’re holding hands.

Nick is painfully aware of the unfairness of it all – how this happened only after Nick came out and not a second earlier, even though Charlie and his friends had been fighting for years. How gay is okay only when an athletic, popular guy is.

So Nick treads lightly, careful not to make it seem like he’s some saviour who has swooped in to save Charlie – because the truth is, it was the other way around. When the school admin asks him to hold a mini workshop on LGBTQ+ issues, he (together with Mr Ajayi and Ms Singh) pushes Charlie’s name forward. When the school admin says: “Mr Spring is… difficult. Can’t you just do it?”, he says: “Charlie’s the president, talk to him” and leaves it at that.

Nick refuses to steal his boyfriend’s thunder, even though Charlie promises he doesn’t mind and doesn’t ever want to take credit for the Society – he’s mainly just grateful that things have changed at school for kids like him, which further drives home in Nick’s mind what an amazing person Charlie is.

Still, though, Nick becomes the default face of the LGBTQ+ Society, which fills his belly with unjust. 

But then right before the bustle of exam season begins, they get a short, unsigned letter in their box, typed in 12pt Times New Roman:

This might be cheesy but I was just thinking today about what I’m grateful for.

And I realized I’m grateful for Charlie Spring. Thank you for always standing up so loudly against the people who will never understand us. Thank you for coming out all those years ago. Thank you for showing me that I have nothing to hide.

You saved my life.

It’s the first time Nick sees Charlie cry, face buried deep in his shirt and wiping angrily at his eyes, like he’s shocked and embarrassed that he can still feel things so intensely. Nick just squeezes him, presses numerous kisses on the crown of his head, and thinks, you saved me too. You’ve saved more people than you know.

The fire in his belly gets tamer and tamer every day, until it’s just a warm gratitude for having the privilege of fighting alongside someone like Charlie.

◍◍◍◍◍

If Christmas is Nick’s event of the year, Pride is Charlie’s.

They go into London for the weekend with their friends, and this is the first time Charlie is going with such a big group. There’s their lunch table (except for Otis, because his staunch Catholic mum hadn’t let him go), there’s Elle, Tara, and Darcy from Higgs, and both Olly and Tori have come along this year. They’re also supposed to meet Sahar and Jay.

Charlie is wearing makeup, eyeshadow in the colours of the rainbow dusting his eyelids, and Nick’s nails are painted in the colours of the bisexual flag. Since Nick came out, he’s been experimenting with different things (he’d almost worn a skirt today, but couldn’t find any that he loved), but his favourite so far is painting his nails.

The lot of them are boisterous and obnoxious as they get on the HS1 but the moment they exit into Picadilly Circus, they all stop in their tracks. The ocean of rainbow flags is so much wider than the year before, and they can’t see where it ends. All of their mouths are hung open in awe and none of them can speak for a good whole minute. 

Darcy is the first to break it. She turns around and shouts, “What are you guys waiting for?” 

Then she runs into the crowd to sniff out the thick of the action, Tara screaming her name behind her. 

“This is insane,” Christian breathes. “I didn’t…” 

“Didn’t think there were so many of us?” Charlie teases. 

Christian pauses then says, not out of any malice, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.” 

“Okay,” Elle points at Sai and Christian. “Straight rugby boys. Your job is to look for Tara and Darcy while we look for a good empty spot for dancing.” 

Sai groans, “You’re really sending the straight people after Darcy? She’s going to hate you. She’s going to hate us.”

“What about Tao? He’s straight!” Christian protests as Tao brings an urgent finger to his lips to shut him up. 

“Yeah, but he can’t run, so he’ll only slow you down,” Elle says and Tao’s expression is hilariously torn between betrayal and relief.

Nick laughs as Sai and Christian run off, and he looks back again at the enormity of the crowd. Standing here, he can’t believe he ever thought he would be happy pretending he was straight. 

As he slow dances with Charlie to an Elton John song, other queer couples pressing against them, he thinks of what Charlie said a few months ago about them being free to be whoever they want after Truham. He remembers that this will be the rest of their life, when they can finally get away from all the shit in small-town Kent.

He starts tearing up and Charlie is alarmed, rubbing anxiously at his cheeks and asking him what’s wrong.  

“Nothing, nothing,” Nick says, laughing. “I’m just so glad I got here.”

◍◍◍◍◍

Paris is fucking amazing.

They’re not even phased by Harry being on the trip – like brains ignoring the fact that your nose is always in your line of sight, Nick has, over time, gotten so good at filtering out mean comments that he hardly hears them anymore. Nick does everything he said he was going to do: he holds hands with Charlie as they walk through Paris, and rests his head on Charlie’s shoulder as they look at art together in the Louvre. They kiss on top of the Eiffel Tower for so long that Mr Ajayi has to come and physically pry them apart. Twice. 

The thing at the Musée de Montmartre, though, they don’t do. Charlie thinks it might be disrespectful to the dead artists, or something.  

(But it doesn’t matter because Charlie finds out the same day that Nick speaks French, and the only way Nick can explain what happens in their hotel room that night is that he gets ravaged. Charlie had prepped him with his fingers so unnecessarily thorough, so torturously slow, no matter how much he had begged, that Nick began to think only 10 minutes in that this could be payback for not letting Charlie know he was half-French sooner. Then Charlie had pushed in, and fucked him so hard, for so long, that Nick knew there was no way it wasn’t payback.)

Nick teases him with French dirty talk until they laugh themselves to sleep, Nick stares blankly at the people on the bus who say things about Charlie’s hickey the next day until they are guilted into silence, Tao and Elle fall for each other again, they steal sips from Darcy’s vodka, Charlie slams the door in Harry’s face at Tara’s party, and they have the best trip of their lives.

Nick has a plan to buy promise rings for him and Charlie at a random trinket store near their hotel, but a bright idea suddenly overcomes him just as he steps in. He asks the grumpy, geriatric storekeeper if she can do something custom, and she says of course, softening the moment she realizes he can speak French. Nick retrieves two coins he’s received from Charlie from his pocket and requests that she put them on chains. She’s a little confused, but when he returns 4 hours later, the coins are encased in tiny silver frames on thin metal links, and they’re perfect.  

He pulls his from under his shirt to show Charlie that night, and Charlie’s jaw drops open, “That’s the Canadian Toonie I gave you, is it not?”

Nick nods, as Charlie reaches out to rub at the frame with his thumb with an amazed grin on his face. Charlie’s been smiling more and more lately, even in school, and while Charlie had always been a happy person under his stony exterior, it’s different when you’re allowed to express it. Like finding clothes that finally fit you. Like passing a rugby ball to your friends with the remnants of colourful polish on your nails. Like telling your body that the game is over, and it can stop trying to squeeze itself into small spaces. 

“Guess what?” Nick asks, barely able to keep his excitement hidden. 

“What?”

“I made us a pair,” Nick says.

“Oh my god,” Charlie breathes. “No way. Show me mine right now.”

Nick pulls it from his pocket and there it is, the 1972 Turkish Lira in an identical silver frame, “Thought I’d finally give it back to you. Happy seven-month anniversary.”

Charlie quickly puts it around his neck before he tackles Nick into a hug. That’s another one of Charlie’s smiles that Nick has never seen before, and he tries his best to carve it into his memory.

He can’t wait to see it on Charlie’s face again. 

◍◍◍◍◍

Charlie has his first big fight with Nick because of stupid university, but even that can’t break them. Neither does the whole year Charlie has without Nick by his side at Truham, which he was initially so anxious about. Things turn out much better than expected, because without Harry and Ben in school, it’s like all of the gay kids come out of hiding all at once. It’s kinda cute, and the LGBTQ+ Society grows to almost thrice its size by the time he graduates. None of the incoming Year 7s throw “gay” or “fag” around with their friends anymore, and when they see Charlie, they see someone who isn't afraid to argue for what is right. They see someone who’s topped Truham multiple years in a row. They whisper “he’s the guy dating Nick Nelson” like the reverent thing it is. 

When he hands the LGBTQ+ Society over to a Year 10 right before he graduates, that Year 10 accepts the position in shock and confesses that he was the one who wrote the anonymous Times New Roman letter almost a year ago. They become good friends and Charlie gets to watch in pride as he brings the Society to places Charlie never thought was possible. 

Nick tries out for the National Rugby Team when he’s in his second year at Leeds. He fails on his first three tries, and there are a lot of long calls where Charlie tries to soothe Nick’s disappointment all the way from where he is in Cambridge and not panic at the sight of his boyfriend so upset. Nick gets in on his fourth try, after a short stint on the development team, and Charlie surprises him in Leeds with a cake. They both get piss drunk in Nick’s dorm room and make out like teenagers again. 

Seasons change, they spend multiple Christmases and Prides together, and they grow individually without growing apart.

Charlie graduates Cambridge law with First-Class Honours, and he gets a job at one of the most prestigious law firms in London, where he puts his vicious personality to good use drawing blood in Court. They rent shitty apartments in Zone 5 before they finally have enough to buy a tiny one in Zone 2, and it’s perfect. They adopt a black cat, name him Beetroot (Nick insisted), and he’s a sweetheart except for when he keeps trying to swipe Charlie’s coins off the windowsill. Olly lives on their lumpy couch sometimes during the school holidays, but Charlie has no illusions about why – Olly definitely likes Nick and Beetroot more than he likes his own flesh and blood human brother, the traitor.

Nick slowly establishes himself as one of England Rugby’s best inside centres and he flies all over the world during seasons, where Charlie watches his matches from their apartment and tries to figure out what’s going on. Rugby still makes no sense to him, but it’s a sport where you pass the ball backwards, so he’s not sure why it makes sense to anybody at all. He cheers whenever Nick scores or makes a conversion, tries not to freak out too badly when he sees Nick get injured, and takes photos of his TV screen like he’s at a concert. Nick still paints his nails on the off-seasons – he leaves only a singular crimson on his pinky when he’s playing, because the people who play and watch rugby aren’t the most accepting of gay people, but it’s a stark reminder that he’ll never stray from his authentic self. A small rebellion. Charlie loves him so much.

They get married when they’re 26 which, to them, feels young but everyone in their lives keeps telling them that they expected the wedding invitations to have come earlier. They just laugh politely but secretly agree – they’ve been acting like an old married couple for almost a decade anyway.

Everything falls into place so perfectly that they’re completely, utterly blindsided by what happens next.  

◍◍◍◍◍

A loud bang.

A crunch of metal. 

A sharp screeching that seems to go on forever. 

The weird thing is, it sounds exactly like in the movies. 

Looks like it too: the world, turned entirely upside down. 

Charlie, in a moment of true clarity, tries to keep himself limp. Tries not to tense up, as he’s jerked around like a ragdoll, limbs slamming against never-ending somethings – fuck, it hurts so fucking bad, he’s definitely going to die here, he can’t see any way out of this – his body floats up until there’s nowhere else to go, then crashes back down again. 

As Charlie gets dragged sideways into unconsciousness, the last thing he thinks of is Nick. 

Not of Nick now. But of Nick in his Truham uniform, young and small. The way he cradled a coin in his palms, seated next to Charlie in the morning sun.

The way he had scrutinized it,  like it was something to be loved, right from the very beginning.

Then everything goes dark. 

◍◍◍◍◍

Charlie was Nick’s first everything. First love, first time he had sex, first time he really danced in public, first time he bought a house. First time he ran through a storm for an apology, first time he willingly ate olives (even though he doesn’t like them much) for another person, first time he let himself dream, because it was the first time he believed that there was someone there waiting to catch him if he ever fell. First time he realised he could care about someone so much that he would be willing to lay his life down on the line, no questions asked.  

When the team manager walks briskly into the locker room right after they win the first match of the season to tell him that something’s happened to Charlie and he needs to check his phone right now, there’s a strange voice in the back of his mind that tells him, this is also a first. This is the first time you’ve ever understood what bone-deep terror means.

He’s shaking as he checks his phone, and there are 15 missed calls from an unknown UK number. There are 4 missed calls from Tori, and hundreds of unread messages. Around him, all his team mates have fallen quiet. There are only the timid sounds of people taking off their scrum caps, untying their shoes. 

He’s shaking as he slides the lock screen open, both hands joined around his phone like he’s praying, hoping fervently that this isn’t what he thinks it is. It can’t be, it can’t be – they’ve only been married for 8 months, they were supposed to spend forever together.

The latest message is from Olly, and it says: Nick, Charlie’s got into a car accident. It’s really bad. You have to come home now.

He doesn’t remember how he gets out of the Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium. He doesn’t even remember how he gets onto the flight from Japan home; he just remembers hands herding him places. First his team manager, then their assistant coach, then the people at the airport. He lets them manoeuvre his numb body, which hasn’t done anything but stare at his phone and text Charlie’s siblings non-stop, asking them for updates even if they have none. Charlie is still in the operating theatre and they don’t know if he’s going to make it. 

Nobody knows if he’s going to make it. 

He manages to get the last seat on a 13-hour flight out to Heathrow. His team manager had had the foresight to purchase in-flight wifi for him, but it’s shit, and the connection is spotty, and he gets testy with an air stewardess who was just trying to help. She doesn’t react badly, either because she knew about his situation beforehand, or could guess from the way he spends half the flight crying, the other half staring into space with unseeing, bloodshot eyes.

He doesn’t remember sleeping but, if he did, it was dreamless. It was a glitch, his body shutting down from exertion. It was a long blink at most.

He’s somewhere over Mongolia (Charlie had a coin from Mongolia once, he gave it to a waitress at that brunch place they both like) when he gets the news that Charlie is out of the operating theatre. They’ve managed to fix most of the damage to his body, but he’s in a coma and the pressure in his head won’t come down, even after they’ve cut a hole in the skull to relieve it.

Nick tries not to think about Charlie in the ICU, tubes sticking out of him, senseless and at the mercy of fate, people doing what they want to his body without his permission. Nick forcibly tips his mind in the other direction and focuses on the fact that it’s now 7AM on a Tuesday in London. He closes his eyes and imagines the city waking up, people brushing their teeth, petting their cats and leaving for work. He imagines the piercing sun rising slowly behind the Shard. He imagines hearing the sound of people tapping their Oyster Cards on the gantries, the quiet shuffle of their feet as they make their way to the platform, the rumbling of the train as they scroll BBC on their phones. 

He thinks of Charlie, handsome in his pressed suit and brown leather briefcase (coins tucked in every compartment there is), being on that same train. Just making his way to work, like it’s a regular day, like he wasn’t in an accident, where his car was totalled outside of the city by a fucking drunk driver in a fucking van driving fucking 110km per – no, don’t think about that. 

Charlie will be on that train soon. He’ll be on that train before Nick knows it, and then he’ll spend hours at his desk, and come home to his husband, who will be sweaty from rugby training at the end of the day, and everything will be fine.

Charlie is alive. Charlie is alive, and everything is going to be fine.  

Heathrow staff push him to the front of the immigration line and out the private exit, where the team's van is waiting for him. Andrew is an amazing driver and an even better friend, so he doesn’t say anything when Nick loses it in the back. Doesn’t say anything when Nick cries, screams tearing themselves out of his throat as he hits the headrest of the seat in front of him until his palms are swollen. Andrew just keeps his eyes forward and puts his foot to the pedal.

Even with London traffic, they get to the hospital in record time, and Andrew tells him to leave his luggage in the car – he’ll bring him everything he needs in a few hours.

Nick’s head is boiling hot but his fingers are freezing when he gets to the front desk, and the rest of his mind feels about the same. Completely out of order. None of this feels real. He keeps waiting for someone to tell him that this has all been one big, cruel joke.

“I’m looking for Charles Francis Spring,” he blurts out hoarsely to the nurse at the front desk, throat scratchy from all the crying and shouting he’s been doing in the last 18 hours. She gives him a look and immediately leaves her post to escort him straight to his ward, the urgency in her step telling Nick exactly what he needs to know.

He passes by Charlie’s family in the waiting area, but they all wave him on, so he doesn’t stop to chat.

It’s a complete shock when he lays eyes on Charlie, because he looks so much worse than Nick could’ve ever imagined, his only reference material taken from movies and the brief hospital visits to his concussed teammates. Charlie looks so much weaker in this white hospital bed, and there are so many more machines. Nick really hopes it’s just layers and layers of bandages around his head that is making it look so large, but he suspects that it isn’t, because his entire face is also swollen. There are large bruises around both his eyes that are so violet they might as well be black, and the colour of the rest of his body is… The colours are completely unnatural – they don’t look like they belong on human skin at all.

Nick all but collapses into the chair next to the bed. He refuses to think about it as Charlie’s bed because it isn’t. Their bed is at home, and Charlie will be in it soon. 

There’s nowhere that Nick can see that looks like it wouldn’t hurt, Charlie’s left leg is encased in a white cast, so Nick settles a hand on Charlie’s left shoulder, thumb stroking lightly over the hospital gown.

He talks to Charlie evenly, telling him about his Japan match, how the team is doing, what they might do about Beetroot while Charlie is recovering. At the back of his mind he's wondering what that annoying noise is, above the beeping of the machines: the inflating then deflating of something, like one of those things you pump up balloons with, when he realizes it’s a ventilator. A ventilator that’s helping Charlie breathe, pushing air in then out of his lungs, because he might die otherwise.

He finally lets himself look at the tubes which are snaking and forcing their way into Charlie’s mouth. Despite the jarring sight, that’s not what he’s focused on. He’s distracted by the white tape around Charlie’s pale lips that are there to keep all the tubes in. He can’t stop staring at it, the way one of the strips is wrinkled. It must be painful, the way that wrinkle is pulling at his husband’s skin like that, the delicate paper-thin surface of his laugh lines, he wants to fix it but he doesn’t know if he’ll make it worse, and couldn’t the people here have done a better job, Charlie’s already in so much pain, does he really need one more fucking thing, one more fucking irritation, and –

In the end, that’s the thing that breaks Nick, even though he really didn’t want to do this in front of Charlie: a stupid wrinkled piece of tape. He sobs, leaning his head onto the beige plastic guard rail of Charlie’s – of the bed – and lets himself go. It’s another first, he thinks wryly: the first time he’s cried this hard in his life.

◍◍◍◍◍

Over the next few days, Nick gets his shit together. He remembers the way Charlie had taken his shaky hand in his on the day that he came out at school, even though he couldn’t have known what lay ahead, and tries to be the strong one for the both of them now.

He leaves the medical stuff to Charlie’s family, since Tori and Olly are both in healthcare. Nick doesn’t want to hear about it anyway. He doesn’t want to hear the specifics about the number of broken bones, or the brain swelling, or the lost pints of blood unless he really needs to. 

He knows enough. He knows that Charlie’s prognosis is not good. He knows that the doctor’s mouth is always in a tight, straight line whenever he delivers his updates. He knows that there are visiting hours, but none of the nurses ever enforce it for Ward 109, because they think every day might be the last day. They wouldn’t want to deny Nick the chance of seeing his husband for the last time. 

Nick knows all that, but he refuses to think too much about it. They don’t know Charlie the way he does; they don’t know how tenacious he is, how much he loves Nick. He’ll be fine. He’ll come back soon enough.

In the meantime, Nick does everything under the sun to keep himself from going insane. He drives out to get meals for Charlie’s family when they’re visiting, helps the nurses with anything they need, coordinates visits among Charlie’s friends, organizes then re-organizes all the gifts people leave in the ward, helps manipulate Charlie’s limbs so they don’t get too stiff while he rests, talks with the police and lawyers (Charlie’s colleagues) who are handling Charlie’s case (the drunk driver walked away from the crash with only a broken arm, which he probably didn’t even feel because his blood alcohol concentration was fucking 0.13%), and discusses his spot on the team with his team manager and captain, because he knows that when Charlie wakes up, he’s still going to need Nick there for a lot of the time.

It’s on the seventh day of the accident and Nick is by Charlie’s bedside, rubbing pensively at the Canadian Toonie on his neck, that he suddenly wonders where all of Charlie’s stuff is. His wallet, his wedding ring, his house keys, his necklace with the coin.

He walks out to the front desk, “Hey Katie, where’s Charlie’s stuff being kept?”

“What stuff?” she tilts her head.

“Like the stuff he had on him during the… um, the accident.”

“Oh,” she says, wincing. “Yeah. Gimme a sec, I’ll get them for you.”

She disappears to the back and returns with an opaque envelope. Katie asks him to check if these are Charlie’s things before he signs them out.

He opens the top of the envelope, intending to peek perfunctorily into it to confirm that it is, because he knows what Charlie’s wallet and house keys look like, but there’s something else. There’s a glow coming from something within.

He thinks maybe it’s Charlie’s portable charger or something – maybe he’d jostled the On button when he was handed the envelope, and it’s the light indicating the low battery percentage. But he thinks about it, and he swears he remembers seeing Charlie’s portable charger at home. On the table next to their fig plant. 

So he digs around the envelope and it’s… it’s Charlie’s necklace. The one with the coin. The one that they’ve hardly taken off their necks since that summer in Paris.  

“What the fuck?” he says as he cups it in his right hand. Inside the darkness of the envelope, the 1972 Turkish Lira is burning so brightly red that he’s surprised it’s not actually scalding his palm. There’s a jarring cognitive dissonance – his brain is telling him to drop it drop it drop it, expecting pain, but there’s zero physical sensation. None at all. Just the dull weight of silver, adjusting to his body heat.

“What?” Katie asks. “Is it not his things?”

Nick jerks skittishly, and says quickly, “No. It is. I… I’ll sign it out.”

Katie gives him an odd look but slides over the form that he has to fill out, which he does without even reading the terms. Charlie would be angry at him for that but, well, Charlie is in a coma, so.

“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck,” he mutters under his breath as heat rises up his cheeks and he walks briskly back to Charlie’s ward. His trembling hands grip the envelope tighter and tighter under his arm.  

He’s never seen anything Charlie sees in coins – not a sliver. And now… what the fuck?  Something flutters violently in his stomach, and he doesn’t know if it’s fear, or awe, or something else. It seems like he’s cycling through the whole gamut of human emotion in the time it takes for him to reach the end of the corridor. He can hear the pumping of blood in his ears, can almost feel it squirming in his veins.  

When he gets to Ward 109 he hastily tips everything out of the envelope onto the bedside table, before he remembers last-minute that Charlie doesn’t like his coins hitting hard surfaces. He glances up at Charlie’s face, half-expecting him to bolt up with a scolding on his lips, but he just lays there.

Nick looks at the bedside table to confirm that he isn’t seeing things. Still, the Lira burns in the middle of the pile like red coal. He holds it in his hand again, twisting this way and that, but the colour just moves with it.

“What the actual fuck,” he says again to no one in particular, or maybe god. “What the fuck.” 

Nothing answers except the beeping of the machines. The annoying hum and hiss of the respirator.  

He forces himself to stand up and run the necklace under the tap in Charlie’s room, because the chain is tacky with dried blood. He dries it carefully, and he’s about to put it on when he thinks again and turns around. He carefully lifts up Charlie’s head, hating the same limpness that’s been there the past 7 days, and slips the necklace around his husband’s neck. It falls on top of his hospital gown, but Charlie’s voice whispers “the nearer the better” in his memory, and Nick tucks the coin underneath, so it lies right on top of Charlie’s heart.

◍◍◍◍◍

Over the next few days, Nick darts back home to pick up a few more lucky coins from their apartment to leave around Ward 109. 

He doesn’t ever stay long. The silence there weighs on him like a heavy bag pack that he can’t put down, even after he locks the door behind him. It's so heavy that it gives him knots in his lower back that he can never manage to massage out, no matter how hard he tries throughout the day.

Even Beetroot is being temporarily taken care of by Olly in Kent, so there’s absolutely no one left to welcome him home anyway. Nick misses Charlie so much he sometimes forgets how to even breathe. 

◍◍◍◍◍

Charlie is adrift. Somewhere.

He knows he’s been asleep for a long time. He just doesn’t really know how to wake up.

There’s a vague echo of a memory, of someone asking him how he knows what the coins tell him. Charlie can’t remember exactly what his answer was, but it was probably something non-committal like “I just know” or “it’s not really English, but it’s not really gibberish. It’s something in between” because, honestly, he never knew how to explain it.

So in all this free time he’s had, he’s been thinking about that question. He finally has an answer.  

Sometimes, when you stare into the night sky for a really long time, you hear something back. No, not the sound of cicadas or the whoosh of cars as they pass by in the distance. Past all that, past the scratching of your own thoughts, it’s a voice that’s not really a voice – more like a gentle, celestial sound that speaks. It’s not quite discernible, but humans know exactly what it is even if they don’t truly understand it. Like how we know instinctively that there’s something beyond the inky sky, or that stars are more than the white dots they look like from Earth.

It takes a certain kind of person to be able to peek behind the proverbial curtain: to want to do it in the first place, and then to not step back when it becomes larger than you could ever reckon with. Edwin Hubble did it with the night sky – he lifted the monotonous black and saw behind it an ever-expanding universe that rendered everybody’s existence useless and weak. The Greeks and the Chinese lost themselves at sea and learned how to read their way home using a random smatter of white dots out of pure desperation. Einstein sat at his desk and thought his way into a black hole, even knowing he might never emerge again.

Charlie has stared into the night sky more times than he can count. He’s put his ear right up to it. He spent hours with it. He never backed down even when the darkness felt like it was going to eat him whole. He did it for so long that the night sky – all the coins in the world – could fit squarely in the palm of his hand. 

The hum of perpetually expanding possibilities, speaking to him like a true friend as he lifts them to his ear.

This is not magic. This is some strange ability.

For the life of him, he can’t figure out why he’s the only one who has it, but maybe there was a purpose to all of this.

Charlie can’t remember when, or how he fell asleep, or why he’s been sleeping for so long. But lately, the hum of the night sky has gotten a little louder. Like the night sky itself is getting closer and closer. 

He hopes it’s not because the sky is falling on his head. He hopes it’s because morning is coming. Because he feels like he’s slept enough for a lifetime, and he kind of wants to wake up already. It feels like someone is waiting desperately for him to. 

◍◍◍◍◍

Nick is slumped over the hospital bed, half-asleep while holding Charlie’s hand, when he feels it twitch in his. He almost continues plodding along to sleep, because sometimes there are just involuntary twitches like that and he can’t stay awake to watch every one, but then it happens once more.

He pushes himself upright, trying to think if he’s ever felt an involuntary twitch so strongly before, when all of Charlie’s fingers curl inwards. Like they’re trying to grab his hand back.

Nick doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t want to press the panic button, because he’d done that way too many times in the early days and the disappointment of the nurses coming in to tell him “it’s nothing” was somehow always way worse than the fear of leaving the button unpressed.

But then Charlie’s eyes flutter open – one of them does, at least, the other one is still swollen shut, and he sees the ocean iris of the man he’s loved since he was 16.

“Char,” Nick says softly, then panics slightly when Charlie doesn’t look at him – maybe his hearing was damaged in the crash or maybe it’s something worse that the doctors didn’t detect – he shakes Charlie’s arm once, twice, three times, and says louder, “Charlie. Char.”

With obvious exertion and a frown, Charlie turns his head to the left. He meets eyes with Nick before frowning, as if he’s annoyed, as if he’s not the fucking asshole who’s refused to come out from the literal jaws of death the past 2 and a half weeks, and says, “What?”

Nick laughs, fat tears streaming down his face, voice cracking, “Fuck you. Oh my god, fuck you, Char. Hi. Welcome back.”

Charlie smiles, even though his face hurts and he doesn’t understand what’s going on or why Nick is here cursing at him instead of halfway across the world. He can’t not smile, because that laughter is his favourite sound in the whole wide world and it feels like he hasn’t heard it for the longest time, even though it must have been only a few days ago that Charlie had hugged Nick goodbye at Heathrow. Maybe he just always misses Nick, as a general rule.

“Hi,” he croaks out, looking around in confusion. Why the fuck is his throat so dry, where is he, and who the hell dared to make his husband cry?

◍◍◍◍◍

The road to recovery is long and difficult.

And it’s times like these where Charlie can admit that the bullying in Truham had done a number on him, and maybe even his years as a junior lawyer. Because he has a general distrust of everybody and doesn’t want to accept help from people he doesn’t know. He says “it’s okay, don’t worry” constantly now, even when things are not, as if he’s imposing on the hospital and not a patient who needs intensive care after a horrific crash.

Nick gets seriously mad at him for it, and refused to speak to him for an entire day after he found out that Charlie had waited 2 long hours for Nick to visit just so Nick could help Charlie smooth out one of the creases in the bedsheet right between his shoulders instead of asking one of the nurses to do it. Charlie is too prideful to explain that he doesn’t trust people to not take advantage of his weaknesses – so they just ignore each other, both moping and miserable, until Tori marches Nick to him the next morning and forces them to sort it out.

Charlie tearfully confesses that he hates how useless he feels: his whole life has been an exercise in making sure that he could fend for himself, but now he’s stuck here for the foreseeable future, and it’s not even through any fault of his own. It’s frustrating, and humiliating and he hates it. He just wants to go home to him and Beetroot and recover there. Nick clambers into the tiny hospital bed next to him, holding him gingerly to his chest as he shushes Charlie’s tears.

Things get better after that, but mainly because Nick switches up his approach.  

Charlie keeps trying to overdo it with physio, and it’s the second time Nick catches him squeezing the exercise ball in his right hand past the allotted time when he confiscates it and says, “I’ll blow you if you cut it out. And I don’t just mean cut it out now. I mean for the rest of the week.”

“Oh,” Charlie blinks. He wants to dish out a comeback, but he kinda wants the blowjob more, so he just nods his head and smiles compliantly. 

(It’s the right choice, because the blowjob is more than worth it. Nick swallows him down like he has something to prove, like he’s starving, and Charlie almost goes insane trying not to make a sound. He desperately grabs at Nick’s hair through the scratchy hospital blanket.)

When Charlie gets hooked on a Netflix series and stays up late multiple nights in a row to watch when he should really be sleeping, Nick says casually, “If you sleep when you’re supposed to sleep the rest of the time you’re here, I’ll let you top whenever you want.”

Then he adds quickly, because he knows Charlie will most definitely want to have sex before he’s ready, “Once you’re explicitly cleared for strenuous activities.”  

“Let me top?” Charlie lets out a small chuckle. “Since when have I ever let you tell me what to do? Especially in the bedroom?”

“Do we have a deal or not?” Nick says through his teeth, as a nurse walks past them. 

“Deal,” Charlie leans over to tuck his fringe behind his ear and peck him right on the red apples of his cheeks. “You know babe, I’m a little confused as to whether you’re trying to get me to behave, or to act up more.”

Nick makes a thinking face for a few seconds, then he scowls, “Shit.”

Charlie laughs.

◍◍◍◍◍

Charlie gets out of the hospital just fine. By a pile of coin-shaped miracles, there’s no lasting damage. He does get tired a little bit more easily, but that’s to be expected given that his body and brain are still healing. 

He’s been trying to figure out why Nick could see the Lira, but not any other coin since. It’s strange because from what he knows, when a coin protects someone from a really bad injury – like Nick all those years ago – all its energy drains. So why did it burn brighter? The only reasonable explanation is that it wanted Nick to find it among all his things.

It’s kind of flattering: that as he was looking at the night sky, it was also looking back at him.

Charlie quits his job at the law firm and decides to spend some time following Nick and England Rugby around the world. He has enough savings from the years at his fancy law firm, his hospital bills are covered in full by his insurance, and he’s looking forward to a big fat settlement from the drunk driver’s employers anyway. Even Beetroot is happy to stay with Olly for another month or so – he’s getting real pudgy with all the treats that Olly’s letting him eat. 

Charlie discovers in Canada that his shattered left leg aches in the cold (Nick freaks out and learns all sorts of massages to help him relieve the pain), they celebrate their belated one-year wedding anniversary in the rural Belgium countryside and, in Fiji, they discuss the idea of having kids.

Charlie ends up never going back to law, finding that he was in it for all the wrong reasons. The idea of pulling all-nighters again just to find tiny lapses in procedure, after such a long break travelling, raises his hackles anyway. He does end up joining Tao in business, where they revamp old or abandoned cinemas into arthouses which double up as safe queer spaces across the country. They are lucky to have quite a bit of success in that, and Charlie finds fulfilment in pulling investors and hiring other queer people for the company while Tao focuses on gathering artists and staging exhibitions.

Nick and Charlie adopt a baby girl when they’re 31, the tiniest thing with wispy blonde hair and greyish-blue eyes. She was born on Tori’s birthday, and for the first few days after they bring her home, Nick can’t stop tearing up every time he lays eyes on her.

They move a little bit out of central London, to a nice house with a yard so they have space for outdoor activities – finger painting, and a trampoline. And since Nick has been begging for ages, they finally get a golden retriever. Her name is Daisy and Beetroot is mean to her at first, but he warms up eventually, and they curl up together near the porch every afternoon. The parallels are not lost on Charlie, although he forbids Nick from ever bringing it up. 

By the time their daughter is 6, she’s got Nick’s athleticism and Charlie’s scathing sass. She’s the best at English in her year, and everybody wants to be her friend because she is never unkind. She always stands up for the kids who need it. 

None of the kids in her primary school care that she has two dads, or that one of her dads is a semi-celebrity, or that she doesn’t really look like either of them. Nick and Charlie have to practically pull her away from hoardes of other tiny people when they take turns to pick her up in the afternoons. 

She loves Christmas as much as Nick loves Christmas, and it drives Charlie up the walls. Come 1st December every year, it looks like Rudolph has thrown up all over their house. Nick keeps finding ways to sneak mini elf figurines into his potted plants, insisting that “they’re cute! They look like they’re sliding down the leaves!”. If Charlie could out-lawyer and out-argue Nick previously, it’s practically impossible now when he’s outnumbered two to one in his own home. 

It’s horrible. They’re both monsters. Charlie loves them the most. 

It’s on her 8th Christmas day that Charlie gifts her a mason jar half-filled with coins as one of her many presents. It’s filled with his very best ones, each one hand-picked over the past 8 years and, scotch-taped to the very bottom (courtesy of Nick) is the Lira that saved Charlie’s life. His husband had gone back to the same trinket store in Paris a few months back to make him a new necklace, and the coin around his neck now is a historic French Franc. Its colour changes every few weeks, like a firework in extreme slow motion, but when he holds it he always feels Nick. Right on top of his heart. 

“Woah,” she says as she unwraps it then shakes the jar hard, the sound of metal against glass jolting the entire living room. 

Charlie laughs while laying in Nick’s arms and thinks: kids really love anything you give them as long as it’s loud. He knows Nick is thinking the exact same thing by the way his shoulders shake fondly with a snicker, the way he squeezes Charlie’s shoulders twice. Charlie reaches out to catch Daisy, who’s zooming around the living room trying to find new wrapping paper to tear up, but she’s way too fast. 

Charlie has kind of given up on finding anyone else who shares his ability. Their daughter never saw anything in coins, but he doesn’t care. He hasn’t felt lonely in his own skin for more than a decade. 

He opens his mouth to start explaining what they’re supposed to be, and why she shouldn’t try buying sweets with them because half of them are not accepted currency in the UK anyway, when he sees that she’s still staring at the jar. There’s something different in her expression, and even Nick pauses from wrestling a loose piece of paper from between Daisy’s teeth to look up.

Before Charlie can ask what she’s staring at, she whirls around and says, “Daddy, daddy! Look! They’re glowing!”