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at the White Heat

Summary:

It is 2005 in the Pacific Northwest. Nick Nelson is a paramedic and firefighter; Charlie Spring is a grad student living in Portland. An accident brings them briefly together, but will they meet again? And what will it take for our two boys to let themselves be seen at their most vulnerable?

Notes:

CW: blood and gore, traumatic injury, traffic accident.

Chapter 1: Dare you see a Soul

Summary:

In this chapter:

Charlie is in an accident
Nick gives first aid

Notes:

CW: blood & gore, traumatic injury, traffic accident.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

CHARLIE

“It’s going to rain,” Tao said from the couch as Charlie zipped up his leather jacket.

Charlie found the jacket on sale and bought it for himself for his birthday a few years ago. When he’d tried it on in the hole-in-the-wall thrift shop, it had fit a little awkwardly, leather clinging stiffly to his bony shoulders and hips while loose in the arms, ribs, and waist. But Elle had exclaimed, “Yes, Charlie!”, Darcy had wolf whistled, Isaac had raised his eyebrows appreciatively, and even Tao had grinned at him, and $50 later he was walking out with the leather jacket over his arm, his ears pink, rolling his eyes fondly at his friends.

Now, he had gone long enough without a relapse that the leather clung to his arms and chest, feeling less stiff now and more like it was hugging him, a comforting sort of pressure that he could still move through. Charlie loved this jacket; as much because of how good he knew he looked in it as because of how it marked for him how wonderful the last few years had been.

“It’s going to start raining,” Tao said again, “and you’re going to get soaked.” He threw down his playstation controller with a sigh, Braska's Final Aeon filling his TV screen, and folded his arms over his chest. He always got grumpy playing Final Fantasy.

Charlie picked up his helmet, holding it to his side as he stooped to sling one arm over his best friend’s shoulders. “I’ll have to hurry, then.” He gave Tao an affectionate peck on the beanie and straightened up again, pulling the helmet on, and giving Tao a salute as he stepped out the door.

Tao was right, unfortunately, and within a few minutes of his motorcycle ride back to his own apartment, droplets of fine rain were gathering on Charlie’s visor, his black skinny jeans damp, his sneakers soaked. He wished he’d remembered his riding gloves, but he’d forgotten them at Darcy’s apartment on Thursday after band practice. His hands were white with cold.

He was only a minute or two away from home when the accident happened. That always seemed ironic to him later, how close he was to the warm and dry safety of his and Isaac’s grungy apartment. In the week after, he’d imagine his bedroom from the sterile scratchiness of his hospital bed, picturing the multicolor christmas lights strung from corner to corner, the silkscreen print Elle did for him of that Leaves of Grass portrait of young Walt Whitman pinned to the wall, the grimy glass of the painted-shut window, the god-awful rainbow granny-square afghan blanket Darcy crocheted for him last Christmas break slung across his yellow duvet, the stack of books stolen from Isaac’s collection sitting on his desk, striped mug full of mechanical pencils and highlighters, photobooth pictures of him and Tao from when they both spent a semester in undergrad growing mustaches, the little resident cellar spider dancing crookedly in the corner above his pillow.

Charlie wiped his damp knuckles on his damp jeans, flexing his hands against the cold. 

He saw the sedan as he sped towards the intersection, blinker on to turn left, yielding to the car ahead of Charlie.

He saw the moment the driver missed that Charlie was there, pulling in front of him. 

He swore, squeezing the front brake, his motorcycle bucking and wobbling underneath him at the sudden deceleration. 

He swerved to his left to avoid the sedan, but caught the tail end of the car anyway, crushing his right thigh between his motorcycle and the rear wheel well of the car before rolling over the back of the car and onto the road.

It took a moment for Charlie to realize that the agonized cries of pain were his own. He gasped for breath, spine arching against the pressure shooting from his hip down past his knee. 

He must have blacked out for a moment. He was shaking. He could feel something warm and wet spreading under his thigh and calf as his vision resurfaced as if out of murky water. Looking down at his body, his leg looked wrong, and Charlie felt a jolt of nausea.

Someone had taken off his helmet and a middle-aged woman was holding his hand. He squeezed her hand desperately, pleadingly. Strangers’ faces swam over him, the world spinning as Charlie took in short and gasping breaths. They all looked so terrified, looking down on him in horror and pity.

Dare you see a Soul
at the White Heat?

Emily Dickinson’s words hammered across Charlie’s mind, the white pain of his shattered and bleeding leg searing each syllable into his brain. Oh, I get it, he thought stupidly, feeling delirious on his own agony.

“God, his leg--he’s bleeding,” he heard someone say.

“Does anyone know what to do?” someone else asked.

The woman holding Charlie’s hand was rubbing it soothingly. “Everything’s going to be okay, it will be alright.” Her own hands were shaking.

Two people took off their coats, covering Charlie’s torso and legs. He hissed as the weight fell on his injured leg. He was so fucking cold, the world swinging and bucking under him, dark around the edges. Time stretched and distorted, like a bad trip, all of reality falling away. The universe was black velvet. Charlie was pinned to it like a moth, the sharp pain radiating up to his stomach and chest like a shining needle pinning him down. He couldn't fucking breathe.

“How long ago did you call for an ambulance?” he heard from somewhere really fucking far away. A warm, steady touch on his wrist pulled him up out of blackness.

Charlie felt a wave of cool air over his chest, his legs. And then a sudden explosion of pain, like an amp being turned up, blaring, vibrating every atom in his body.

“Fuck!” Charlie choked out, twisting to avoid the sudden pressure cinching tight over his upper thigh.

“Sorry, I know that hurts.” The man’s voice was matter of fact and calm, like this was old hat. Like this supernova of pain he’d just inflicted was no big deal. 

The furious wave of indignation cleared Charlie’s vision briefly, bringing the man kneeling beside him into dazzling focus. He looked like he was about Charlie's age, light auburn hair, jaw lightly stubbled with a short reddish beard, freckles across his nose, eyelids, chin, lips. Charlie’s eyes locked on the stranger’s; they were a warm and almost golden brown, framed in thick lashes. Like, stupidly pretty eyes.

“Your femur is broken,” the stranger was saying.

No shit, Charlie thought, hating this man, but then,

“...do you think you can hold on for me?” he was asking, and god, his beautiful eyes! and his warm hand in Charlie’s ice cold one, and Charlie knew he’d do anything for this man. He nodded, his vision swirling.

The man was asking his name.

What's my name? “Charlie Spring,” Charlie managed. His mouth was so dry. 

The man bent over Charlie, carefully lifting his head. He smelled like bubblegum, woodsmoke, pine trees, his breath warm on Charlie's neck. His fingers combed through Charlie’s hair, almost tenderly, Charlie thought, but he must be confused. Everything was strange, swimming in and out of focus, the only clear thing was the freight train of pain thundering over him.

He did his best to stay conscious, he really did. His brain couldn't decide if it was to please or spite this beautiful bubblegum boy. This fucking annoyingly calm Adonis of a man. Like fuck him, but also fuck him. But time was distorting again, stretching and snapping like a rubber band, and when the inky velvet pooled around Charlie’s vision again, and the pain rinsed away, all sensation replaced by a staticky cold numbness, Charlie lost his grip, sinking deep into it.

When he started to resurface, he fought it, clinging to sweet sleep. But then a sudden new and stabbing pressure assaulted the center of his chest, and Charlie was awake again, gasping. He pushed the freckled man’s hand away from where he had been giving Charlie’s sternum an aggressive noogie. 

“There you are! Welcome back, Charlie!” the man cheered, grinning at him as he dropped a heavy blanket over Charlie’s chest. “Stay with me, okay? I want you to match my breathing, alright?”

Fuck you! Charlie fumed internally. 

The man chuckled as if he had heard him. “Deep breath in, good! Now out. Deep in, it’s okay! Slow down. You’re okay. I've got you.”

Please go away and let me sleep, Charlie thought between gasps. 

“Okay, thanks,” the man said, glancing over his shoulder. “Great job, Charlie, just hold…”

The man was slipping out of focus again, his eyebrows drawn and raised in concern. Such a fucking puppy dog expression it wrenched at Charlie’s heart a bit. He tried to focus on the firm and grounding pressure the man was putting on Charlie’s hand and wrist, tried to focus on the man's lips as he spoke. “...call for you…?”

Charlie thought of his phone in his pocket. “Pocket,” he managed with a groan.

The man was speaking, patting Charlie’s coat pockets, asking him a question. 

“Tori. Call Tori, please.” Something about saying Tori’s name gave him a thrill of fear. Was he dying? What if he actually died? Tori would murder him. Fuck, Tao would murder him. He didn’t want to die, he realized. Something to tell Geoff later. Unless he died. He gritted his teeth.

“It’s going to hurt when they move you, Charlie,” the beautiful stranger was saying, “but everything is going to get better after that, okay? You can do this. Stay with me, please.”

Charlie shivered, trying to stay awake. His eyes found the man’s, and Charlie smiled grimly at him. He needed him to know this. “I hate you.”

The man grinned back, squeezing his hand. “No, you like me.”

The ambulance rolled up beside them, two people in uniform spilling out, lifting down a rattling stretcher.

Then someone moved Charlie’s leg, and everything went black.

NICK

Nick sat in his 1987 Chevy Silverado. The velvet bench seat under him smelled like smoke, the blue “new car” scented little pine hanging from the rear view mirror too old to combat any of the old truck’s odors. Nick smiled, remembering Tara’s wrinkled nose when he arrived at her apartment in downtown Portland just after midnight a few days ago, him exhausted but grinning, still in his yellow coat and steel-toe boots, hair wild, covered head to toe in dust and soot and pine sap, stinking of fire retardant, smoke, and sweat. She led him straight to the bathroom.

“Shower first, hug after,” she laughed, shoving him inside, his face a mask of mock indignation as she pulled the door closed.

Tara and her roommates had hosted him for a few nights on his way back from fighting fires in central California. Tara and Nick had been best friends since elementary school. He even thought he could maybe be in love with her at one point, and their whole hometown seemed to still think they were sweethearts, endlessly teasing them about when they were going to get their heads on straight and get together again, but Nick didn’t feel that way about Tara, and he knew Tara didn’t feel that way about him either. They felt more like siblings now than anything else.

Tara was there when Nick’s dad left. She was with Nick the night he found out his brother died. She was with Nick, shovel in hand, as they dug a grave for his childhood dog in his mom’s backyard a few years ago.

Tara was there for the good times, too; shooting hoops in the driveway in early evening twilight and the yellow light of the front porch light, climbing out Nick’s bedroom window onto the roof to lie on the asphalt shingles, naming constellations. She was at almost all of Nick’s games as he tried every sport under the sun. After they graduated, Tara helped Nick study for the NREMT in preparation for becoming a paramedic and joining the fire department. Tara was by far Nick’s closest friend.

The sky was misting, tiny specks of moisture slowly swelling to fat and heavy droplets on the windshield, the sky shifting from a bleak gray to teal as, somewhere beyond the clouds, the sun set. Nick was headed back to Hood River to stay with his mom before crossing the river for a fire mitigation project in Washington early the next morning. Portland traffic was surprisingly hectic for a Sunday night, both busy and rushing, and he slowed as tail lights ahead sparkled red in the raindrops on his windshield.

Something about the stopped traffic in front of Nick rang an alarm bell in his mind. He leaned over and tilted his head, looking for the hold up.

He saw the knot of people gathered around a figure on the ground, then the motorcycle on its side, headlight still on. Nick threw the truck into park and jumped out, jogging between cars to the small group of people gathered around the injured biker.

“Let me through; I’m a paramedic,” he said, pushing between two onlookers to reach the injured man. The small crowd parted for him.

Someone had helped the man take off his helmet, and Nick instantly noticed his pallid and pain-twisted face, his rapid breathing. He wasn't screaming or crying out, just panting shallow breaths. Nick could feel the prickling fear of the people around him, their inability to look away, their hesitancy to touch the injured man at their feet. 

“How long ago did you call for an ambulance?” Nick asked as he knelt and took the man’s wrist, feeling his pulse. It fluttered, rapid and faint, under the gentle press of Nick’s fingers.

“I called two minutes ago,” a standing woman in a red sweater answered, checking her phone.

Nick lifted one coat off the man’s chest, scanning his body, then lifted the coat that covered his legs.

“He’s bleeding,” someone else piped up, just as Nick saw it. Femur broken above the knee. A large and spreading pool of blood under the leg. There was a murmur, several people looking away from the grisly injury.

Nick quickly undid his belt and whipped it off. The man cried out and cursed as Nick touched his broken leg, slipping the belt up his thigh nearly to his groin before pulling it tight. The man twisted in obvious agony, eyes filling with tears. His breath hissed through clenched teeth.

Nick spoke to the man, “Sorry, I know that hurts.”

The man’s blue eyes locked on Nick’s as he spoke, and Nick felt a rush of…familiarity? Did he know this man? No. Nick would have remembered his face. He looked to be in his mid twenties, Nick’s age, or maybe a little younger, his handsome features both angular and boyish, his eyes a stunning blue. 

“Your femur is broken,” Nick said, “and you’ve lost a lot of blood, but help is coming. Do you think you can hold on for me?” Nick took the man’s hand in his, squeezing it.

The man nodded, but his eyes were glassy, his lips bluish. Nick felt a tremor of fear roll up his spine; he was too late. The man had lost too much blood. He swallowed down his anxiety, giving the man a smile and another affirming squeeze of his hand.

“Good. What’s your name?” Nick asked, letting go of the man’s hand to pull off his own coat. 

“Charlie Spring,” the man managed as Nick carefully lifted his head and slipped his still-warm coat underneath, his fingers lingering soothingly in Charlie’s near-black curls as they spilled over the tan canvas of Nick’s Carhartt jacket. Charlie’s expression was becoming less focused, his breath shallow and rapid. He was shuddering. 

“Nice to meet you, Charlie,” Nick answered. To the people gathered around, he said, “Does anyone have an umbrella?”

Charlie blinked a few times before his eyes closed, head tilting back, his forehead smoothing as he lost consciousness and his face relaxed. Beads of rain glittered in his dark hair. Someone held an umbrella over them, another onlooker returned with a heavy quilt. 

Nick felt again in vain for a radial pulse. He reached for the carotid instead. Charlie’s throat was cool, his pulse barely detectable. Blood pressure below 80, then, but above 60. Nick stared at his watch, counting heartbeats. Tachycardia. The rain was starting to pick up. Nick wracked his brain. What now? He knew the answer. He'd seen this before. Coagulopathy, acidosis, hypothermia. The lethal triad of hemorrhagic shock. Nick checked the tightness of his makeshift tourniquet. His hand came away wet with Charlie's blood, which he wiped on his own jeans, clean hand swiping through his damp hair.

“Call 911 again,” Nick said to the woman in the red sweater. “Tell them he has a disrupted femoral artery. If they can’t operate at OHSU, he’ll need life flight.”

The woman nodded, pulling out her phone.

Nick patted Charlie's cheek. “Charlie!” Nick grabbed and shook his shoulder. “Charlie, wake up! Come on, Charlie!”

Charlie's head lolled from side to side.

Nick unzipped Charlie's snug leather jacket and rubbed his knuckles over Charlie's sternum rapidly.

Charlie gasped in pain, his eyes opening. He swatted weakly at Nick’s hand and groaned.

“There you are! Welcome back, Charlie!” Nick said, dropping the quilt on his heaving chest. “Stay with me, okay? I want you to match my breathing, alright?”

Charlie was glaring blue daggers at Nick, and Nick chuckled as a wave of relief washed over him. Angry was good. Angry was alive. He coached Charlie's breathing, praising him every time he took a slow, deep breath, Charlie scowling at him even as he tried to follow Nick’s lead, sucking in deep breaths between shallow pants.

“They said a paramedic or a sheriff has to call for life flight, and the ambulance will arrive first. It's nearly here,” the woman in the red sweater said.

“I am a—” Nick huffed in frustration. “Okay, thanks,” he said instead. “Great job, Charlie, just hold on a little longer for us, okay? Help’s almost here.”

Charlie blinked at him, his eyes losing focus.

“Is there anyone we can call for you, Charlie?” Nick asked, trying to hold Charlie’s eyes with his own. He was holding Charlie’s hand in both his hands at this point, his thumb moving in slow, firm circles over the back of Charlie’s wrist. Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me, he pled internally with every small circle.

“Pocket,” Charlie said. He squeezed his eyes shut with a groan.

Nick could hear the sirens of the approaching ambulance. He patted Charlie’s jacket pocket, finding his phone. “Got it,” he said to Charlie. “I'm going to come with you and call your family so they can meet you at the hospital, okay? Do you have a wife or immediate family nearby?”

“Tori,” Charlie rasped, “Call Tori, please.”

“You and you,” Nick pointed with the flip phone at the woman holding Charlie’s helmet and the man holding the umbrella over them, “stay here with Charlie and I until the ambulance arrives. The rest of you,” he gestured to the knot of people gathered around, “get out of the road and make some room.”

The siren was louder now, red lights glancing off the buildings on either side of the street as the ambulance struggled through the congested traffic.

“It’s going to hurt when they move you, Charlie,” Nick said, “but everything is going to get better after that, okay? You can do this. Stay with me, please.”

Charlie’s eyes were glassy again, but he smiled wryly, dimples appearing for the first time in both cheeks. “I hate you,” he croaked.

Nick’s chest flooded with warmth. “No, you like me,” he teased, squeezing Charlie’s hand as the ambulance pulled up beside them, doors swinging open, wheels of a stretcher clattering on the asphalt.

Charlie lost consciousness the moment they lifted him onto the stretcher, his hand going limp in Nick’s. Nick placed it on Charlie’s chest. “I’m a paramedic,” he said to the two first responders who climbed out of the ambulance, helping them lift Charlie, then climbing up into the ambulance without invitation. 

The ambulance’s paramedic just nodded curtly. “Vitals, please.” She was short and serious, her hands moving quickly and nimbly as she took a pair of shears to Charlie's black skinny jeans, cutting them open to fully reveal the open fracture above Charlie's knee. Nick settled in next to her, reaching for the vitals cart. The back doors of the ambulance slammed shut and the ambulance took off, siren blaring. 

“We’ve got a distal femoral fracture, disrupted artery,” the paramedic assessed. “Good work with the belt,” she nodded at Nick, who felt himself blush as he fit an oxygen mask over Charlie’s face. He glanced at the monitor, willing Charlie’s oxygen saturation to rise.

A minute or two into their drive, the paramedic clicked her tongue in frustration. “Acidosis,” she noted. 

Nick had noticed, too: Charlie’s chest rose and fell slower, harder, like he was starved for air. His hands were white-blue where they rested on his chest. “Come on, Charlie,” Nick murmured as they raced towards the hospital.

Charlie didn’t regain consciousness in the ambulance, his blood pressure dipping lower and lower, a domino effect of lost blood triggering rising acid levels in his body, shutting down vasoconstriction, hypothermia worsening as they fought it with warm blankets and hot pads. He was spiraling.

Nick couldn’t remember later how he made it past the emergency department, especially in his plainclothes. A small team of surgeons met him and the group of ED personnel wheeling the gurney outside of the elevator, joining them at a jog before they split off to scrub, arguing about grafts, saline, transfusions, coagulopathy.

Nick watched the OR doors swing closed, breathing through the rush and crash of adrenaline in his body, his stomach clenching painfully. His ears rang in the sudden quiet of the empty hallway. He leaned over, his hands on his knees, trying to breathe deeply. He knew he should leave the operating wing—that he should call Tori like he promised—but he felt frozen in place. Through the window, he watched as the OR suddenly bloomed into chaos as the anesthesiologist called code blue and the surgeons abandoned scrubbing, donning gloves and gowns before jumping in to help with chest compressions and defibrillation. Nick’s heart thudded in his chest. No, no, no.

“Sir, are you okay?”

Nick tore his eyes away from the OR door to look at the woman in scrubs at his arm.

“What are you doing here? You’re covered in blood. Are you injured?”

The woman asked repeatedly if Nick was hurt as she steered him to the waiting area, Nick too dazed to answer clearly. Once she ascertained he was not injured, she scolded him, telling him to stay out of the operating wing. He watched her go, then stepped into a nearby bathroom.

He slowly washed up in the sink, watching the water fizz over his hands. As he rinsed off Charlie’s blood, he tried to imagine washing away the horrible pit in his stomach, letting his guilt and fears and regret slide off his fingertips, swirling in the sink and down the drain with the rust-tinted water. It was a visualization exercise he often used after a particularly difficult trauma case. When he lost someone. As the water ran, Nick felt increasingly numb. Maybe it was working.

He dried his hands and pulled Charlie's phone out of his pocket, a gray Nokia. He flipped it open, clicking through to the contacts. He found Tori Spring’s name quickly in the favorites, his thumb lingering over the call button. He cleared his throat a few times, then sighed, passing his hand over his face. After another long moment, he stepped out into the waiting area. He handed the phone to a nurse behind the desk. “This phone belongs to Charlie Spring. He came up from ED a few minutes ago and is in operating room 3. Could you call Tori Spring to let her know he’s here?”

The nurse looked at Nick curiously, but took the phone with a nod.

Nick pulled out his own phone as he stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor. He walked out of the hospital into the rain, pushing between two manicured bushes to slump against a sheltered section of cement wall.

Tara answered on the third ring. “Hi, Nick! Wasn't expecting a call from you. Did you forget something? …Nick? Are you there?”

At the sound of Tara’s warm and musical voice, Nick crumpled, covering his face with his hand, body wracked with silent sobs.

Notes:

Thank you for reading! This is my first fic, & I am so excited to share! I love chatting in the comments <3

xx
banana

Chapter 2: Prufrock

Summary:

In this chapter:

Charlie is in pain
His friends are the best and he has feelings about it
Lines appropriated from The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock
A literal fever dream

Notes:

CW: non-graphic vomiting, medical use of opiates, mention of past minor character death, needles and IV's and blood and incisions and general medical distress stuff, suicidal ideation, mention of a panic attack. If I missed any, please call me out in the comments!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

CHARLIE

Charlie’s eyes fluttered open. He was alone in a room. He turned his head, seeing a set of monitors, cords, tubes, leading down and connecting to his arm. He looked down at his body, feeling strange. His legs were covered by blankets. He wanted to throw the scratchy waffle weave linens off and look at his elevated right leg, but a nauseous anxiety paralyzed him.

A woman appeared in the doorway and started talking, but Charlie couldn’t make any sense of what she was saying, except that maybe she said his name. All meaning in her words bounced uselessly off the thick cotton of his fading anesthesia. She disappeared for a minute, and then reappeared with Tori, who was looking small and murderous and beautiful.

“Tori,” Charlie croaked her name, aware of a strange rawness in his throat, and Tori was at his side, threading one arm between Charlie and his pillows to clasp his far shoulder, leaning over him to wrap him up and tighten her embrace. Charlie sighed into it, too high to question or resist the uncharacteristic sentiment from his sister. She murmured a steady stream of threats and fears and affection into his curls, both siblings laughing and crying softly. 

Before she pulled back she said in a low voice, “Tell anyone I cried just now, and I’ll end you.”

Charlie laughed and made a clumsy lips-zipped gesture, his hands enthusiastic but slow, twisting by the corner of his mouth, throwing out the key, crossing over his heart, morphing into him touching his forehead, chest and shoulders to cross himself as Tori grabbed his wrist. 

“Okay, okay. Enough, Charles.”

Tori stayed with Charlie in the recovery room, her chair smashed up against the side of his hospital bed, her arm draped impassively so that they were lined up shoulder to elbow to wrist, looking straight ahead as if the contact was accidental or inevitable, like they were strangers stuffed into crowded public transportation. As his sensations and discomfort returned, Charlie leaned into the steady press of Tori’s arm.

“What happened to me?” Charlie asked.

“You were in an accident--”

“No, I remember that. I mean, after?”

Tori nodded, taking a deep breath. “You had emergency surgery; an arterial bypass.”

“So ...they fixed my leg?”

“They fixed the artery with a graft. Once they are confident you’re stable and don’t have any complications from losing so much blood and…everything, you’ll need another surgery for your broken femur.”

Charlie stared at his covered leg. The pain was beginning to make him sweat as the anesthesia cleared.

“Right now you have this external metal and pins holding things in place,” Tori gestured to his leg, “but they’ll need to put a titanium rod inside your femur.”

Charlie struggled to sit up, the movement sparking an inferno of pain in his lower body. “Is there like a garbage can or…?”

Tori hit a button to call for the nurse, holding up a trash can as Charlie heaved into it.

She rubbed his back, stopping to hand him a tissue for his mouth. “Is it hurting?”

Charlie nodded.

“His leg is hurting,” Tori said to the nurse that walked in, a middle-aged looking man in sweet-mint green scrubs.

The nurse opened a cupboard. “Let me get you a sick bag,” he said, “I’m glad you’re awake, Charlie!”

Charlie nodded, clutching the blue plastic bag the nurse handed him and leaning back on his pillow. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “How long will I have to be here?”

Tori withdrew as the nurse approached Charlie with a pulse-ox and pressure cuff, her eyes following his every move as he noted Charlie’s stats on a clipboard.

“A few more days after your second surgery, at least, is what I’d expect,” the nurse said. “But that will be up to your surgeons. Little bit of a low-grade fever,” he noted. “Let’s get you going on some pain medications, then we can move you to your room.” He was cheerful, oblivious of Tori’s glacial stare.

The nurse started Charlie on some morphine, and within a few minutes, the nausea and pain was melting away. Tori left briefly to fetch Tao from the waiting room as two nurses wheeled Charlie to his room, and by the time the two returned, Charlie had dozed off in his bed.

When he woke again, Tori and Tao were perched shoulder to shoulder at his left, both leaning towards him.

“Fuck me ,” Charlie rasped, startled.

“No thanks,” Tori and Tao replied in unison, really solidifying the twins in a campy horror movie vibe.

Charlie rolled his eyes and smiled. He squirmed a little at the intensity of their combined attention. He managed to sit up a little, fighting a dizzying wave of pain when he shifted his leg.

Tori stood. “What color, Charlie?”

Charlie tilted his head. The morphine from the PACU was in full effect now, and his mind felt airy and spread out. “What?”

“What color jello?”

“I'm afraid your options are red and green,” Tao interjected.

“Oh,” Charlie wrinkled his nose. “No thanks.”

“I’ll get one of both,” Tori said, slipping out of the room.

Charlie avoided looking at Tao, who was sitting ramrod straight, staring at Charlie. Charlie looked instead at the IV in his arm, a grayish purple bruise blooming on the inside crease of his elbow.

“So” Charlie said after a long silence, “I met this really hot guy.”

“What the hell, Charlie,” Tao murmured darkly.

“What?” Charlie cried, spreading his hands in a faux-naif gesture.

“Why do you do this?”

“Why do I do what ?” This conversation was spinning out, but Charlie was too fuzzy to know how to diffuse it.

“Why do you always pretend nothing is wrong when something clearly is? Do you not get that you nearly died?” Tao’s voice raised in pitch. “I swear to God, Charlie!”

“That’s not--” Charlie started, but Tao spoke over the top of him.

“Your heart literally stopped on the operating table! How can--how can you--” Tao sputtered, his eyes wet and bright.

Charlie shrank back against his pillows, his throat tight. Oh.

“Do you just not fucking care?” Tao cried out.

“Wow,” Tori said from the doorway. Tao and Charlie both jumped. “I leave you alone for two minutes.”

Charlie and Tao looked down, both flushing. Tori pulled up a side-mounted tray from the side of Charlie’s hospital bed, folding it over with a snap. On it she dropped two foil covered containers of jello and a plastic spoon, then spun on her heel.

Charlie made a contrite grimace at Tao as Tori vanished from the room again.

Tao sighed and rubbed his face. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I’m just--it’s hard to… I was so scared I’d lose you,” Tao tapped his foot repeatedly on the floor. Suddenly, he scooted his chair forward, reaching for Charlie’s hand. 

Through the soft peachy haze of his morphine addled brain, it occurred to Charlie that this was probably Tao’s first time back in a hospital since his father died when they were in highschool. He grasped Tao’s hand as tightly as he could, overwhelmed with a mixture of gratitude and shame.

Tao placed his opposite hand over Charlie’s, so Charlie’s slightly paler hand was sandwiched between his. “Please do not ever leave me, Charlie Spring.”

“I will not ever leave you, Tao Xu. Not if I can help it.”

Tao gave a half smile.

Charlie sighed, “This guy was really hot though.”

Tao rolled his eyes.

“I’m sorry!” Charlie laughed. “I blame the drugs, I feel like I can’t not tell you about him--”

“Fine, fine,” Tao waved his hand. “Continue.” Tao listened as Charlie described his rescuer and the aftermath of the accident, shaking his head, a fond expression on his face. 

“And now I’ll probably never see him again,” Charlie said wistfully.

“I mean,” Tao said, “chances are he’s a ginormous heterosexual, so you’ve probably just dodged the bullet of yet another straight crush.”

“Yet another?” squawked Charlie.

“I think you’ll see him again,” Tori said, settling down next to Tao, making both men jump.

“Jesus, Tori,” Charlie clutched his heart. He narrowed his eyes. “You do? How do you know?”

She shrugged. “Older sister magic.” She took a long sip of the drink she had reappeared with. “Eat your jello, Charles.”

After his second surgery, the medical staff fit Charlie with a leg brace, tracked his vitals carefully, and showed him how to give himself daily Lovenox injections in his stomach to prevent blood clots. Isaac, Elle, Darcy, Tao, and Tori took turns keeping Charlie company in groups of two and three, or even all five during visiting hours.

The days in the hospital melted into one another as Charlie shifted between the strange and cloudy high of his narcotic pain medication and the sharp restless distraction of his pain when the drugs wore off. As disorienting as it was, his mind looping and knotting like fuzzy yarn to keep up with the conversations of his ever-shifting cast of visitors, Charlie preferred the glazed and languid confusion of watching his friends bicker and chat beside him to the skin-crawling misery of existing in his injured body sans opioids. The latter was the kind of pain he couldn't sit still through, his hands restlessly picking apart the scratchy hospital blanket in his lap. In those hours, he wanted to crawl out of his own skin. He imagined peeling off his pain like the opalescent scale mesh of a snake shed--what the smooth dark numbness underneath might feel like. He ached for it.

For the first three days after his second surgery, Charlie’s pain woke him up by five am. By six, a nurse would arrive with a dose of pain medication. By eight, at least two of his friends and often his sister were there with coffee for him and a new collection of distractions: books from Isaac, a new album loaded up on his mp3 player from Darcy, NYT crosswords from Elle, DVD’s from Tao, a kitschy jigsaw puzzle of a cat wearing a tuxedo that Tori brought (“from Michael,” she said). His friends worked on the puzzle together on Charlie’s meal tray as he watched, glassy-eyed. He was usually either way too high on oxycontin or way too uncomfortable off of it to engage. It all made him teary, and he didn't know if it was gratitude or guilt he felt about his friends’ vigilant efforts to ease his boredom and discomfort.

On the fourth day after his second surgery and his sixth day in the hospital, shit hit the fan. Charlie was only hours from discharge when his on-and-off low-grade fever spiked. A blood draw revealed elevated white blood cells. There were no other external signs of infection: his incisions and the wound from his open fracture were swollen and weeping, but not more than was normal for the first week post-op. The doctor reviewing his case was worried about bone infection, and started Charlie on a course of strong antibiotics. That same afternoon, Charlie’s nurse let him know that he wouldn’t be receiving narcotic pain killers anymore, offering instead a paltry 800 mg of ibuprofen.

By early evening, Charlie had traded the blur of oxycontin for the slide and warp of fever, his body shivering and melting at once with chills and heat and pain. 

Darcy had given up their theatrical grandpa-voiced reading of “The Princess Bride,” discarding the book to hold Charlie's hand, upturned like they were reading his palm, uncharacteristically quiet as they traced Charlie's long fingers with their guitar-calloused fingertips. It was past time for Darcy and Isaac to go home, but Isaac was asleep on a book at the foot of Charlie’s hospital bed, and Darcy was pointedly ignoring the clock. They sat in silence, Charlie trying not to move, imagining his breath was matching the rising and falling patter of the September rain against the window. His fever brain was telling him that if he got the rhythm of his breath right, the pain would go away. Part of him knew this didn’t make sense, but a more desperate part of him couldn’t help but to believe it.

“Hey, Chuck,” Darcy said, breaking the silence.

Charlie’s glassy eyes found their hazel ones. “Mm?” he murmured.

“You gotta kick this, my guy.”

He breathed heavily out his nose, blinking at the blond. He realized he was trying not to cry, but he couldn't tell why.

“For me. As your lavender wife. I need you, darling.”

He croaked a laugh, looking up at the ceiling. “I'm not dying, Darcy,” he rasped. “I’m just…sick. And I hurt. God I wish I could die. Can I die now, please?” He laughed bitterly, rocking his head on his pillow to look at Darcy again. Their eyes were wide and wet. Charlie looked away quickly.

“This won't last forever, Chuck. You're going to be okay,” they squeezed his hand, voice pleading.

Charlie nodded, shame bubbling up like heartburn in his throat. He had the kindest friends. Why was he such an ass? His vision wavered as his eyes filled with tears.

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

Darcy resumed stroking his hand. When they spoke again, their voice was a little false-bright in its mischievous tone. “Will you tell me about…the guy?” They bounced their eyebrows up and down.

Charlie scoffed. “What guy?” 

“Chuck, please. You know who I'm talking about. Your knight in shining armor. The hottie who saved your life. C'mon," they whined, "You were so willing to tell Tao about him! Makes me think he's not even real and you just want to annoy Tao with descriptions of how fuckable the guy was.”

Charlie tried to suppress his grin, but his fever had him floating six inches above his body, and he was finding hiding his emotions very difficult. “I don't want to talk about him.”

Darcy clicked their tongue in disbelief.

“It just makes me sad. That he saved my life and I can't…slap his annoyingly beautiful face. Or thank him,” Charlie sucked in a breath and fidgeted, wincing.

“Well, what did he look like?”

Charlie sighed, watching silver bubbles of rain slide down the black window before starting. “Um, well. He had reddish blond hair. Really fucking pretty brown eyes.”

Darcy snorted. “Gay.”

“And freckles…” Charlie zoned out for a moment before his eyes slid over to Darcy's again. “He smelled like bubblegum? And he had really warm hands.”

Darcy snickered. “You're so cute. Did he tell you his name?”

Charlie pouted. “No.”

“Shit. Would have made our manhunt much easier.”

“Yeah,” Charlie sighed. “Wait, what?”

“No matter,” Darcy declared. “There can't be that many beautiful bubblegum boys out there. I'll find him for you. I'll just hug all the freckled brown-eyed dudes I meet until I sniff him out.”

Charlie turned his head. His cheeks were rosy with the fever, his eyes glimmering as he grinned at his friend. “You’d do that for me?” He arched an eyebrow. “You’d hug men for me?”

“Oh, my sweet Charmander! Chuckles! Chucky boy,” they swept a dark curly lock off Charlie’s sweltering forehead. “I’d do anything for you, my guy.”

“You're sweet,” he sighed. He closed his eyes and pressed his head back against his pillows. “I’m glad you're my lavender wife.”

Darcy resumed stroking his hand. “Forever, babe. Or, well. Until I meet the woman of my dreams. And then I'm divorcing your ass.”

Charlie smiled, but then his grin twisted into a grimace. He sealed his lips and breathed deeply through his nose, concentrating on the sound of the rain.

“Are you hurting pretty bad?” Darcy whispered.

He nodded. “Sorry,” he said. He didn't know why he was sorry, just that he was. 

They gave his hand a squeeze and disappeared.

Charlie could hear Darcy’s voice outside the door. They were loud enough that soon Isaac roused from sleep and sat up. He placed one hand on Charlie’s uninjured knee, listening for a moment before standing suddenly. Charlie closed his eyes, trying to pick out words in Isaac’s impassioned monologue as he joined the conversation in the hallway, but Charlie’s fever and pain and racing heartbeat were reverberating loudly in his skull. He tried to tune into the rain again, instead.

A few minutes later, a nurse came in, a triumphant looking Darcy and Isaac right behind her. She brought with her a sleep aid and a stronger painkiller. Charlie choked down the pills with the proffered paper cup of water. After the nurse left, Darcy and Isaac gathered up their things to go. Charlie watched them, eyes shining.

“I just--fuck--I just love you guys so fucking much,” Charlie babbled. He recoiled as Darcy and Isaac folded around him in a gentle hug, one on either side of him. “Stop, I’m so sweaty,” he protested weakly.

Isaac smacked a kiss on Charlie’s forehead over his damp curls. “We love you, too, Charlie. Try to get some sleep.”

When he woke up again around 5:30 am, Charlie was alone in the room, soaked in sweat, the pain crawling up his knee and hip and waist to billow in his chest, twisting in his lungs. He shivered, his skin crawling with fever. He knew if he could just get it right, he would exhale the acrid smoke of the pain. He knew that if he tried hard enough, it would slip between his chapped lips--an exorcized ghost--and he’d be free. 

But instead, the smoke filled up his lungs, carried by his eager and fevered heart to saturate every cell in his burning body and
so six came
and the nurse arrived to sit Charlie up
her fingers cold on his bare skin as she checked his body for bed sores 
cold as Charlie hung his head, dizzy, waiting, flinching
as she pinched the meager and shrinking adipose of his belly before the quick plunge of the Lovenox needle, the sting, a single bead of blood on his skin

--because Charlie had a panic attack the morning before, trying to get the nerve to stab the needle into his own stomach--

cold as she took his vitals 
and called for her supervisor because 
Charlie's fever was too high
way too high
and she, a stranger, carried the worry for him in her eyes, like all the worry
that lived in his friends' eyes
and he wanted to scream 

DON’T LOOK AT ME

but he laid down on his bed
tried to pant out the haze as saline, cold salt 
water draining into the battered and bruising veins of his arms 
to quench the fire
as people moved around him, their faces wavering
their urgent hands pulling off the brace, the bandages
prodding the raw red and purple seams of his incisions where they ran down either side of

his leg his leg his leg please stop fuck please oh god please stop

he hissed, hot tears running into his ears
and the fluorescent lights above

swam, haloed, rippled

(buzzing starbursts, blooming and ringing)

until, finally

the white heat swallowed him and

 

Charlie was smoke.

He slipped through the aluminum grille in the ceiling, through the maze of air ducts and out into the gray and crisp Pacific Northwest air.

It was cool and humid, the sky veiled in a deep sea predawn darkness. Looking down from high above the hospital, the 405 and I5 and Willamette River stretched out, forking like lightning strikes or tiny capillaries, sparkling. Downtown and Old Town and the Pearl District were laid out beneath him, and beyond, the neighborhoods of Portland, the thick concrete band of the I84, and the gorge a steel arc through emerald green. 

He paused over 13th avenue, winding between 20th century red brick buildings, reclaimed warehouses

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

until he found his apartment. He looked in from outside his window, the lights of the street shining a gold rhombus across his bed. He curled against the cold glass, sighed, and turned

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

to find the Columbia River. He drifted upriver, east, curled once around Mt Hood

…and fell asleep.

resting there until the grey light of the rising sun above the clouds made the combed twisting tangle of mist in the treetops glisten and glow. He drank up the diffused light, gathered into a single pearly drop over the trees at the mountain’s base, and fell.

He caught and slipped from one needle to another, all the way down. When he settled on the ground, he was almost Charlie again, and as he came to himself, he found he was beside a man in a raincoat sitting on the soft loam of the forest floor.

The man’s arms rested on his knees, and when he turned his head briefly in Charlie’s direction, Charlie saw that it was him. His hair was wet, which made it darker. His face looked paler, and his jaw was clean shaven. He held a steaming thermos in one hand, and, God, even his fingers have freckles, Charlie cooed. He drew in closer to the man, soaking in the acidic steam rising off the coffee in his thermos.

The man couldn't see Charlie, because Charlie wasn't really there. Charlie was in a hospital bed in the city, burning up a fever. 

But as the man sipped his coffee, Charlie was overwhelmed with longing. He wanted to taste the bitter drink on the man's mouth--to press against those softly pink lips and chase the taste. He wanted to comb through the man’s damp auburn hair, to nuzzle the devastated expression off his face, trace his jaw, wrap himself around him and pull him close. As best he could, Charlie pressed in, soaking up the man's warmth, listening to him breathe.

The rain tapped quietly in the evergreen canopy above their heads. The fat droplets thudded in the loam around them, sliding down curling fern leaves, and splattering on the underbrush. The earthy green petrichor of the forest cradled them there.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.

The man looked again to exactly where Charlie was, except that it was exactly where Charlie wasn’t. Because Charlie was almost there, but not enough.

Look at me, Charlie murmured. 

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

Holding out the thermos in one hand, the man poured out a dark and steaming arc of black coffee onto the ground.

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Charlie’s eyes fluttered open.

 

A week later, the infection cleared, and Charlie was finally allowed to go home.

Notes:

The origin of Darcy and Charlie's lavender marriage: The same night that Charlie and Darcy met as undergrads at a mutual friend's party, they got tipsy and chummy and promised that if they ever wanted to pass as straight to their less-than-accepting family members, they'd pretend to be a couple. Darcy proposed with a paper ring, and Charlie said yes! A few years later, they followed through on their fake engagement and got fake married at a fake wedding with all their friends. It was beautiful.

Shout out to my real-life sibling, Orphic_Catharsis, for beta-ing. You're beautiful, you're wise, you're hilarious, you're the best, and I fucking love you. Thank you for letting me read my work aloud to you <3

Thank you so much for reading! This chapter was really experimental for me, and I'd love to know what you think! <3<3

xxx
banana

Chapter 3: When the rain washes you clean

Summary:

In this chapter:

"Dreams - 2004 Remaster" by Fleetwood Mac
Tara's a good friend, Sarah's a good mom, & Henry's a good dog
Nick cuts down some trees
Harry is an asshole
Nick goes on a hike

Notes:

CW: internalized toxic masculinity, conversations around grief and past minor character death, recollection of past chapter trauma, blood, some misogynistic and racist micro-aggressions, Harry Greene being a creep, a homophobic slur.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

NICK

“Hi, Nick! Wasn't expecting a call from you. Did you forget something? …Nick? Are you there?”

At the sound of Tara’s warm and musical voice, Nick crumpled, covering his face with his hand, body wracked with silent sobs.

“Nick? Are you okay? Are you safe?”

Nick fought to regain his composure. “Sorry,” he managed. “I’m safe.”

“Where are you?”

Nick swiped at the tears on his face, taking a deep breath. “OHSU. Outside the emergency department.”

“The hospital?” Tara’s voice pitched up in concern. “And you’re not hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt,” Nick cleared his throat. “I, uh, rode with someone here in an ambulance. I need a ride back to my truck.”

“Oh...I see,” Tara said. “Hold tight; I’m on my way.”

“Thanks.”

Nick stared into the darkness as he waited for Tara, his brain cycling through the events of the last hour: the moments in his truck before he noticed the accident ahead of him, the time it took to notice Charlie’s bleeding, the drawn out ride in the ambulance. How many precious heartbeats did Nick waste? His memory distorted around his shame, every hesitation and distraction blooming and expanding until it was all he could see.

“Nick.”

Nick gave a start, realizing suddenly that Tara was standing in front of him. He had been staring right through her.

She pulled him to his feet and squeezed his waist in an urgent hug. She looped her arm around his and walked with him back to her car, opening the passenger side door for him. He sank into the seat and adjusted it for his long legs as she circled around.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly when she was in the car.

After starting the car and turning up the heater, Tara shifted in her seat. The beads in her braids tapped lightly against each other and on her shoulder as her head turned towards Nick. It sounded a bit like rain, and the familiar noise combined with the low sound of the Fleetwood Mac CD playing softly over the car stereo soothed Nick. “Oh, Nick,” she said softly.

He kept his face turned down. He knew his eyes were red rimmed, his face blotchy from crying.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Tara asked.

“I--I’m…I don’t…”

His voice was strained, and Tara used her right hand to reach out and squeeze his shoulder. “It’s okay, Nick. Just whatever you need.”

Nick put his hand flat against the air vent, letting the heat build under his hand until it began to burn. How would he even attempt to describe the cocktail of cortisol and adrenaline and grief and guilt crawling in his veins right now? 

Tara gave his shoulder another squeeze and put the car in reverse. They were both quiet for a few minutes, Nick speaking up occasionally to direct Tara as she drove to where his truck was parked. She pulled in behind his truck and turned towards him.  

“I know you don’t usually like to talk about this stuff,” she said. “But I’d love to be there for you, Nick. It doesn’t have to be now. I just don’t think you should always…bottle it up.”

Nick pinched the bridge of his nose, pressing against his lacrimal ducts. He knew that if he told Tara he really didn’t want to talk about it, she would let it go, but another part of him knew that if their roles were reversed, he would want her to at least try to talk it out. He would want to be there for her. “I was on my way from your place to get on I-84 and traffic was stopped for an accident,” he started. 

Tara reached out for his shoulder again and gave an encouraging pass of her thumb over the front of his delt. His cold tee shirt began to warm under her hand as she let it linger there.

“Someone had hit a motorcyclist. His femur was broken--an open fracture--and the break severed an artery. I applied a tourniquet as quickly as I could, but…” Nick shook his head, rubbing his bottom lip. “I don't know why this is affecting me so much.”

“Maybe it's worse because you weren't on duty? Like you were just out living your life?”

“Maybe, yeah.”

He swiped at the fog gathering on the inside of the window. “I rode with him in the ambulance. We went straight from the emergency department up to the operating room. We tried to start a line on the way. We tried to place an IV,” Nick’s brow furrowed, the shame flitting across his face like a shadow, “He’d lost so much blood that he needed an intraosseous line, like right into the bone, to start a transfusion, but we still didn't have a line in yet when he got to the OR, and then…he coded.”

“Were you there when they…?”

Nick shook his head. “A nurse caught me outside the OR and took me back out to the waiting area. I only saw the first few minutes of the code.”

“So you didn’t see them call it? Do you think there's a chance he made it, maybe?”

Nick looked at Tara, his mouth pulled to the side in a sad grimace as he considered. “Maybe? But I would be really surprised. I've never seen someone survive shock like that. I don’t know how he survived the ride to the hospital, honestly. He was putting up one hell of a fight.”

“I'm really sorry, Nick.”

Nick sighed, swiping angrily at his eyes. Bordel de merde. Don't cry. When he spoke again, his voice was husky. “I’ve been bothered before, you know. All the time, actually. Every time. That's normal. I’ve seen people bleed out before. Death is just...part of my job. But I don't understand why I feel like this ,” he looked at Tara imploringly, a single glistening tear dropping from his eye down to his lap. “Why do I feel like I just lost someone I love? He was a stranger.”

Tara was quiet, her knees and shoulders angled towards him, her hand on his shoulder, just holding space.

“When I looked at his face, I got this feeling that I knew him somehow. Like he’s...” Nick frowned, trying to find the right words. “Like he's an important person to me. Am I making any sense?”

“Sure,” Tara said. “I think you can feel a connection to people you've just met.”

Nick leaned back against his seat, letting his head fall back. Tara dropped her hand and leaned back as well. Over the car stereo, Stevie Nicks crooned, her mellow contralto and vibrato running over Nick’s nervous system like cool water.

Like a heartbeat drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost
And what you had
Oh, what you lost
Thunder only happens when it’s raining

“Is this my copy of Rumours?” Nick asked. “Tara, did you steal my CD?”

Tara’s eyes flashed playfully. “Maybe?”

“Faithless woman,” Nick grumbled, smiling.

“Do you want to stay at my place again tonight?” Tara asked. “You can stay in my bed if you’d like, and I can sleep on the couch?”

“No,” Nick looked at the clock on the dash. “Thanks, but I'm going to go. Thank you for giving me a ride and…listening. I’m sorry about--”

“Anytime, Nick,” Tara interrupted his apology. “Literally anytime, please.”

Nick leaned across the console, pulling Tara into a back cracking hug.

“Can't breathe, buddy,” Tara gasped.

“Sorry,” Nick chuckled, loosening his grip marginally, but not letting go.

“Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“You know, it is okay to feel things.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Thanks, mom.” He released Tara from the embrace.

“Oh, I'm happy to be associated with Sarah any day,” she smiled at him. “No, I mean, it's okay to feel things that don't make sense. It's okay to just let yourself…feel. Feelings are not right or wrong. They just are.”

Nick soaked in her words for a second before nodding. He opened the door and stepped out into the light drizzle.

“Love you, Nick,” Tara called.

“Love you, too.” Nick leaned back down to make eye contact with Tara. “I want that CD back next time I see you,” he said.

Tara laughed.

Nick shivered as he swiped a soggy parking ticket off the windshield of his truck and climbed in. After calling his mom to let her know he'd be later than planned, he set off again. An hour and a half later, he pulled into his mom’s long driveway in Hood River.

Sarah Nelson lived in a small 1940’s house on some acreage tucked up on the hills above the Columbia River Gorge and Hood River Valley. Looking from the front porch, the valley and gorge stretched out below, a patchwork quilt of orchards, vineyards, and timber. Behind the house, a few acres of lavender were planted in long, curving rows, framed by a long grove of pear trees on one side and a row of poplars on the other, and between them, in the distance, the snow-capped volcano, Mount Hood. The lavender was freshly sheared at this time of year, but the sagey petrichor of the silvery green plants was soft in the air as Nick climbed his mother’s front steps, duffel bag on his shoulder, letting himself in the front door.

“Hi, Nicky!” Sarah called from deeper in the house as Nick kicked off his shoes and pushed them under the bench by the door. 

“Hi,” Nick called back. 

He heard a clatter of paws on the hardwood and a flash of silvery gray fur and then there was his cattle dog, Henry, wriggling at him. The kelpie pup sneezed, perky ears flopping. He wrinkled his nose in a joyful grimace, front teeth flashing as he sneezed and huffed.

Nick beamed at the dog. He crouched down to rub Henry’s ears, cooing as Henry licked under his chin repeatedly. “Hi, bud. Good to see you, too,” Nick murmured. “Aw, I love you.”

He stood and breathed in the familiar smell of home: lavender, fresh bread, and the lemony scent of pine sol. The hardwood floors felt warm under his stocking feet, the slopes, seams, and sounds of the old house familiar and comforting. Nick wandered down a narrow hall, past a small decorative quilt hanging on a little brass rod, an embroidered and beaded rainbow salmon on a hoop of canvas, and a stained-glass sunflower. As he walked, Henry twisted around his feet, panting.

Nick found his mom at the kitchen table, a steaming mug of herbal tea in one hand and a book in the other. She looked over her reading glasses and gave a start, setting down the mug so quickly that creamy brown liquid sloshed on the table. “Oh my god, Nicholas!”

“What?” 

She gestured to his jeans, standing. “Is that blood?”

“Oh,” he looked down at his bloodied clothing and flinched. Henry seemed to notice the blood at the same time, snuffling at Nick’s knees curiously. Nick batted him away gently. “Uh, yeah. Not mine. I, uh, stopped to help at the scene of an accident. That's why I'm late.”

Sarah moved to cross the space between them, her eyebrows drawn in concern, but Nick took a step back.

“I'm actually going to go change,” he mumbled, turning towards the hallway and his old bedroom. “Stay, Henry.”

When he returned to the kitchen, Sarah was standing at the counter, stirring honey into another cup of tea. Henry was frozen exactly where Nick had left him, although he was positively vibrating, wide gray eyes trained on Nick. Nick gave a soft snap of his fingers and Henry rushed towards him again.

“He’s missed you,” Sarah chuckled as she tipped some half and half into the mug, gave it a stir, and handed it to Nick. 

He took it carefully. “Thank you,” he said, but before he could carry the tea to the table, Sarah pulled him into a tight hug. He clasped the tea in both hands behind her back, laying his cheek against the top of her head.

“Are you doing alright, Nicky?”

Nick stared over her head at his reflection in the dark window over the kitchen sink. He looked haggard. His shirt was finally dry, and he realized then that he'd left his Carhartt jacket on the road in Portland. Shit. His mom tightened her arms across his back as Henry leaned into his leg, and Nick let out a sigh. “Yeah. Normal.”

He pulled out of the hug, carrying the mug to the table and sitting before raising it to his lips. The tea was creamy and sweet and tasted like cinnamon and orange. “This is good. What is it?”

“Montana Gold,” his mom answered, washing her own mug in the sink.

“Mm,” Nick said appreciatively, feeling the tea warming his throat and stomach. Henry laid down heavily across the top of his feet with a huff.

“Nicky?”

Nick looked up.

Sarah dried her hands and put the towel over her shoulder, leaning against the countertop. Her cropped silvery brown hair was held back by her reading glasses perched on top of her head. Her face and arms were tanned from hours in the orchard and lavender. When she spoke again, her tone was more sure, like she had figured out exactly what she wanted to ask. “Have you ever considered going back to therapy?”

Nick tapped his mug with his finger, watching the tea ripple from circumference to center. “No,” he said. 

Sarah put Nick in therapy as a teenager after David passed, much to Stephane’s chagrin. As a kid, Nick didn’t have the same tenacity and grit that came so easily to his older brother. Situations where David would laugh or get angry or just turn away, Nick would fold and cry. And while Sarah always praised and encouraged Nick’s sensitivity and empathy, Stephane was bewildered and embarrassed when Nick got emotional. 

Bordel de merde, Nicholas,” he’d say. “Stop that. None of that here. Don’t cry.”

Nick asked to stop therapy after overhearing his parents fighting about it. The few months of therapy he got were helpful, he supposed, but not worth upsetting his dad. Shortly after, Sarah divorced Stephane, but Nick hadn’t really wanted to go back to therapy.

“It seems like you are carrying a lot right now,” Sarah said. “And it seems like you have been for a long time. I know you don't like talking about it with me, but maybe talking about it with someone else could help?”

Nick knew his face would betray him, so he kept his chin down, staring into his mug. “Yeah,” he conceded.

Sarah seemed to take pity on him and turned the conversation to lighter things. Nick felt his shoulders relax as they chatted about the handful of fruit stands and country stores Sarah was a vendor at. The pears were just starting to ripen, and Sarah was busy harvesting and canning. Her stock was shifting from lavender wreaths, sachets, buds, soaps, and oils to fresh fruit, jellies, and pear sauce.

Nick suggested that when he got back from the mitigation project, they get up early to bake some flaky lemon pear tarts with lavender custard for the weekend crowd of tourists. Sarah's eyes brightened, and she fetched out her recipe box, thumbing through the mess of papers inside, a carefully contained implosion of chaos, for the pie crust recipe, although Nick was sure at this point that they both knew it by heart, and started brainstorming how they might make the filling.

When Nick climbed into bed that night, Henry curled on top of the duvet, his spine pressed against Nick’s stomach, and Nick noticed as he rubbed around the sleepy dog’s ears that the molten anxiety and dread in his body had faded to a cold weight at the top of his chest.

He left early the next morning for the Cascades just west of Mount Saint Helens. The fire mitigation project’s crew leader was a surly Arabic man named Youssef. He explained their objective, mapping out for them the acreage that the crew of twelve would be clearing of dead wood and low hanging limbs around a small group of cabins. Youssef divided them into smaller teams. Nick’s team included Harry, a faller he recognized from last year’s fire season, and a Latina woman named Rocio. Harry’s blond hair was textured and bleached at the tips. Nick remembered that Harry could haul ass at the fireline, but he got on Nick’s nerves as far as company went. Rocio had straight black hair that she wore pulled back in a tight ponytail and sharp, expressive eyebrows. The pin-prick freckles peppered across the olive skin of her nose made her look young and girlish, but Nick noticed the thick calluses on her hands and the toned muscles of her arms.

Almost as soon as Youssef grouped the three together, Harry started grumbling. “Fuck’s sake,” he muttered, looking Rocio up and down her maybe 5'8" slender frame.

Rocio’s eyes flashed. “What’s wrong, pretty boy?” she said.

Harry ignored her, grabbing a harness, spikes, rigging gears, and a tree pruner. As he passed Nick, he muttered something about them having to pick up slack for a girl.

Rocio scowled at Nick and Harry both as she hoisted a chainsaw and a ladder from Youssef’s pickup. “I don't give a rat’s ass what you two think of working with me,” she sneered. “I'm here to get shit done. Let’s get on with it.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but Nick attempted a smile. Something about the defiant jut of her chin was familiar to Nick, and he felt suddenly affectionate. Rocio responded to his smile with a cold glare, adjusting the ladder on her hip as it started to tip and turning on her heel to stalk away, muttering in Spanish under her breath.

Nick suddenly thought of Charlie’s steely blue glare, of his dimples before he lost consciousness for the last time. “I hate you,” Charlie had said, smiling at him. Nick swallowed at the painful lump in his throat and gathered up some tools before following Rocio and Harry. They hiked, each carrying their load of tools, to their assigned part of the forest.

Nick quickly lost himself in the work. He was the most advanced faller, so he took up the role of planning the cuts. He examined the anatomy of each tree, using a plumb line to identify the lean and load on the wood. He loved the smell of the wood, the creak of the hinge as the tree tipped, and the thundering crash as hundreds of pounds of wood collided with the forest floor. With each falling tree, he felt a rush of adrenaline, watching to see if he’d read the tree right. Their safety and the health of the surrounding trees depended on it. Reading trees was something Nick excelled at.

Between dead and sick trees, they pruned and gathered low hanging and dry limbs and brush from the surrounding healthy trees, bringing the dead wood together in piles for the chipper. Harry wanted to work in the canopy, but after Nick insisted Rocio have a go at it, she quickly proved to be the superior climber. She was fast and agile, scampering up into the canopy where she could spot and trim problematic limbs, scouring the forest for signs of disease or pests while Nick and Harry dragged and heaved logs and branches into piles.

By evening, Harry’s wounded pride at being shown up by Rocio had festered into something more bitter. As they were hiking back to camp, their tools stowed under a tarp for the next morning, Harry stepped closer to her. “So Rocio,” he said, “who taught you how to climb trees like that anyway?”

“I taught myself,” she said shortly.

Harry scoffed. “No really, who was he?” Harry laughed. “I want to meet the guy who thought it was a good idea to teach a little lady like you to do a man’s job.” He put his hand on the small of her back as he said “lady.”

She flinched away from him. “Do not touch me.”

Harry leered, “Ooh, she’s a fiery mamacita.”

Rocio rolled her eyes, her contempt palpable.

“Harry, you are unbelievable,” Nick said. “Leave her alone.”

Harry raised his hands. “Just teasing, Jesus. You two are so serious.”

Nick watched carefully, but the moment simmered and then passed, the three of them walking in silence.

By the time they reached camp, Nick was exhausted, kicking off his shoes and collapsing fully clothed on top of his sleeping bag in his tent, climbing inside only when the September mountain chill woke him up around midnight. When he woke up early Tuesday morning, a heavy sadness sat like a weight on top of his lungs, a pressure building under his sternum. He pulled on his boots and tried to swallow the feeling down.

Nick passed the week ignoring Harry, focusing on the work, and thawing out Rocio with the warmth of his disarming smile. By the end of the week, Harry had joined another team, and Rocio and Nick passed the hours of hiking, cutting, and hauling wood by chatting. Rocio was a first generation immigrant, her parents moving their family to southeastern Washington from Mexico when Rocio was in grade school. She grew up working beside them in cherry orchards, which is where she first started climbing and pruning trees. Nick was delighted to learn that she was an environmental science student. They spent hours talking about botany and conservation, about mycelium networks in old growth forests, and how plants evolve over time into trees. Rocio was curious about Nick’s career, asking him about his training to become a paramedic, his time in the fire department, his red card certification, and the fire seasons he spent in deployment for fires and natural disasters as a faller and medic.

“So why a paramedic?” Rocio asked, arms folded as she watched Nick scope out a western redcedar.

Nick shrugged. “I’m not sure.” He squinted at the plumb line, looking for a lean. “I’ve always been really fascinated by anatomy, and I like helping people. Right here,” he said, pointing. 

Rocio nodded and stepped forward. In a few minutes, she had carved out a steeply angled but shallow wedge in the side of the tree with the heavy ax. What she lacked in size and strength, she more than made up for in technique. 

“I’ma need you to teach me how to swing an ax like that,” Nick said after she finished.

She shrugged and smiled. “When was it you decided to be a paramedic then?”

Nick paused, the chainsaw in his hands. “I guess, well…after my brother died.”

Rocio seemed to be waiting, her head tilted.

“He, uh,” Nick brushed a few stray chips of wood off his shoulders, letting the chainsaw drop to his side, “He died in a car accident when I was fifteen.”

Rocio nodded.

“I guess, I used to think about what might have been different if help had got there sooner. Or…if I’d been there, would I have known how to help him? So I decided…around that time.”

“I see,” Rocio said. “I’m sorry about your brother.”

“Thanks. Well,” he gave a short laugh. “You wouldn’t have liked him. Harry kind of reminds me of David, actually.”

“I bet he would have gotten better over time,” Rocio said.

Nick cleared his throat. “Maybe. ‘Shame we’ll never know, I guess.” He started the chainsaw, making a large horizontal cut in the tree. The tree groaned as the saw bit through the fibers tethering it to the earth. Finally it fell, hinge snapping off the stump with a satisfying crack as the crown met the forest floor.

Perfección,” Rocio said. “You like the hinge cuts.”

Nick grinned. “Works well with these species.”

After the project wrapped up, Nick scribbled his number and his mom’s address on an old receipt, handing it to Rocio before they parted ways. “If you’re ever driving through the gorge, you should stop by my mom’s place. She’d love to meet you.”

Rocio took the receipt, folding the paper into her palm with a sunny smile. “Thank you, Nick! I’d love to meet her, too, and see the farm.”

Nick ran into Harry on his way back to his own truck, grimacing when the blonde slung his arm over Nick’s shoulder.

“Did I just see you give Rocio your number? You know she’s a dyke, right?” Harry laughed in his ear. “Good luck getting that pussy.”

Nick shrugged him off with a scowl. “God, shut up, Harry.”

Harry laughed, shaking his head as Nick climbed into his truck.

When Nick got to his mom’s house, it was late. Henry met him by the door, sleepy but excited, but Sarah was already in bed asleep. Nick stepped into the bathroom and peeled off his filthy clothes, stepping into the shower and turning the knob until the water was scalding hot. He scrubbed at the week of sawdust and dirt on his skin and in his hair. He caught himself wondering what kind of hair care Charlie's curly hair had required, whether he had used special products or routines to keep his hair so soft. Nick's hand opened and closed reflexively as he recalled the silky texture of Charlie's curls under his hand as he placed his jacket under his head. He shook his head and turned off the water.

After the shower, Nick stood in front of the mirror with a towel around his hips, the skin on his chest and shoulders damp and flushed from the hot water. The heavy feeling in his chest that had waxed and waned all week had intensified throughout the long drive home alone, and looking in the mirror, he felt strangely disconnected from his own reflection, blinking brown eyes staring back at him, empty. He shaved, brushed his teeth, pulled on some boxers, and then fell into bed. He rolled onto his side as Henry jumped on the bed and circled the space in front of Nick, settling against the curve of Nick’s chest with a huff.

Nick woke up before dawn. He spread out his limbs like a starfish, Henry tucked up against his armpit, snoring softly. Nick stared at the ceiling fan. After a while, the black outside his window shifted to a deep blue, and he sighed and hauled himself out of bed. He dressed robotically, let Henry out, and put on a kettle. 

Neither Nick nor Sarah drank much coffee, but aunt Diane was a coffee addict, and she kept a small sealed bag of coffee beans in the pantry for when she came to stay. And this morning, Nick craved the punishing bitterness and sharp caffeinated jolt of coffee. He ground the beans a bit too fine and made himself a hot thermos of black pour-over. He scribbled a note to his mom, let Henry back in the house, poured him some kibble, grabbed his raincoat, and set off in his truck. 

It was rainy, the dawn turning the sky from indigo to a paler blue as he drove. The sky was shifting to silver as Nick stepped out of the truck at the trailhead, Mount Hood peeking through the folds of rain and mist. He hiked for a few minutes up the trail into the trees, relishing the feeling of the rain falling on his head and face, shifting from a fine mist to sporadic, fat droplets as he walked under trees arching over the trail. He walked until the chill had seeped completely into his bones and his fingers were white with cold.

When the rain washes you clean, you'll know
You'll know

As he walked, Stevie Nicks’ voice rang in Nick’s head like a siren song, the rain tapping out the beat, languid and dreamy.

Now here I go again
I see the crystal visions
I keep my visions to myself

Nick ventured a few yards off the trail into a clearing. He sat on the forest floor, the damp layers of dead leaves, pine needles and moss that covered the ground soft under his butt. He rested his forearms on his knees with a sigh and focused on the trees around him. Cedar and fir, tall and narrow mountain hemlock. 

It's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams

He closed his eyes, fingers of his right hand curled around the warmth of the thermos, left hand grasping his right wrist. He imagined himself a tree, roots crawling hungrily into the earth, drinking up the cold rain. He opened his eyes, clicking the thermos lid open and watching the thin column of steam rising into the air.

And have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Dreams of loneliness

Something shifted in the periphery of Nick’s vision, and he turned to look to his side. The clearing was empty; the only movement was the soft flicker of ferns and leaves as fat droplets of rain tumbled from the canopy above.

Like a heartbeat drives you mad

Nick looked ahead again, studying his thermos. He wondered suddenly if Charlie had liked coffee. 

In the stillness of remembering what you had

He remembered his black leather jacket, the ripped black skinny jeans, his dark curly hair clipped short on the sides while coiling long on top. The intimidating glare of Charlie’s blue eyes as Nick tried to coach his breathing. Charlie looked exactly like the kind of guy who would order his coffee black. 

And what you lost

Nick raised his thermos to his lips, sipping in a mouthful of coffee, bracing himself for the bitter flavor. The coffee slipped hot down his throat and into his stomach. 

As he sipped, the dark green of the forest folded protectively around him, and Nick felt a warm pressure on the skin of his face and hands and neck. He closed his eyes and relaxed into the feeling, like he was being held. Tears of relief prickled at the corners of his eyes, and he heaved a deep sigh.

And what you had

After a moment Nick looked to his right again. He didn’t know what he was looking for; just that he wasn’t convinced he was alone. The feeling didn’t bother him; it was just strange.

After a few moments, Nick held out his thermos at arm’s length. For Charlie, he thought as he poured out a stream of the black coffee on the forest floor, silky steam tangling with the cool mist of the rain, rising up towards the canopy.

The same way that it had come on, the gentle pressure on Nick’s skin faded, the cold morning air stealing in again. Nick took in a sharp breath at the loss.

Ooh, what you lost

Nick dropped the thermos, letting it gurgle and splash coffee over the ground. He folded his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around his legs, tucked his face into the crook of his elbow, and let the tears fall.

Thunder only happens when it's raining.

Notes:

Bordel de merde = for fuck's sake / goddamnit / holy shit

Lavender Fields by Scienceisrealyo was the first Narlie fic I read. I stayed up all night reading it and went to my first pride out the next day exhausted but positively overflowing with queer joy. Sarah's lavender farm in this fic is a tribute to that, as well as to the lavender farm I worked on as a teenager in eastern Washington.

Thanks for reading <3

Here's a picture of Henry, in case you aren't familiar with the kelpie breed. What a good boi.

 

Silver kelpie

Chapter 4: This Is Just To Say

Summary:

It's October, and Charlie is stuck at home & very depressed

Notes:

CW: Ben Hope, recreational drug use, discussion around (past) self harm. Let me know if I missed any!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

CHARLIE

It was October, and Charlie was depressed. This particular depression was Dimetapp-grape and bruised purple, a sticky aura that sunk deep into his blood and skin and bones, painting the space between all of the atoms in his body. After he got home from the hospital, with the six plus month convalescence staring him down, Charlie withdrew from his classes and quit his campus job. He traded his routine of attending class, studying, tutoring, and weekend gigs with the band for the achingly slow crawl of time alone in his bedroom. He curled into the syrupy numbing gloom and watched the leaves outside his window slowly changing color while the cells in his bones and his muscle fibers and his skin slowly knit back together. The pain was a constant static, sometimes almost low enough to ignore, other times rising to a roar.

Charlie dodged phone calls from his mom, who left voicemails drifting between griping about the cost of her and Julio’s impromptu trip from Arizona to Portland to see him when he was hospitalized and threatening to fly out again if he didn’t call her back. The city mailed Charlie a tag to retrieve his motorcycle from the impound. The tag sat on the kitchen counter for weeks before Isaac tucked it away in a drawer in Charlie's writing desk. Professors sent get well messages to his student email. He left them unread in his inbox, his laptop gathering dust. 

Charlie got a call from the police department to let him know that he could pick up a few belongings that were left at the scene of the accident, so he and Darcy stopped by after Charlie’s weekly physical therapy appointment at the hospital. Charlie waited in the car as Darcy went in. Twenty minutes later, Darcy was leading out a long-suffering looking police officer to check Charlie’s ID before handing over two things: his helmet and a canvas jacket. Charlie turned the coat over in his hands, bemused, as Darcy coaxed their Oldsmobile into starting. 

Charlie brought the coat to his nose, breathing in. His eyes widened. “Oh my God, Darcy,” he gasped.

“What?”

“It's his jacket! The one he took off to put under my head!”

“Who? Bubblegum boy?” Darcy snatched it out of his hands, sniffing in. “I'm not getting bubblegum,” they said. 

Charlie took the jacket back and began looking through the pockets. He didn't find anything identifying, just a blue fountain pen, a crumbly bone-shaped dog biscuit, and a crinkled wrapper. 

“Just like…christmas tree campfire. You must have imagined--”

“Aha!” Charlie brandished the bubblegum wrapper in Darcy’s face. “Fucking told you, bitch!” he crowed as Darcy snatched the slip of paper out of his hands. “He did smell like bubblegum!”

“Bubble Yum? Is that the brand with the sexy duck?”

Charlie laughed, taking the wrapper back. “Excuse me, the what?” He folded up the small slip of waxy paper and tucked it in the pocket of the jacket.

“What are you going to do with the coat?” Darcy asked.

“I don't know,” Charlie admitted, his voice rough. He had to resist the urge to bury his face in the worn canvas. It made him feel both giddy and sad, his throat closing up at the unexpected tide of emotions.

“You going to jerk off with it?”

“Jesus Christ, Darcy, no!” Charlie sputtered, blushing.

Darcy shrugged. “Just asking.”

“Just don't! Ask me about masturbation! Ever!”

“Such a prude,” Darcy said affectionately, patting Charlie’s cheek.

Charlie smacked their hand away, scoffing. “I'm not a prude! I just don't make a habit of discussing my sex life with lesbians. Neither of us want that.” He wedged his crutches between the door and his seat and leaned forward to pull the canvas jacket on. The lining was quilted and warm, and the coat was a size or two too big for him. It smelled good. “I think I'll wear it,” he said. “At least until Elle gives me my leather jacket back.”

Darcy glanced at him. “Looks good on you!” they said with a smile.

It did.

Sometime mid-October, Isaac came home to Charlie sobbing over his copy of Harper’s literary journal, reading Eula Bliss’s essay “Pain Scale.” Isaac got on his phone right away, calling for an emergency movie night, and thirty minutes later, Darcy was bursting through their front door with ingredients for pot brownies with Elle and Tao trailing behind, the couple somehow both hand-in-hand and animatedly arguing over which movie they would be watching. Tao’s copy of Donnie Darko lost to Elle’s borrowed VHS of Practical Magic, and the group of friends squeezed around Charlie on the couch, kitchen chairs and pillows arranged in a make-shift ottoman for his leg.

Charlie avoided his friends’ worried eyes. He always felt lately like he couldn’t keep the misery inside, and when he saw it reflected in their eyes, the shame and guilt of pulling them down with him was suffocating. He looked longingly at his bedroom door, tried to think of how to escape, tried to reel in the violet gloom he was oozing, packing it in tight to a small space under his heart.

Once Darcy had the brownies in the oven, they started the movie, and Charlie relaxed marginally as his friends stopped looking at him and started watching the screen. It was almost normal; Tao complaining about the loose-knit plot, the honey-sweet lighting, and the frankly confusing pace of the movie while Elle shushed him and Darcy thirsted over Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. Isaac was reading A Girl Named Zippy, curled with his feet tucked under him in their ratty 1970’s armchair.

When Jimmy Angelov came on screen, Darcy exclaimed, “Oh my god! Wait! Who does that remind you of?”

There was a beat, then Elle and Tao said, in unison, “Ben Hope!”

Isaac was watching Charlie over his book from his perch on the overstuffed armchair while Charlie avoided his gaze, fiddling with the velcro on his leg brace.

“Hot brunette jerk with a cigarette, definitely could be Ben Hope,” Elle agreed.

“Hot?” Tao exclaimed, wrenching his torso around to glare up at Elle from where he sat at her feet.

She shrugged.

“Charlie, whatever happened to that guy anyway?” Darcy asked. “You haven’t mentioned him since, like, April.”

“He moved,” Charlie answered. “We haven’t talked since.” 

This was mostly true. They had hooked up in July when Ben came to town for the holiday weekend, but they had not spoken much during their time together. Thinking back on their late night rendezvous at Ben’s motel and how it ended--with Ben pulling on his pants, hinting not-so-subtly that Charlie should leave--made Charlie feel a little sick.

The oven timer beeped, and Darcy leapt up. A few minutes later, a hot and gooey brownie on a paper towel was shoved into Charlie’s hand. Charlie had not eaten much all day, and the marijuana hit harder and faster than normal. The high mellowed the constant static of pain in his leg, and the relief was almost euphoric. He melted, languid and catlike, into the couch, slipping his arm through Elle’s, leaning his face into the chestnut coils of her hair, tangling her brown with his black ringlets. She snuggled him back, with a fond murmur of endearment, the words of which he did not catch. 

Thready minutes thickened into what felt like fat, whooshing hours, the familiar scenes of the film blooming into colorful strangeness until Charlie completely lost the plot. He didn’t know how long it was after his high started that he felt the locked up purple melancholy seeping out of its hiding place in his ribcage, slipping down into to his stomach, spreading down his arms to his fingertips, until he knew he was moments away from some sort of pathetic lachrymose meltdown. He interrupted Tao’s commentary on how they used light in the actor’s eyes to make ghost-Jimmy look like the subject of a Victorian post-mortem photograph, or something like that, to say he was sleepy, and could he please have his crutches?, while all his friends protested and Darcy lent Charlie their arm so he could stand and Isaac helped him to his room, tucking him in bed like a child. Isaac may have sat on the bed and probably asked Charlie why he was crying, but Charlie pretended to not know what he was talking about as the tears soaked his pillowcase, and told him that yes, he was fine, he was just tired, repeating himself until Isaac gave his good knee a squeeze and left him alone again.

Someone must have mentioned Ben Hope for a third time that night, summoning him like Beetlejuice, because in the morning when Charlie picked up his phone off his nightstand, he had a missed call and two texts from the ex.

Ben
hey you awake
01:26 am

Ben
you want to meet up
1:27 am

Charlie frowned at the lack of punctuation. It made Ben’ words sound less like a question and more like a statement, a command. Charlie’s gut twisted, his heart picking up speed as he hit reply.

Charlie
I’m awake now. Are you in Portland?
9:32 am

Ben’s answering text came hours later. Charlie rushed to pick up his phone as it buzzed.

Ben
yeah but forget it
11:59 am

Charlie felt the heavy tug of disappointment in his chest, wrapped in a coil of shame as he tapped out his reply. Why was he even texting Ben back? He’s a jerk, he’s a jerk, he’s a jerk, he chanted internally. He bit his lip and sent the text anyway.

Charlie
Okay? How long are you in town?
12:01 pm

He realized as he lay in bed, watching the early afternoon sun track slowly across his bedroom wall, that Ben probably wouldn’t have wanted to see him anyway. It’s not like Charlie could easily leave his apartment, and he doubted he would be able to entice Ben to his place. And what would they do? Charlie’s right leg was immobilized in a stiff brace that stabilized both his knee and his hip. Sex was probably still technically a possibility, but it would be awkward, and that felt so risky when Ben was…the way he was about seeing Charlie. Eager and passionate and into him one minute, cold and indifferent the next. It was dizzying.

Charlie always felt like he was on the brink of solving some great mystery, so close to finding the missing puzzle piece, to figuring out how to bring out the tender and affectionate side of Ben, the part of Ben that kissed him with so much heat and desire, that praised him, that wanted him. But, inevitably, the hunger would revolve into disinterest or even disgust, and Charlie would be left wondering what he had done wrong.

October dragged on, and Charlie wasted away in bed. His eating got worse as the month progressed, and he wasn’t hiding it well from Isaac, who kept leaving small plates of Charlie’s favorite safe foods outside his locked bedroom door and little snacks and morsels on the counter in their shared bathroom, like Charlie was a twitchy rabbit he hoped to snare with a handful of almonds and baby carrots.

He overheard Isaac on his phone one night, talking to Tao about Charlie, and the bitter yellow wash of frustration and shame that his friends were worrying about him behind his back churned brackish with the syrupy purple melancholy. The next morning, as Charlie hobbled to the bathroom, the rubber bottom of one of his crutches crumpled a note left on the hardwood floor outside his door. Isaac’s note read like that William Carlos Williams poem about eating the plums left in the icebox, only he was asking Charlie to please, please eat the plums, and the silly poem made Charlie cry, sitting right there in the hallway, his crutches in his lap and the torn note in his hand. He found the plums in the produce crisper in the fridge, but he couldn't bring himself to eat them. He left them there, in the fridge, dusky purple skin tight over yellow flesh. So cold and so sweet. 

The week of Halloween, Charlie’s thick melancholy shifted to an irritated restlessness. The weekly trip to the hospital with Darcy was far from enough time outside the apartment to ease his cabin fever. One night the caged feeling got too intense, the yellowing walls of his bedroom creeping in, the air stale and cloying, and Charlie couldn't take it anymore. He made his way to the kitchen. Within a few minutes, he had emptied the contents of three drawers on the counter, picking through the tangled mess of kitchen and household paraphernalia in search of the box cutter.

When Isaac came home, calling out a greeting as he closed their front door, Charlie was still in the kitchen, curly hair wild from him combing through it with his fingers, crutches at his feet, standing on his good leg as he leaned against the counter.

“Uh, hi, Charlie. You okay?” Isaac set his backpack on the floor.

“Yeah, hi,” Charlie answered, distracted. “I can't find the box cutter or the exacto knife. I swear they were here in the kitchen. Do you know where they are?”

In Charlie's periphery, he saw Isaac freeze.

“Why do you want them?” Isaac asked.

Charlie turned to look at him.

There was this time, when Charlie was a preteen, that he and Tori had gone without their parents to stay with their Abuelo in Colorado. He owned a fruit orchard outside of Canon City, and they spent the summer wandering first through Abuelo's acreage and then the surrounding neighbors', catching lizards and climbing boulders. One morning, he and Tori found a coyote tangled in a length of fallen barbed wire fence. Tori had stood watching over the panting animal while Charlie ran back for Abuelo.

Something about the look in Isaac's eye, his stance, was just like Abuelo in his leather gardening gloves and his cautious, measured movements, as he neared the coyote, recoiling slightly as the trapped animal snapped and bared its teeth at him.

“You hid them?” Charlie asked, his voice low. He felt dizzy with humiliation and rage.

Isaac winced and flushed. He took a breath, then turned and left the kitchen for his bedroom. He came back a minute later with their box cutter, the exacto knife, a pencil sharpener, and a random assortment of other blades. He placed them on the counter in front of Charlie, who was breathing deeply. “Why do you want them?” Isaac asked again, pleading.

“Not for that, Jesus fucking Christ,” Charlie snapped as he snatched up the box cutter, holding it between his teeth as he bent down, teetering, for his crutches. 

Isaac stooped to help, and Charlie took the crutch out of his hands with a scowl. He limped to his room, aware of Isaac trailing behind him, but suddenly too hell-bent on the task ahead of him to tell him to leave. Instead, he tossed down the crutches and dragged himself across the bed to lean against the windowsill. He took the knife out of his mouth, opened it, and began slowly swiping it in the crack between the window frame and the sill, slicing through the layers of paint sealing the window shut. 

Isaac sat on Charlie's bed, watching him work. It took him about twenty minutes to work through all four sides of the window, cutting through the paint, and another ten of picking and peeling to clear the tracks. Finally, Charlie slid the knife closed, tossing it in Isaac’s lap, and splayed both hands against the glass, shoving the window open.

A cold breeze pressed in, smelling like rain and rotting leaves and diesel from a passing bus. Charlie took a deep breath in, his shoulders dropping. After a few breaths, he shuffled awkwardly in the bed to get his right leg out the window, using Isaac’s hand for balance as he climbed out and onto the cast iron fire escape. Isaac followed him out, and they both sat and settled, shivering, on the damp metal.

“I'm sorry,” Isaac said after a few minutes. “I've just been worried about you.”

Charlie tilted his head back against the brick wall beside his window and huffed. “I understand,” he said. “I just hate being treated like...like I'm fragile or broken or something.”

“I know.”

“And I know it's been bad, but I'm really trying, and I'm not at that point.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, fuck, I haven’t cut in almost ten years,” Charlie said with a bitter and wet laugh. “I'm not starting again now.”

Isaac nodded. “I'm sorry. I should have trusted you more, and talked with you about it.”

They sat quietly, listening to the hiss and snick of tires on wet pavement below, the steady drip of rain.

“I hate feeling like this,” Charlie said. “I feel like I can see it all in front of me, how everything affects me and why.” He folded his arms over his chest and shivered. “But it's like a train wreck I can't look away from, or change, or control. It just is.”

Isaac nodded.

"And I don't know when it will end." Charlie sighed and looked out across the street. “I'm sorry,” he rasped. “I've been a shit roommate, and a worse friend.”

Isaac squeezed Charlie’s elbow again, shaking his head. “No, Charlie. You haven't.”

Charlie wiped at the tears running down his face, dropping his head onto Isaac’s shoulder. "I'm just...so sorry," he said.

Isaac leaned his cheek against Charlie’s curls, and they sat like that, shivering, until the rain stopped.

Notes:

Thanks for reading! I love hearing from you!! <3

xx
banana

Chapter 5: Brokeback Mountain

Summary:

Nick and Sarah make pear sauce and tough decisions
Nick starts a new job
Tara and Nick watch Brokeback Mountain

Notes:

Started writing this
Had a breakdown
...bon appetit

CW: panic attack, little bit of blood. Pretty sure that's it. xxx

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

NICK

It was early October and Nick was leaned against the counter, watching the surface of the water in the stockpot as it approached a rolling boil. The water was glossy and restless, spitting droplets of scalding water as the steam rolled off the surface. Using a wooden ladle, Nick slipped in a dozen pears, two or three at a time, the steam licking hot at his fingers as the water level rose.

“What are you thinking about, Nicky?” Sarah asked.

Nick glanced up at her as he wiped condensation from the steam off his chin. “Oh,” he said. “Uh, I was thinking about work.”

“Oh!” Sarah smiled at him. “Did you hear back from the fire department?”

“Yeah,” Nick turned to face her, folding his arms over his chest. “Today, actually. They offered me the job.”

“Oh!” she said again. She leaned over a bowl on the opposite side of the counter, slicing blanched and peeled pears quickly into perfect little cubes to be cooked down and pureed into a smooth and creamy pear sauce.

Nick watched the steam rising off the pot of fresh cut fruit and wondered how her fingers were not burning. 

She glanced at him, raising her eyebrows to prompt him to carry on.

“I, uh, also heard from Rocio,” he continued.

“Oh, Rocio!” Sarah beamed. Rocio had stopped by the farm the week before, and of course Sarah had loved her. “How is she?”

“She’s good! Yeah,” Nick turned back to the boiling pot, scooping out the pears and setting them on a dish towel beside the stove. “You know she was working on starting a tree care business in Portland?”

Sarah made an affirming noise, scooping pear skins and cores off the worktop and into a gallon ice-cream tub for the compost bin.

“She said she’s got a lot of potential clients. And Yousseff sold her some used equipment for a pretty good deal, so…” Nick slipped in another batch of pears and gave the pot a stir before continuing. “She, uh, wants me to come to Portland to work with her.”

“WHAT?” Sarah slammed her paring knife down on the counter in excitement, making Nick jump and laugh. “Nicky! That is great news!”

“Okay, you’re much more excited about Rocio offering me a job than the fire department,” Nick chuckled.

“You’re right, you’re right, sorry.” Sarah took a deep breath as she schooled her features into a neutral expression, closing her fingers dramatically in a five-fingered pinching motion in front of her face. “I can be objective about this.”

Nick laughed again, shaking his head. "No, you can't."

“Two job offers, Nicholas,” she said in mock seriousness. “I am both very proud of you, and I have no feelings at all about either of these wonderful opportunities.”

Nick grinned as he fished the blanched pears out of the boiling water. “Sure, Mom.”

“What about you?”

“What?” Nick switched off the gas stove and began methodically peeling the blanched pears, the skin sliding off easily. The fruit underneath was a clean cream color, hot and slippery.

“What are your feelings? What do you want to do?”

Nick paused. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

Sarah stayed quiet, resuming cutting the peeled pears.

Nick used the quiet space she offered to try to examine his feelings. He searched his body for clues. His throat and chest felt tight, and he swallowed against the oppressive heaviness. His thoughts flashed, glimmering and restless, across his mind. He sighed. “Yeah, I don’t know. I think I just feel anxious.”

Sarah wiped her hands on her apron as she crossed the kitchen, then pulled Nick into a hug. 

He returned the embrace as best he could without getting pear juice on her shirt. 

“That’s okay, Nicky,” she said. “That’s normal, to feel anxious. It's a big decision."

He sighed again, and rested his chin on the top of her head. It was more than that, but he didn't really want to get into it.

They spent another hour processing pears and Nick’s job offers in tandem, weighing the pros and cons of the two opportunities, Sarah doing a surprisingly good job of staying neutral while Nick talked about the stability and familiarity of the EMS position with the fire department versus the risk of joining a fledgling business with a new friend. 

Their conversation ended abruptly when, while dicing up one of the last pears, Sarah’s hand slipped.

“Shoot,” she muttered, dropping the paring knife and moving towards the sink.

“You okay?” Nick asked, following her.

Her fingertip was bleeding; a shallow cut from the tip of her forefinger down to her first knuckle dripping red blood down into the palm of her hand. She turned the water on, saying something flippant as she rinsed off the blood, but Nick couldn’t hear. The sound of the running water and his mother’s voice faded out, replaced by a distant ringing. He fetched down the first aid kit from above the microwave, moving quickly and robotically. She blotted her finger on a paper towel and offered out her hand. He took it in his, applying one butterfly bandage, then another, closing the cut as the ringing sound increased. The lights in the kitchen seemed suddenly glaringly bright, the room swimming in the hot glow.

“You okay?” he asked again, the sound of his voice muffled as if he was hearing it through thick cotton.

Sarah nodded, her mouth laughing as she said something Nick couldn’t hear.

“Okay,” Nick choked out, “I’ll be back in a second.” He left the kitchen as if in a trance, stumbling down the hallway and into the bathroom. He flipped on the light and the fan at once and closed the door, locking it behind him. 

He leaned against it and slid down so his knees were against his chest. The room was teetering, spinning, his stomach clenching. His legs felt suddenly deadened and heavy, his knees knocking together. He became aware that he was panting and fought to get his breath under control, burying his face in his folded arms to muffle the sounds he couldn’t choke down.

He curled into a ball on the floor, his cheek resting against the cold tile, an oppressive dread settling over him like a shadow, pressing around his ribcage like a massive rubber band. He tried to focus on something in the room with him to get grounded. He blinked at the bead of silicone around the edge of the tub. His shirt smelled like oxyclean and deodorant. He had the aftertaste of pear in his mouth. His hands were still sticky with fruit juice. He opened and closed his fists, tensing and relaxing, focusing on the sensation. The overhead fan droned, drowning out his gasps for air. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to take a deep breath and hold it in, then release it slowly. He repeated this until, slowly, it got easier. A wave of exhaustion crashed over him as the adrenaline in his bloodstream fizzled and sparked out.

“Nicky?” his mom called through the door.

He struggled into a sitting position and tweaked the doorknob so it unlocked, letting Sarah in.

“Aw, baby,” she said softly, crouching by him and wiping his face. “What happened?”

“Sorry, Mom,” he said, his voice grating in his own ears. “Is your finger okay?”

“My finger’s fine,” she said softly, pulling him into a cumbersome hug, her crouched, him sitting with his arms still wrapped around his knees. “Are you okay?”

“A panic attack, I think,” he said, his voice shaky with exhaustion and shame. “It’s passing now.”

“Another one? Nick,” Sarah said, pressing her cheek against his clammy forehead as she stroked his hair.

Nick closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the simple comfort of his mother’s affection. “I don’t think I can take that ambulance job,” he said, so soft it was almost a whisper. “I can't...anymore. I’m–I’m going to go work with Rocio.”

Sarah squeezed his shoulder, then waited. She somehow always knew when he had more to say.

“And I’m going to go to therapy.”

His mom sank down beside him and put her arm around him, letting him lean into her. “I’m so proud of you, Nick.”

He bobbed his head, grateful that, sitting beside him like this, she couldn’t see the tears in his eyes.

Within the next week, Nick found a craigslist ad for a studio apartment lease takeover in a neighborhood adjacent to Tara’s. Tara stopped by to tour the place for him, and with Tara’s vote of approval, Nick had an apartment. He packed a few boxes and furniture into his truck, said goodbye to Sarah and Henry, and drove the hour from Hood River to his new apartment in Portland.

Tara met him there with her boombox, a caddy of cleaning supplies, and a big grin. “Nick! Joining me at last in Stumptown!”

“Tara!” he beamed, shifting the cardboard box he was holding against his hip to give his friend a hug.

They put on some ABBA, and Nick felt some of the tension and gloom of the last few months draining away as they cleaned, unpacked, and set up, chatting and singing as they worked. Tara told Nick about the job she had started a few weeks ago. For the last couple of years, Tara had been working at a tumbling gym as a coach and dance instructor, blending acrobatics with dance, but slow business at the gym meant that two of her three classes had combined into one. Needing a second job, she’d applied at a coffee shop on a whim, and now she was spending early mornings five days a week struggling to learn how to use the espresso machine, messing up grumpy customers’ orders, and struggling with latte art. The silver lining was the barista assigned to train Tara.

“You would love Darcy,” Tara smiled as she unpacked Nick’s Spiderman comics collection onto the short bookshelf/nightstand by his bed. “They are so weird. And kind.” She stood and helped Nick pull the fitted sheet onto his double bed. “They have short colorful hair and these huge, hazel eyes,” Tara was gesturing with her hands, the fitted sheet totally abandoned as she tried to describe her coworker, “They’re always making jokes, or sharing random facts about animals or space, or asking you these really personal questions out of the blue, but in a perceptive kind of way, not in a nosy kind of way, you know what I mean?”

Nick walked around the bed to pull the sheet over the corner that Tara was neglecting, smiling at Tara’s enthusiasm. “I don’t know if this is wrong for me to ask,” Nick said, “but is Darcy a man or a woman?”

“Oh, um, Darcy is gender-queer,” Tara explained. “They were assigned female at birth, but don’t really identify with being a man or a woman exactly.”

“Oh,” Nick considered this a moment. “I didn’t even know that was a thing,” he said. “That’s cool.” He pulled a quilt out of a cardboard box. “Are people, uh, respectful of that? Here?”

“Mm,” Tara frowned. “Portland is really a mixed bag about that stuff. Like I’ve met so many gay and lesbian and transgender people, lesbians especially, since moving here, but there are still some hateful people. There’s actually a big neo-nazi presence here.”

“What?” Nick froze. “Are you serious?”

Tara pulled a face. “Yeah, unfortunately. I feel pretty safe where I work and live, but there's neighborhoods to avoid."

“I thought Spokane was the white supremacist hotspot, not Portland.”

“Welcome to the Pacific Northwest, baby!” Tara said sarcastically. “Seattle’s not much better either, from what I’ve heard. Anyway, I’d love for you to meet Darcy,” she pivoted with a smile. “We haven’t really broken the barrier on hanging out outside of work yet, but I’m hoping we will soon.”

“I’d love to meet them,” Nick said as he straightened his quilt on the bed. “You do have great taste in friends,” he said with a smirk as he gestured to himself, “Exhibit A.”

Tara threw his pillow at him, but grinned. “You’re right,” she said with a self-satisfied shimmy, “I do.”

Nick apparently started working for Rocio at exactly the right time because just a few days after he arrived in Portland, there was a flash freeze followed by a particularly blustery chinook, and the warm coastal wind snapped compromised limbs off trees all over the city, leaving Rocio with more work than she could do on her own. It was getting cold, and Nick worked most days in a hoodie with a reflective jersey pulled over the top. He missed his thick canvas carhartt jacket, but he couldn’t bring himself to replace it. It was weird, but he kept hoping it would turn up again somehow.

After work, he’d arrive home to his tiny apartment after dark all damp and chilled and sore. One night a week, he drove to a clinic near downtown to meet with a therapist. 

The time before his appointment in the waiting room always made him nervous, avoiding eye contact with other patients, feeling out of place on the couch next to the waxed leaves of the plastic ficus tree in his double-knee work pants, twiddling his calloused thumbs. But Dr. Moon radiated a warm kindness that reminded him so much of his mom and aunt Diane that, although he still struggled to express himself and got embarrassed when he was needlessly emotional or worked up about something in front of her, he was getting more and more comfortable with her. And as October turned to November and November turned to December, Nick sat down on the couch and idly picked up the metal slinky out of the small bowl of kids’ toys on the coffee table between them, passing the chilled coil back and forth between his hands, and Dr. Moon asked him how the last week had been for him, and he realized he was doing a little better.

Outside of therapy, Nick spent most evenings alone, listening to music, watching a show, and sometimes baking. He got together with Tara as often as they were both free. They agreed early on after his move to Portland to go to the movies together once a month. December was Tara’s turn to pick, much to Nick’s chagrin.

“No horror, no tragedies,” Nick said. “These are my terms.”

“Whoa, okay,” Tara said, holding up her hands in protest. “Hold on! You can veto one genre, not two. It is my time to pick, and the only restraint that I put on your choices is no Jim Carrey.”

“Okay, fine,” Nick said. “No horror movies.”

“Then we are going to watch something sad,” Tara said with an evil smile, opening Firefox on Nick’s laptop.

“No,” Nick whined, flopping down on his bed with his arm over his eyes. 

“Such a diva, god,” Tara snickered. “Let’s see what’s showing.”

“I don’t want to cry in public tonight.”

“Aw,” Tara patted his leg. “It’s okay to cry, Nicholas. Oh, Darcy was telling me about this one!”

Nick sat up, squinting to see the laptop screen. 

Tara held it out towards him. “It’s got Heath Ledger! You love him. And Jake Gyllenhaal! And they’re cowboys! You love cowboy movies!”

Nick frowned at the movie listing. “But it’s sad?”

Tara shrugged. “It made Darcy cry, but I don’t know what that means. I mean, they cried last week when their tamagotchi died of old age. So.”

Nick sighed, handing the laptop back. “Fine.”

“Yuss!” Tara pumped her fist. “Darcy said it was really really good! Do you want to do the six o’clock showing or wait for the nine o’clock?”

“Let’s do the six. We’ve both got work in the morning.”

They turned their collars up against the wet chill and stalked to the theater, bumping into one another, their hands shoved in their pockets, grumbling and laughing. The biting easterly wind that had howled through the city the last few days had finally tapered off that afternoon, easing off from frigid to a chilly damp. 

At the theater, Tara bought their tickets, giving Nick his before dragging him to the concession stand for a huge soda. “For you,” she said. “So you can stay hydrated.”

Nick rolled his eyes but accepted the drink.

It was a weekday and a relatively early showing, so the theater was almost completely empty. Nick settled into his seat, wedging the oversized soda into the drink holder between him and Tara as she settled beside him.

“Will you promise me that when you inevitably start dating again,” Tara whispered, “you’ll still come to the movies with me?”

“Yeah, of course,” Nick whispered back with a frown. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know if you noticed this, but a lot of your exes hated me,” Tara laughed.

Nick cocked his head in surprise. “What? Did they tell you that? I’m so sorry!”

Tara waved her hand. “They didn’t–it’s okay! Don’t apologize for them, it’s fine, Nick. We just have an unconventional friendship, I think. I mean, most people would look at us and probably think we’re on a date right now.”

"Hm," Nick frowned. “I guess so.”

The ads ended and the house lights dimmed as the trailers came on.

“Well,” Nick whispered, “you’ve got to promise me that when you get a boyfriend, you’ll still hang out with me, too.” He smiled at Tara.

She forced a quick smile back before looking up at the screen. “Yeah! Definitely.”

Nick watched her a moment longer, but she kept her gaze steadfastly forward, the colorful images of the movie screen reflected in her dark eyes. He had a sense that he had said something wrong, but he didn’t know what. After a moment, he turned to the screen.

 

Nick and Tara were silent as they walked out of the theater, both drying their eyes. The cold air outside was wet and bracing, the air crisp with the earthy smell of leaf mold.

“What did you think?” Tara asked.

“That was…” Nick trailed off, searching for the right word. “Devastating.”

“Yeah. I think I’m going to have some choice words with Darcy tomorrow for not properly warning me,” Tara huffed. “Those tragic gay men. I’m never going to get over that.”

Nick chuckled and sniffed, clearing his throat. He reached out for Tara’s arm, gently redirecting her in the direction of his apartment from the random direction she had set off in.

“Thanks; I always get disoriented coming out of the theater,” Tara laughed. They walked in silence together for a minute before she said, “I am glad we watched it, though.”

Nick made an affirming noise.

“Nick,” Tara’s voice sounded suddenly thready and subdued.

Nick took a few more steps before he realized Tara wasn’t by his side. He turned, doubling back for Tara with his head cocked. A few yards away, a driver leaned, waiting, against the door of a city bus, the end of his cigarette lighting up orange in the blue darkness. Nick tugged his collar up a little higher, instinctively standing between his friend and the stranger. “Yeah? You okay?”

“I–I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah?” he prompted, eyebrows furrowed.

She looked nervous, and when she spoke, Tara's voice was soft. “If you ever…if you fell in love with a man–”

Nick felt a quick and dizzying tremor of fear, like he was standing somewhere really high and exposed.

“–would you…?” Tara trailed off. She was staring at her hands, twisting her sleeves.

"Would I...?" Nick asked, his heart in his throat. He thought of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist.

She took a deep breath, and when she looked up at him, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I need to tell you something.”

“Okay,” he said softly, his heart pounding in his throat.

Tara nodded, as if she was psyching herself up. “I think I’m falling in love with Darcy,” she said suddenly, her words rushed.

The corner of Nick’s mouth and his eyebrow twitched up, his face breaking into a crooked smile. He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he'd been holding. Something inside Nick changed, like he had been stumbling around in the dark, but someone had flicked on a light somewhere. He felt that light. He saw it reflected in the shine of Tara’s eyes, her expression still tight with worry. He felt his own eyes fill with tears, but he was too light inside to feel any shame about that.

“I think this is why things have never worked out for me before…with men. I think…”

Nick squeezed her shoulder softly and bobbed his head at her, a silent go on.

“I think I’m a lesbian,” she whispered.

Nick pulled her in for a tight hug, squeezing her to his chest. “Thank you for telling me that,” he said into her braids. After a long moment, he let her go, moving to drop his arms to his side, but she stayed pressed to his torso, hugging him tightly through the bulk of their coats, so he wrapped his arms around her again. “I’m sorry about the boyfriend comment, earlier,” he added. 

Tara released him at last, wiping the tear tracks off her face with a sniff. “That’s okay,” she laughed.

“I shouldn’t have assumed…I hadn’t even thought before about how I assume stuff like that.” He shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it.”

They fell back into step together.

Nick bumped Tara gently with his shoulder as they walked. “You know, I love you. And I’m really glad you told me,” he said. “Does Darcy know?”

Tara hummed. “I haven’t told them, but sometimes I feel like it must be so obvious, like anyone could see it if they looked at me looking at them. And they are always bragging about their gaydar,” Tara laughed.

“Gaydar?”

Tara rolled her eyes in the way Nick knew was affectionate. “Gay radar.”

Nick snorted.

“They flirt constantly . But I think they flirt with everyone? It’s so hard to tell what it means,” she groaned. “We spend so much time together lately. I’ve started noticing how much I miss them on days that I don’t see them. I get butterflies when they walk into a room or look me in the eye for too long."

Nick grinned. "So sappy."

"I know! I know! I–I’ve never felt this way about someone before,” Tara laughed, sounding incredulous. “Have you ever been around someone and just…you like the person you are best when you are with them? Almost like you wish you could be that person all the time? I just…I love them. And I love who I am when I’m with them.”

“I think I’ve felt that way before with my mom and with you,” Nick said. "Like I'm more myself? But..."

“You've never felt that way about someone you feel, like, sexually and romantically attracted to?”

Nick shook his head. “I don’t think I have. But that’s how Darcy makes you feel?”

Tara nodded, breaking away from Nick’s side to sidestep a big puddle. “I can’t even believe all the ways I feel attracted to them. I didn’t even know I could feel how I feel about them.”

Nick laughed. “You seem really happy,” he said fondly.

Tara smiled up at him. “I am. But...I’m also scared about what this means. About how it might change how people see me. I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

“Yeah. Have you told anyone else?”

Tara shook her head.

Nick pulled her into another hug. “I’m honored,” he said. “Do you think you want to tell your parents?”

“Eventually, yeah.”

When they reached Nick’s apartment building, he put a kettle on for some minty herbal tea. They talked until late that night about Darcy, about Brokeback Mountain, about the crushes Tara had before she realized they were crushes, about attractive girls they went to school with, about famous actresses and fictional characters. And all the while, the light in Nick’s chest warmed and shimmered and grew.

Notes:

If you are reading this:

Hey. Hi. Did you like this chapter? Will you leave me a comment? I like comments. We can talk about how sad and restrained and beautiful Brokeback Mountain is and wonder together when in the world Nick and Charlie are going to meet again in this fic.

But I mean--once Darcy meets Nick...it can't take too long, right? They are our meddlingest gay, after all.

xxx
banana

Chapter 6: Whiskey Sour

Summary:

In this fic, Charlie doesn't like wine, okay?
Ben F*cking Hope
Charlie makes a new friend
Somehow no song or poetry references??

Notes:

CW: This chapter is centered on an abusive relationship between Ben and Charlie. While there isn't any mature or explicit sexual content in this chapter, when it comes to physical/emotional violence and a disregard for enthusiastic and revocable consent, Ben is Ben-ing, so please read mindfully <3 Also, reference to Charlie's struggles with eating, brief mention of blood, allusion to a homophobic slur. Alcohol & cigarettes.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

CHARLIE

Charlie scowled and swirled his wine, observing the tears left by the dark red syrah on the inside of the glass, glimmering a rainbow sheen in the mellow light of the crowded living room he was sitting in. It was yeasty and bitter and Charlie hated it. Charlie fucking hated wine. 

The party was big and posh, with a full bar. When Ben had offered to get him a drink, Charlie had asked for a whiskey sour, but Ben came back with this full-bodied red and a foxy smile. And then he left Charlie there, sitting on the couch alone at a party where Charlie knew no one. Ben was punishing him for something, and Charlie felt a pinch of a headache behind his right eye as he struggled to decipher what it was he had done to fuck things up. He reached up and loosened the knot on his tie, undoing his top button with an impatient flick of his finger.

Before the party, they’d been at Ben’s place. When Ben visited Charlie’s apartment, which he only did while Isaac was out, he teased Charlie about all their shitty secondhand furniture and eclectic decorations, pages of poetry and band posters and artwork pinned to the walls with tacks, the battered paperback spines and covers of countless used books filling bookshelves and scattered across every flat surface. Ben worked for the Vancouver branch of his father’s Seattle finance firm. At his apartment, the furniture was all new, everything black leather and chrome, the artwork on the walls framed in glass. The books on his bookshelves were hardcover and leatherbound. Sometimes, Charlie wanted to tell Ben his apartment looked soulless, like an overpriced hotel room. Other times, he sprawled across Ben’s expensive couch under a luxurious throw and wondered what it would be like to live in a nice apartment with quiet plumbing and no spiders.

Before they left for the party, Charlie had leaned against the bar-height island counter in Ben’s kitchen, thumbing through Ben’s copy of Ulysses while Ben had a smoke on his balcony. When he came back into the apartment, he was so quiet that Charlie didn’t realize he was standing behind him until Ben was reaching around Charlie to drag his hand over Charlie’s chest and down his stomach. The peppery and bitter spice of Ben’s clove cigarette clung thickly to him, his breath warm where he pressed his nose and chin against the sensitive skin on the side of Charlie’s neck. He turned Charlie around, Charlie stumbling a little on his bad leg, and pressed a burning kiss against Charlie’s mouth. Ben’s lips were sweet from the sugared paper of the cigarette filter, and something about the sweetness and the press of his tongue into Charlie’s mouth, the smoke on his breath, and his hand against Charlie’s stomach, pushing him so the cold granite countertop dug into the middle of Charlie’s back, made Charlie’s skin crawl. He tried to will his body to melt into the passionate, possessive kiss, putting his hand on Ben’s waist and pulling him in, trying and failing to feel the rush of anticipation in his body that he’d felt before.

When Ben suddenly broke their kiss, Charlie rushed to school his face. He wasn’t fast enough.

Ben narrowed his eyes, leaning back. “What?”

“Sorry,” Charlie winced. “You taste like clove.”

Ben rolled his eyes and pulled his body away from where it had been pressed up against Charlie’s, swiping Charlie’s hand off his waist with the back of his hand.

The air that rushed in between them was cool. Charlie pulled in a lungful, his heart racing. He could feel the flush in his cheeks, and Ben reached up and dragged a thumb over Charlie’s cheekbone, his green eyes scouring Charlie’s face.

After a moment, he turned and grabbed his suit jacket from where he had slung it over the back of a chair. “We should go. We’re going to be late.”

Charlie reached for his crutches where they were leaned by the door, but Ben stopped him.

“You should leave them. We’re just going to be sitting around, chatting,” he said. “You’re doing fine without them.” He looked Charlie up and down. 

Charlie squirmed, feeling strange in the blue suit and button down white shirt he was wearing. It had fit well at the scholarship gala he’d worn it to last year, but the shirt and jacket were a little loose on him now. “Do I look okay?” he asked tentatively, patting his curls.

Ben rolled his eyes. “Where’s your tie?”

“I hate ties,” Charlie said, dropping his arms to his sides.

Ben huffed and disappeared into his bedroom, returning a moment later with a red necktie. Charlie stood on his left leg, glancing once at his crutches, as Ben tied it snug around his neck.

“Too tight,” Charlie grumbled.

Ben pulled the tie a little tighter, straightening it and then flipping down Charlie’s collar. He stepped back and looked at Charlie, smiling a little; his expression appreciative. “You look handsome,” he said softly, and Charlie could have cried.

Ben had been quiet all the way to the party, his fingers wrapped tightly around Charlie’s hand on the console between them, Charlie flipping the sunshade down and opening the mirror to check his curls nervously.

Charlie set his wine down on a sleek little table next to the leather couch he was sitting on, trying not to think too hard about how this was a thing Ben did; taking him to unfamiliar places full of unfamiliar people and then abandoning him. It was like some little test of power; how far out of safety could he lead Charlie before deserting him? The conversations around Charlie were getting louder, although Charlie couldn’t tell if that was real or if his anxiety was just ramping up.

Charlie couldn’t put his finger on exactly how he and Ben had started up again. There was the gradual escalation of texts, then phone calls, then visits from Ben, Ben buying him things, Ben picking up Charlie to stay over at his place over weekends, until suddenly Ben was the only person Charlie was spending time with.

The first time Ben had come over in November, it had started with a conversation over text. Ben asked Charlie if he still had his stupid motorcycle. Charlie said that he didn’t; it was impounded. Ben pried a little, and Charlie was so surprised to be getting multiple messages from him in a row that he told Ben about the accident and his leg.

Ben showed up on his doorstep an hour later, smelling like clove and expensive cologne. He was wearing a white collared shirt and slacks, his glossy brown hair damp from the soft rain that was falling.

“Charlie. Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked after Charlie opened the door. 

He stepped into the apartment, into Charlie’s space, and Charlie’s heart drummed in his ribcage. 

Charlie shifted on his crutches, backing away slightly, and closed the door behind Ben. He felt ridiculously underdressed, his Origin of Symmetry Muse t-shirt stretched at the collar, the hem frayed where it touched his gym shorts, his brace off and his healing purple scars visible. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you,” Ben said softly. “Make sure you’re okay.”

Charlie looked from Ben around his apartment. Isaac was in class. They were alone. “Okay,” he said, unsure.

“Have you eaten?” Ben asked.

“Yes,” Charlie lied.

“You’re lying,” Ben said.

“Yes,” Charlie said.

“I’m going to make you some food.” Ben slipped his shoes off and walked into the kitchen.

Charlie stood a moment longer in the entryway, looking at Ben’s wingtip leather shoes, small droplets of water on the toes. He must have come from his office. Should Charlie be happy about this? He just felt nervous. Part of him was in awe of Ben’s confidence; inviting himself in like that. He followed Ben to the kitchen.

“You really don’t need to do that,” Charlie said, resting his crutches at the countertop as he sat on a stool. He winced as his leg made contact with the seat.

Ben ignored him, looking through the fridge.

They talked as Ben made Charlie a sandwich, Ben ignoring Charlie’s protests. He watched Charlie carefully as he ate until Charlie asked him not to. He scoffed and raised his hands, but left the kitchen, wandering through Charlie and Isaac’s apartment with his hands tucked in his slacks while Charlie choked down a few more bites. When the coast was clear, Charlie hid the rest of the sandwich in the trash under some junk mail and found Ben again, in the hallway between the bedrooms, looking at a watercolor from Elle that Charlie had hung with blue sticky-tack. When Ben saw Charlie leaning on his crutches, he’d smiled wolfishly and pressed Charlie up against a wall, slipping his crutches out from under his arms and holding him up with an arm wound round his chest as he peppered Charlie’s face with playful kisses.

The playfulness shifted to lust the way the full moon wanes to new, an almost imperceptible erosion of light. Their rekindled relationship changed the melancholy that Charlie had been feeling since his accident and hospital stay. October had been slow moving, sticky, cloying. But with Ben, November’s mood was clean and sharp and breathless, a bright blade, the push of adrenaline and pull of Ben’s magnetism a familiar but thrilling dance. Charlie knew his friends wouldn’t approve, they never had, and none of Ben’s friends or family knew he dated men, so there was the suspense of secrecy as well. But it was December now, and something about tonight, both before, at Ben’s apartment, and now, at the party, was different. Something between them had shifted. Charlie could feel the heat of it behind his eyes, in this noise in his head. This wasn't fun anymore.

The room was starting to feel claustrophobic; like everyone was staring at him. Women smirking in holly-red lipstick, men in their expensive suits looking at him, sitting there alone, before looking away again. Charlie felt conspicuous. He knew he looked ridiculous. He fiddled with Ben’s necktie again, the red satin fabric cool under his fingertips. 

Finally, he stood, ignoring the throb of pain and tremble of fatigue in his right leg as he wandered slowly from room to room. The house was large and old, with hardwood floors covered by plush rugs and huge windows looking over the river. It belonged to someone important Ben worked with. Charlie couldn’t remember who.

It took Charlie a while to find Ben. When he did find him, he was sitting on a sofa with his arm draped over the shoulder of a blond woman. She was wearing a tight, satiny black dress, sleeveless with a thin halter strap, a slit in the side rising up past her knee. Her bare shoulders were milky pale under the black of Ben’s sleeve. Ben was tracing small circles on her far shoulder with his middle finger. 

Charlie could hear the blood rushing in his ears. He was standing frozen in the doorway, willing his body to back up and turn away, to retreat so he could form a plan, maybe find a bathroom to hide in, when he saw a flicker of a shadow pass over the woman’s face. It was subtle: a tightness around her mouth, a stiffness to her shoulders even as she laughed at something Ben was saying in her ear, leaning away from him slightly. It was brief, but it was enough that Charlie knew–she was uncomfortable. Charlie took a step forward, and the woman’s eyes, blue and luminous, slid over to meet his.

“Ben,” Charlie said.

The profile of Ben’s handsome face darkened, but he didn’t turn.

“Ben!” the woman piped up. “Introduce me to your friend!”

Ben looked up at Charlie. For a moment, Charlie thought he might deny even knowing him. Might laugh in his face. Humiliate him. Instead he said, coolly, “This is Charlie. Charlie, this is Jenny.”

“Hello, Jenny,” Charlie managed a smile, although he knew it didn’t reach his eyes.

“It’s nice to meet you, Charlie!” she said.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Charlie said. “Ben, can I talk with you?”

Something oil-dark and noxious shimmered in Ben’s eyes. Charlie felt his heart racing in his chest, but he stared Ben down, waiting for him to answer.

“Fine,” Ben said.

The blond woman visibly relaxed as Ben withdrew his arm and stood, as if she had been holding her breath, and Charlie looked at her a second longer before following Ben out of the room.

They walked through a kitchen and out a side door onto a patio. Charlie slid the door shut behind him. The patio was framed by slender evergreen trees, dripping from a recent rainfall. The smell of cold rain and river water was crisp on the air. It was dark outside, little puffs of steam from their breath rising between them, lit by the light shining through the windows and glass door. 

Charlie shivered, folding his arms tightly over his chest as Ben turned his gaze on him. They were around the same height, but Charlie still got the distinct impression that Ben was looking down at him. It was both irritating and disconcerting. He watched as Ben’s eyes flickered down to Charlie’s loosened tie. 

“Why can’t you just fucking wear a tie?” Ben said. “You look sloppy. It’s embarrassing.” He reached for the knot.

“Don’t do that,” Charlie said, pushing Ben’s hand away.

The darkness in Ben’s eyes glimmered again. He reached for the tie, slower, his eyes locked on Charlie’s as he cinched it up, daring him to push his hand away again.

Charlie tightened his jaw, breathing through his nose. With Ben this close, Charlie could smell the alcohol on him. “You’ve been drinking?”

“Yeah? So?”

Charlie huffed. They’d agreed before the party that Ben wouldn’t drink. “I can’t drive,” Charlie said, clenching his hands into fists where they were tucked into his folded arms. “You need to be sober enough to drive.” 

“Why? Because your leg hurts?” Ben said, his voice laced with contempt. 

“I haven’t been cleared to drive–you know that! I should still be on my crutches. And who is that woman?” Charlie unfolded his arms to gesture towards the house, his frustration rising. “Why were you touching her like that?” He could hear his voice getting louder.

Ben inched closer to Charlie, his nose wrinkling into a sneer. “Why do you care who that girl is? Why shouldn’t I touch her like that?”

Charlie took a step back, creating more distance between them. “I can think of several reasons, but the most important is that I don’t think she wants you to,” he said angrily.

“You don’t think she wants me to?” Ben laughed. “Did you see the dress she was wearing?”

Charlie was speechless. The rage pounding in his head bloomed into revulsion. 

The disgust must have been clear on his face, because the oily glare in Ben’s eyes ignited into something dangerous. He rushed so suddenly into Charlie’s space that Charlie stumbled to get away from him. 

“What do you want from me, Charlie?” Ben hissed, his fingers tangling in the lapels of Charlie’s jacket as he shoved him up against the rust red brick of the house. “Isn’t it enough that I brought you here at all? What more do you want from me?”

Charlie tried to push Ben’s hands away, but Ben caught Charlie’s wrists instead, pinning them against the rough brick wall on either side of Charlie’s face. He leaned closer, shoving one leg between Charlie’s knees, and the pressure against Charlie’s right thigh shot a current of pain through him, taking his breath away. “Stop!” Charlie gasped. A few months ago, he may have been able to wrench his wrists free, but he realized with a sickening twist in his stomach how poorly he had been treating his body. How vulnerable he was.

“You’re so self-righteous; God, it’s suffocating!” Ben pressed his face close to Charlie’s, the alcohol thick on his breath. “I hate you,” he hissed. “You selfish bitch! You're just a miserable fucking fa–”

The glass door to Charlie’s right slid open.

“Hello, boys,” Jenny said as she stepped onto the porch, flicking her long hair off her shoulder with an effervescent smile.

Ben released Charlie, recoiling from him as if burned. Charlie clasped his hands in front of him to keep them from shaking.

Jenny gave no sign that she noticed the tension between Ben and Charlie. Her heels clicked on the flagstones as she drew closer. “Sorry to interrupt your conversation, I just wondered if I could borrow Charlie for a minute? It won’t take long!” She was already reaching for Charlie’s elbow.

Ben stared at her.

“Sure,” Charlie said, stepping away from the wall, letting Jenny thread her arm through his and lead them back inside. He glanced back at Ben, who was glaring daggers at them, as he slid the door shut behind him.

The kitchen seemed garishly bright and hot compared to the patio outside. Charlie followed Jenny in a daze. She had taken his hand at some point, and was leading him down a hallway. He noticed with alarm that there was a trickle of blood on the back of his hand, the skin raw from being pressed and dragged on the brick. He pulled his hand out of hers before he could get his blood on her.

“Did you need something?” Charlie asked, willing his heart to stop pounding, resisting the urge to look behind him.

Jenny glanced up at Charlie, still almost a full head shorter than him even with her dangerous looking strappy stilettos. “No,” she said. “I just needed to get you away from him. In here,” she said, opening a door.

“Oh,” Charlie said, surprised.

She followed Charlie into the room, shutting and locking the door behind her. “I followed you two into the kitchen,” she explained. “I was worried, and the door was cracked open…I heard what he was saying to you.” She twisted her hands, looking distressed.

“Oh,” was all Charlie could say again. He felt dizzy. The humiliation of knowing someone had heard Ben speak to him like that was sickening. The light was off, so it took Charlie a second to realize that they were standing in a bedroom. Neither of them moved to turn on a light.

The blond woman gestured to the bed. “Do you want to sit down? I figured we could hide in here for a bit."

Charlie hesitated a moment, then wrenched the red tie around his neck loose, pulling it over his head and dropping it onto the floor. He sank onto the bed with a sigh. “Thank you, Jenny.”

“Oh, please don’t call me that,” she said. “Ben and the other advisors call me Jenny at the office, even though I ask them not to, like, constantly. Call me Imogen.” She laughed. “That sounded like,” she deepened her voice, “‘Call me Ishmael.’”

“Ah, Moby Dick,” Charlie made finger guns at her. “I get that reference."

“I’ve never read it, actually,” she giggled again, settling into the overstuffed armchair beside the bed.

“Meh. I didn’t love it,” Charlie said. “Thank you, Imogen,” he added. 

“Just returning the favor,” she said softly.

Charlie took a deep breath and realized as a tear trickled down his cheek that he was crying. He swiped at it and laughed. “This is the worst party I’ve ever been to,” he said. He folded his arms tightly across his chest to keep himself from shaking.

“Mm,” Imogen agreed.

They sat in companionable silence, the dark a comfortable partition between them. Charlie’s heart rate slowly came down as he breathed deeply. The quiet was shattered when Charlie’s phone began to buzz. He slipped the phone out of his pocket and flipped it open.

Ben.

He turned the phone to show Imogen. They watched it ring through together, both exhaling when it stopped.

“You’re not going home with him, are you?” Imogen asked pleadingly.

Charlie shook his head no.

“Thank God,” Imogen breathed. “He’s not going to like that, though, is he?”

“No, he is not.”

Imogen moved to sit beside Charlie on the bed. “Let me take you home?” she asked, her huge blue eyes sparkling in the semi darkness. She blinked and gave a start, as if realizing what she had just said. “Shit, um, not like that,” she rushed to say. “I know you’re gay,” she said, flicking her eyes up and letting out an awkward giggle.

Charlie raised his eyebrows and chuckled.

“I mean, you’re gorgeous, but,” she babbled. “I just meant—“

“It’s okay,” Charlie cut in. “I know what you meant. I’d love a ride. Although,” he said, “I do live in Portland.”

Imogen waved her hand. “It’s not that far. I get the feeling you’d do the same for me.”

“Yeah,” Charlie smiled at her. “If it was your shitty boyfriend—or girlfriend—absolutely I would give you a ride home.”

“Oh, girlfriend! Can you imagine?” she laughed. “God, I wish I was a lesbian sometimes. Men, am I right?”

Charlie laughed. He missed Darcy suddenly; he hadn’t seen them in weeks. Charlie could imagine the face they would flash at him if they’d heard Imogen say that. It was their “gaydar” face, this sort of tight-lipped, eyebrows raised, slightly wide-eyed side eye. God, Charlie missed them. Darcy seemed to be convinced that almost every allegedly straight person they met was queer and closeted. "Gay until proven otherwise" they said.

“Do you want to leave now?” Charlie glanced at the time on his phone. “If you wanted to stay for a bit, I could just hide out here.”

Imogen was already on her feet. “No, let’s go right now!”

After some deliberation and some protests on Charlie’s part, they agreed that Imogen would scope out an exit, circle back for Charlie, and then they’d make their way out together.

When they made it outside, Charlie saw that Ben’s Audi A6 was already gone. “What a relief,” he sighed as Imogen simultaneously said, “What a jackass.” They looked at each other and laughed.

“I can’t believe he’d just leave you here with no way home. He knows you don’t know anyone here!” Imogen exclaimed. “And it’s the Friday night before Christmas. Can you imagine getting a taxi right now?” She unlocked and opened the passenger side door of her baby blue VW Beetle for Charlie.

“That’s Ben,” Charlie said. “I’m pretty sure he was drunk, too.” The car was roomier than it looked on the inside, but he winced as he adjusted his long legs to fit.

“Should we call the cops?” Imogen asked.

“I’m guessing he left when he called me. He’s probably home by now.”

“Or maybe at the bottom of the river,” Imogen quipped as she started the car.

Charlie’s heart skipped a beat, and he swallowed. 

“Are you okay, by the way? Did he hurt you?”

Charlie tucked his scraped hands under his thighs. “No,” he said. “I’m fine.”

Imogen buckled herself in and started the car, putting it in reverse. “I just noticed you’re limping–”

“Oh,” Charlie said, relaxing a little. “No, I got in an accident in September and broke my leg. Fuck! My crutches.” He rubbed his face. “Dammit.”

“Are they inside? I can–”

“No—I left them at Ben’s place.”

“Oh no.”

Charlie groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Fuck. I’m such an idiot.”

Imogen reached over and patted his arm. “You’re not an idiot, Charlie.“

He groaned and shook his head. “I’m just…You must think I’m insane.”

“I don’t think you’re insane,” she insisted. She sighed. “Okay, look,” she said, taking advantage of their stop at a red light to lock eyes with Charlie. “Being with someone like Ben doesn’t mean you’re insane. Being with someone like Ben makes you feel like you’re insane.”

Charlie frowned.

She continued, “That’s how guys like Ben work: they act like someone else to draw you in, and then they make you feel crazy and stupid to try to control you. I should know,” she said ruefully as the light changed and she looked forward again. “I’ve dated enough Bens to know that.” She glanced at Charlie. “And I know you wouldn’t call me an idiot.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“You’re not crazy, and you’re not stupid. He just wants you to believe you are. But you’re smart and strong and cool and he can fuck himself.” Imogen gave a sassy toss of her hair. 

Charlie looked out the window at the city lights reflected in the Columbia River, long streaks of wavering gold and red reaching across the black surface of the water, parted by the moving lights of a cargo barge. “Thank you, Imogen,” he said.

Imogen chatted happily the rest of the drive, content to let Charlie make the occasional listening noise as she carried the conversation. When they got to Charlie’s apartment, she parked her car and walked him up the flight of stairs to the doorway in the building’s shared hallway, her shoulder under his right arm, although Charlie did his best to walk without leaning on her. Charlie had his key in the lock when Tori opened the door.

She looked at Charlie, then at Imogen, then back at Charlie. “Where’s your crutches?” she said. “And why’s your face like that?”

Charlie’s mouth dropped open. Imogen was looking up at him, wide eyed, probably trying to discern whether she was going to be helping him lie about this.

“Ben,” Tori said, her eyes flashing. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

Imogen giggled.

Tori stared at her like she was an alien.

“I like her,” Imogen said to Charlie, oblivious or somehow impervious to Tori’s cold gaze.

Charlie said, “Imogen, this is my sister, Tori. Tori, this is Imogen. Please be nice,” he added, narrowing his eyes at Tori. “I really like her.”

“Aw, thank you,” Imogen cooed. “I like you, too, Charlie!”

Tori cocked her head and narrowed her eyes back at Charlie, her mouth tight. A Spring sibling standoff.

Charlie held eye contact long enough to hopefully establish some kind of dominance before turning to hug Imogen. “Thank you for the ride, and for looking out for me. I really appreciate it. Here, put your number in my phone,” he handed her his cell. "We should hang out again!"

She flipped it open and typed in her number before pressing call, letting it ring twice before hanging up. “There,” she handed his phone back. She waved at Tori. “Nice to meet you, Cori!”

“Tori,” Tori growled as she moved aside for Charlie to come in.

“Right, sorry! Tori!”

Tori closed the door with a snap. 

“Jesus, Tori,” Charlie said. “Why can’t you be nice to my friends?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Isaac called from the living room. “She’s very nice to me.”

Tori gave a shrug, like she was saying, There you go.

Charlie followed her into the living room, trying his best not to limp, before sitting down on the couch.

Tori sat beside him. 

Charlie took in a deep breath and let it out.

Tori tapped her fingers against her knee. “How long?” she asked.

Charlie glanced at Isaac. His face was hidden by an open book, but Charlie knew he was listening. “November.”

Tori nodded. “Did he hurt you?”

For the second time that night, Charlie moved to tuck his hands under his thighs. He swallowed and looked down. Tori’s breath hissed between her teeth. Isaac had stopped pretending that he wasn’t listening, the book lowered down into his lap. Tori blinked a few times, her eyes glassy.

“Are you done with him?” she asked, her voice tight.

Charlie nodded slowly. He was. “Yes.”

“Well done, then,” Tori said. 

Charlie nodded again, once.

“You know,” Tori said, “I would literally destroy anyone who hurt you, ever. You could just say the word and–” she snapped her fingers.

Charlie gave a wry half smile. “I know.”

“And so would this one,” Tori motioned with her head at Isaac.

Isaac raised his book like it was a glass he was cheersing with.

“I know,” Charlie said again.

There was a long pause before Tori spoke again. “I know it’s important to you to take care of things yourself,” she said softly, “but please don’t shut us out anymore.”

Charlie nodded, leaning over to wrap his arms around his sister. She waited out the embrace, tilting her head into his slightly.

Isaac stood, placing his book down. “I need a drink. An alcoholic drink. Either of you want anything?”

Tori shook her head, standing. “I need to go home."

“I’ll take one,” Charlie said.

Isaac smiled at him. “Whiskey sour?”

Charlie’s face warmed into a closed-mouthed smile. “Yes, please,” he said.

Notes:

Orphic_Catharsis is kind enough to let me lightning revise by reading chapters aloud to them, and I just had to share that when I read that part where Imogen says she wishes she were a lesbian sometimes, Orphic literally made the same face I described in the paragraph following that Darcy makes when their gaydar goes off. 😂 Thank you, as always, Orphic, for letting me read to you.

We are almost out of the angsty woods, thank god.

Your comments give me life <3

Thank you for reading my silly little story <3

xx
banana

Chapter 7: St Patrick's Day Party (part 1)

Summary:

Party time

Notes:

Not many content warnings for this one!
CW: alcohol consumption, some anxiety? lmk if I missed one

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

CHARLIE

It was early January, and Charlie was in his room, gathering a box of things that had been left by or given to him by Ben. Outside his bedroom window, the gray sky was fading to blue as slush was gathered in thick white-grey globs on the black metal of the fire escape. “Plug in Baby” was blaring on his CD player, washing the room in its bouncy bass riff and Matthew Bellamy’s nimble tenor.

I’ve exposed your lies, baby
The underneath’s no big surprise
And now it’s time for changing 
And cleansing everything

Charlie sang along with his Muse CD as he cleaned out every trace of Ben, quickly filling the cardboard box with bits of clothing and accessories. He cocked his head when he heard a thumping sound, a firm knock-knock-knock. He wondered idly if it was their neighbor knocking on the wall again. It was only 2 pm; Candace wasn’t going to make him feel bad about playing music in the middle of the day. He turned back to his task, taking a moment to lean against his desk before opening his closet door.

Don't confuse
Baby, you're gonna lose 
Your own game

The thudding came again, but louder, and behind Charlie. He turned, yelping and throwing the overpriced watch he was holding as a figure shoved open his bedroom window. They squeaked as the watch hit them in the face.

“Ow! What the fuck, Charlie?”

“Darcy?” Charlie asked, recovering slightly.

Darcy picked up the watch from where it had fallen on the bed, scowling at it before tossing it to the floor.

Charlie scooped the watch up and chucked it in the box. “Darcy, why are you climbing in my window?” 

“You didn’t answer the door,” they grumbled, crawling in from the fire escape and sliding the window shut behind them with a shiver. “I had to stand on a dumpster to pull down the–thingy.” They knelt on his bed, sweeping snow off their shoulders and shaking out their hair.

While Charlie protested that they were getting ice and mud on his clean bedding, Darcy stepped off his bed. They turned down his CD player and then crossed the floor of the small room to grab Charlie’s hand.

“Charlie, we need to talk.” They pulled him back towards the bed and then sat heavily, patting the mattress beside them.

Charlie sat, his hand still in Darcy’s. “Is everything okay?”

They shook their head, then took a deep breath. “Chuck…I want a divorce.”

Charlie grinned, clasping both of his hands around Darcy’s. “Really? Are you being serious right now?”

Darcy’s expression cracked. They nodded gleefully.

Charlie cheered. “I’m so happy for you,” he said as he wrapped his friend up in a hug. “Is it Tara? It’s Tara, isn’t it?”

Darcy’s smile was toothy and bright. “I really like her, Charlie. And she likes me back. We just…we just kissed! Like two hours ago.”

“Aw, Darcy!” Charlie hugged them again. "Tell me everything!"

 

For a few weeks after Darcy and Tara got together, Darcy wasn’t around much; Tara and Darcy were too wrapped up in the newness of their relationship to hang out with anyone else. Darcy finally brought Tara around to a movie night in mid February. And they were lovely together. Tara was friendly and mellow and calm. She was playful with Darcy while tempering their exuberance and interested in getting to know Charlie and the others in a way that Darcy’s previous love interests had not been.

Now it was March, and Charlie was at a party one of Darcy’s friends was throwing. He was squished between Darcy and Tao on a ratty couch upstairs. Elle was sitting on Tao’s lap. It was past eight, and the St Patrick’s Day party was stirring to life around them. The late nineteenth-century house they were in was eclectically decorated with a mishmash of vintage and box store used furniture, quirky paintings and amateur artwork adorning the walls. The hardwood floor was scuffed and creaky and peppered with paper shamrock confetti. The house smelled old in a way that Charlie found pleasant, like the yellowed pages of a book. Charlie liked old houses like this one: they had so much personality and history. The staircase up to where they sat was tilted and steep and winding, with a little window seat alcove and a porthole window partway up. Charlie had stopped to admire the stained glass in the transoms above the bedroom doors in the hallway between the stairs and the living room area they were now lounging in before Darcy had hustled him along from behind, wanting to snag the open couch before it was claimed.

On Charlie’s left, Tao was animatedly describing the handheld Super 16 film cinematography of The Squid and The Whale. Charlie caught a glimpse of Tao’s expression as Elle suggested they look for some film cameras to experiment with, his hands tightening marginally around his girlfriend’s waist as he stared up at her, stars in his eyes while she rattled off what thrift stores they could try downtown. She had her long legs crossed at the ankle with her back turned a little towards Charlie, and every time she leaned back, her wild mane of curls tickled the side of Charlie’s face.

On Charlie’s right, Darcy was wearing suspenders with a shimmery silk shirt the color of lime jello. They kept bouncing their leg and checking their phone.

“No Tara yet?” Charlie asked. 

Darcy ducked their head and tucked their phone back in the pocket of their jeans. “No, not yet. I don’t know why she didn’t want me to give her a ride tonight. I could have been with her like…half an hour ago.”

Charlie laughed at his friend’s impatience. “You’re all making me feel so single.”

“Hey!” Darcy slapped his arm. “Don’t worry; I’ll be your wingman!” 

“No!” Charlie groaned. “Never again, Darcy, please.”

“No, this is a great distraction! Let’s find you a fella.” They scanned the room, which had a few other pockets of people chatting and laughing, the music that rose thumping through the floor from downstairs muffled enough to allow for conversation. “What’s your type? What’s your ideal man like?”

Charlie sighed. “I don’t know that I can afford to be picky, to be honest.”

“Can’t afford to be picky, give me a break! Even my lesbian ass can see that you’re unbearably good-looking. Amiright? Elle,Tao?”

“What?” Tao leaned back further in the couch to look around Charlie as well as Elle’s bouncy afro.

“Is Charlie hot?” Darcy asked, a little louder.

“Oh, so hot ,” Elle and Tao said in unison.

Charlie shook his head, laughing. 

Darcy gave Charlie a big told you so look and thumped his shoulder with their fist. “So: dream man. Let’s do this. Hit me.”

Charlie tucked his feet in closer to the couch as a couple walked past. “I don’t know. Just…someone kind. Someone who likes spending time with me. A guy I can laugh with.”

Elle twisted to give Charlie a quick hug around the shoulders. “Aw,” she said.

“Sure, yes, adorable, but!” Darcy waved their hand, “What would he look like?”

Charlie shrugged. “I’d probably just settle for someone tall.”

Darcy’s phone buzzed. They snapped it open. “Tara’s here!” They stood. “I’m going to go find her! Do you want to come with me?” they asked Charlie.

“Naw. Just come find us later.”

“Okay! I will!” Darcy jumped up. “And I’ll find you a tall guy!” they shouted behind them as they dashed towards the stairs.

Charlie shook his head and laughed. 

As Darcy disappeared down the stairs, Imogen bounded up. Her blond hair was scooped up in two pigtails, each woven with shimmery green ribbon.

She grabbed Elle’s hands, the two girls cooing over each other’s outfits before Imogen put her hands on her hips. “Who wants to play beer pong with me? Boys against girls?”

 

NICK

The mid-March weather outside was cold and misty, and for the millionth time in the last six months, Nick wished he had his carhartt jacket. The green hoody he was wearing was thick, but it didn’t keep out the wet cold the way his old canvas jacket had. Tara mocked him constantly for his stubbornness in not replacing it, but he had this strange sense that he’d find it again if he was patient, and getting a new one would jinx it somehow. 

Nick slipped his truck keys in the pocket of his jeans and joined Tara on the sidewalk. He scanned the neighborhood they were in. Late 19th century homes lined the street on either side, some fixed up with orderly yards and fresh paint, others shabby and overgrown. The house they were headed to was somewhere in between; a sort of cheerful and lived in looking mess. The Queen Anne revival architecture included a large covered porch, a turret, and a porthole window. The roof of the house was still edged in Christmas lights even though Easter was only a month away, and the blinking multicolor bulbs haloed slightly in the misty air, making the house a strange rainbow beacon, music spilling out as the front door opened and shut. Nick felt like he was crossing a sort of barrier as they stepped up the walkway. His curiosity shifted to nervousness, and he took a deep bracing breath of the cold spring air.

Tara put her phone in her pocket. “I just texted Darcy to ask them to meet us outside. That way you can meet them before we go in.”

Nick nodded. He could already feel the soft thrum of bass in his chest, and he tried to press down his rising apprehension at being in a crowded and loud environment indefinitely. He tucked his hands in his pockets and tried to put a smile on his face. 

“You nervous?” Tara said.

“Not to meet Darcy,” he answered. “I’m just excited. I can’t believe you’ve already been together two months and I’ve still never met them!”

“I know!” Tara exclaimed. “I’m so excited, too! Are you nervous about the party, though?”

“I’ll be alright! I am glad you invited me."

“Okay,” Tara said, scanning his face with narrowed eyes. “But if you end up hating it, we can go at any time! I know you don’t love big parties. I just want you to meet Darcy.”

Nick opened his mouth to reply when someone burst out the front door, jumped from the top step of the porch to the walkway below in one bound, and half tackled Tara from behind, knocking her into Nick’s chest.

“Tara!” they shouted, spinning her around. “You’re here!” They burrowed their way through Tara’s braids to press their nose and lips against her neck, smacking a kiss on her skin.

“Darcy!” Tara laughed, embracing her girlfriend. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

Darcy craned their head to look over their shoulder, refusing at first to release their python grip on Tara. Their hair was cut into a shaggy pixie mullet that was bleached lighter at the tips, and in the dim light, seemed to Nick to be dyed lime green. They were wearing blue jeans and suspenders with an offensively bright green top underneath and converse laced with neon shoestrings.

“Darcy, this is my long time best friend, Nicholas Nelson,” Tara said, gesturing at Nick.

Nick gave an awkward little wave and crooked smile. “Hi,” he said.

Darcy released their hold on Tara, turning their body to face Nick properly, sizing him up. “Nicholas Fucking Nelson,” they drawled. “We meet at last.”

Nick chuckled nervously. “Just Nick is fine.”

They sauntered over, throwing up one arm invitingly. Nick cocked his head, confused, and then realized they were going in for a side hug. Not his first choice for hug alignment, but sure. He let Darcy sling their arm across his shoulders, bending a little so the angle was less awkward and patting them on the back.

They kept their arm over his shoulder as they turned towards the front door. “Okay, ‘Just Nick’! I have so many people to introduce you to, my guy. Come get acquainted with the local goths and gays!”

“Oh, Darcy,” Tara said as she caught the flicker of alarm as it flashed across Nick’s face. “Let’s go easy on him, okay? Not too many people at once?”

Darcy glanced up at Nick.

He blushed a little. “It’s fine! I’m good. I’m cool.”

Darcy smiled knowingly at Tara. “He’s not cool, is he?”

“He’s really not cool,” Tara laughed.

“What, are you guys going to just bully me all night?” Nick protested indignantly. “I’m a very cool guy!”

“Nick, you have no chill,” Tara said.

Darcy laughed aloud, jostling Nick, who was still stuck under their arm.

“Alright, fine. Let’s meet all the people,” Nick laughed. Being teased by friends was easy compared to being smothered by his own nervous brain, and he felt some of his anxiety fade as the two lesbians practically frog-marched him up the steps into the party. He could lean into the distraction of gentle mocking from Tara and her girlfriend. This is fine, he told himself.

And for the most part, it was.  The next hour was a blur of new faces and loud music. Darcy introduced Nick and Tara first to the hosts of the party, a bubbly goth girl named Rose and her grim partner, Orin. Rose and Orin’s roommates and co-hosts Shelby and Delaney were next. Then there was a whole string of people whose names Nick did not catch on account of the loud music shaking the floor as Darcy dragged them from one corner of the house to another. Darcy seemed to know everyone.

Eventually they ran into Isaac, who they found curled up in the pantry with a bag of Doritos and a tattered looking novel when Darcy opened the door thinking it led to a side room. Nick made an effort to memorize Isaac’s name and face. He seemed like he’d be a fun person to hole up with somewhere quiet at parties like this; he was friendly and curious, but he also returned to his book before they’d even left the cramped closet of the pantry again, obviously content to ignore them in favor of his book. Darcy said something as they re-emerged into the kitchen about Isaac’s roommate, Buck or something like that, being around here somewhere, but Nick didn’t quite catch it all as, somewhere towards the back of the house, there was a loud chant of “Tao! Tao! Tao!” followed by a drawn out, “Nooooo,” and some laughter.

Tara caught the overwhelm on Nick’s face as Darcy started to pull him towards the dining room.

“Let’s stay in the kitchen for a minute and make some drinks!” she suggested, giving Nick’s elbow a reassuring squeeze. 

He smiled grimly at her. The kitchen was the quietest room they’d been in so far, but they still had to speak up a little to hear each other. Nick was glad that he’d declined Darcy’s offer of vodka in his drink as he watched Darcy pour what must have been three whole shots into Tara’s cup.

“Whoops!” they laughed as Tara shouted her protest.

They stood in the kitchen for a while, Nick struggling to hear Darcy as they described meeting Tara for the first time. While he missed some of their words, his heart warmed at the way Tara was looking at Darcy. She had this mix of awe and adoration mingled sometimes with playful exasperation as Darcy exaggerated wildly, gesticulating with their hands and using silly voices to imitate the side characters in their larger-than-life coffee-shop meet-cute. Tara had dated a few men in the time that Nick had known her, but Nick had never seen her look at anyone like that. She looked so content and enamored, and seeing her affection written so plainly on her face made Nick feel like a sun was setting warm and golden orange inside his rib cage.

Eventually Darcy turned from their monologue to a series of questions for Nick. He felt his anxiety creeping in as he made them repeat themself, struggling to hear, then raising his own voice to answer over the noise bleeding in from the surrounding rooms. Darcy’s questions ranged from mundane, like what his favorite movie was (The Bourne Supremacy) and who his favorite band was (Darcy gave up waiting as Nick struggled to decide between Fleetwood Mac and The Cranberries), and unhinged questions, like if he woke up as a doughnut, would he eat himself?

“I’ve never really thought about that,” Nick said loudly. “Would you?”

“Yes!” Darcy said. “Okay, next question. Would you break Tara out of jail?”

“Would I break Tara out of jail?” Nick repeated to be sure he’d heard right.

They nodded vigorously as they took another swallow of their drink.

“Hell yeah, I’d break Tara out of jail. There’s no way she’d ever do anything to deserve being in prison.”

“My man,” Darcy gave Nick an enthusiastic high five. “Oh shoot,” they stared at their own arm. “I had a reminder,” they pointed at the smudged ink on their wrist.

“For what?” Nick asked.

They squinted. “Eggs,” they read. “Homophobia eggs for my friend, Ben.”

Tara and Nick exchanged glances, Tara shrugging. Darcy’s face looked so murderous when they said “Ben,” Nick had the feeling Ben wasn’t a friend at all.

“Do you have a pen?” Darcy asked as they patted their own pockets. “I don’t want to forget.”

Nick set his lemonade on a nearby counter and began emptying his pockets. “Why do I get the impression that if you were to go to jail, you’d absolutely be guilty?” Nick laughed as he set his keys, wallet, and phone on the counter. “I used to carry a fountain pen everywhere,” he said, “but I don’t know if I have one on me right now.”

Darcy cocked their head at him. “You what?”

Tara said something about pockets and misogyny as Nick pulled a few receipts, a half empty pack of bubblegum, and finally, a ballpoint pen out of his deep jeans pockets. He held the pen out to Darcy, but they were staring at the pack of gum on the countertop.

They pointed, “Can I have a piece of that?”

“Sure,” Nick said. “Here.” He laughed at their serious expression as he handed them a cube of gum.

They turned the piece over in their hands. “Bubble Yum. No fucking way.” They peered at Nick’s face. “Freckles,” they said.

“What?”

“It’s you! I found you. You’re the guy!”

Nick spread his hands. “Yes?”

“You’re the guy that helped Charlie at the scene of the accident!” Darcy exclaimed.

Tara looked up from where she was pouring more lemonade into her drink. “What?”

“Oh,” Nick felt his smile slip. He took in a sharp breath, a familiar and painful feeling of sadness and dread hitting his stomach. “Yeah. You knew Charlie Spring?” he asked.

“Nick– you know Charlie Spring?” Tara asked, brow furrowed, as Darcy scoffed, “ Knew him? Charlie Spring is my best friend! I’ve got to–” they set their drink down, sloshing it over the counter.

“I–I’m so sorry,” Nick said, swallowing the dull ache in his throat. “Darcy–”

“Hold on!” Darcy shouted, dashing out of the kitchen.

Nick bit his lip, staring at the doorway Darcy had left through. Darcy had known Charlie. He had not anticipated meeting someone who had known Charlie. His chest felt tight; his stomach was lead. The noise of the party surged oppressively around him. Should he leave? He didn’t feel like he could stay. He couldn’t stay. He needed to go–

“Nick,” Tara squeezed Nick’s arm. “Nick, hey–”

He looked down at Tara, realizing she’d been saying his name and trying to get his attention.

She gazed up at him, her eyes wide. “Was Charlie Spring the guy who was in that motorcycle accident in September? After you got back from California?”

Nick nodded. “Tara, I’m sorry. I–”

“No, Nick,” Tara said, grabbing his arm again. “Nick–Charlie’s alive!”

Notes:

ee - a cliffhanger!

So the next chapter is drafted, as well as most of the two chapters after that, which means the next few updates will come a bit faster than the (shudder) month-long gap between this chapter and the last. Thanks so much for reading and for being patient with me.

xx
banana

Chapter 8: St Patrick's Day Party (part 2)

Summary:

Darcy introduces Charlie to someone tall

Notes:

CW: alcohol, conversation about medical trauma, past character death mention. I haven't mentioned this before, but, uh, lot's of swearing?

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

CHARLIE

Charlie was sitting on a different couch downstairs, music vibrating in his chest as he fiddled with a loop of loose threads on the torn knees of his black skinny jeans. Tao and Elle were dancing in the crowd in front of him, and Elle and Charlie laughed as Tao put on a show, bumping his hips in time to the beat, long arms arched over his head.

“Chuck!” 

Charlie looked around at the sound of his nickname, finding Darcy. They spotted him at the same time from across the room and began barreling through the crowd of people between them. Charlie laughed at the expressions of the people in Darcy’s wake, Rose putting up an affectionately annoyed middle finger after an oblivious Darcy bumped into her, spilling her drink.

“Hey, Darcy,” Charlie called as Darcy burst through the mob of dancers. “What’s—oh!” he said as his friend hauled him to his feet. He wobbled a little, feeling the warm fuzz of the alcohol in his blood. Tao made a terrible beer pong partner. 

“I found him!” Darcy shouted. “Oh my god! He’s here! Can you run? No, that’s stupid. Just—hurry!”

“What’s going on?” Charlie laughed as Darcy began to drag him away. “Found who?”

Darcy didn’t answer, a determined expression on their face. They pulled him down the hall, through the dining room, plowing through crowds of people with Charlie stumbling in their wake.

“Darcy!” Charlie huffed in protest. Then they stepped through the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, and then Charlie saw him.

Holy fuck, he was more beautiful than Charlie remembered, and taller—probably an inch or two taller than Charlie. His cozy looking green sweatshirt and dark wash jeans were tight in all the right places, the color of the hoodie complimenting the reddish tint of his hair. His hair was straight and fell in a soft curtain across his forehead, which was creased in a devastated expression. Tara was standing there, at his elbow, saying something to him, and Charlie watched as his expression shifted from sad to confused to surprised, looking up as Darcy dragged Charlie into the room.

“Chuck, this is Nicholas Nelson!” Darcy exclaimed triumphantly. “Nick, you know Charlie?” They bounced up and down on the balls of their feet, looking from Nick to Charlie to Nick like they were watching a tennis match.

Nicholas Nelson. What a fucking perfect name, Charlie thought, blushing at his friend’s antics and feeling off balance. This was the one real weakness of their friendship; Darcy loved theatrics and Charlie hated surprises. Charlie gave a little wave, feeling the heat of his blush and planning ways to get his revenge on Darcy later.

As Nick stared at Charlie, Darcy grabbed Tara’s elbow, making eyebrows at Charlie from behind Nick’s back as they pulled their girlfriend out of the room. Tall! they mouthed at him, pointing at Nick. Nick didn’t seem to notice their leaving at all. He kept staring at Charlie, the surprise on his face melting into something like relief, his eyes bright.

“Hi,” Charlie said. It came out breathier than he meant it to. Darcy did just drag him across the whole house. It didn’t have anything to do with the annoyingly handsome man standing in front of him, looking at him like that.

“Hi,” Nick answered softly, his voice incredulous, his eyebrows raised in what must have been either a worried or a hopeful expression. Maybe both. They stood alone in the empty kitchen, looking at each other, just a foot or two of space between them. Then Nick moved suddenly towards Charlie, reaching around his shoulders and pulling him into a tight hug.

Charlie stiffened at the unexpected embrace, overwhelmed by the smell and feel of Nick . He could feel his own heartbeat in his chest, and he was sure with how tight he was hugging him, Nick could feel it, too.

“I’m sorry,” Nick said over Charlie’s shoulder, his arms still wrapped snug around him. The noise from the party was loud, but with their proximity, Charlie could both hear and feel Nick’s voice, a gentle rumble that made Charlie’s insides melt like chocolate. “I shouldn’t just—is this okay?“ Nick asked. ”I’m just so glad—”

“This is okay,” Charlie answered as he relaxed marginally, reaching around Nick’s waist to link his hands, dizzy with the way that Nick’s chest felt pressed against his, the way Nick’s warmth sunk into his bones, the way Nick was curling his slightly larger frame around Charlie, like he needed this hug. The embrace was strong and firm but so, so soft. Nick’s smell was fresh and woodsy and familiar from where Charlie’s chin sat on the top of his shoulder, his cheek brushing Nick’s ear, and Charlie had to resist the urge to straight up sniff him like a candle. 

“I’m just so glad you are okay,” Nick murmured.

“You didn’t know I was okay?” Charlie asked after a few more blissful heartbeats of melting into Nick’s chest.

Nick pulled away, his hands lingering on Charlie’s shoulders, and Charlie dropped his hands to his sides. The air that slipped in between them felt cool and empty, and Charlie instantly missed the feeling of Nick’s embrace, his gay heart fracturing into sharp little iridescent shards inside his chest with a soft crunch.

“I didn’t know,” Nick said. “Oh my god, I’m so glad. And you’re walking , even!” He laughed, as if he was just that fucking delighted to see Charlie on his feet, and the joy in his expression made Charlie laugh, too, and his little gay heart knit back up again, healed up and ready for more of whatever Nick Nelson was willing to give. 

I’m in danger, Charlie thought, his tipsiness a pleasant buzz between his ears as he grinned back at Nick. “This is my first time out without my crutches, actually,” he managed, which was true enough. He didn’t feel like the Christmas party should count. He was feeling really proud of himself for not losing the thread of the conversation or his ability to speak entirely in spite of his very distracting gay panic and the icky amount of beer swirling in his stomach. Nick was smiling at him, and Charlie just wanted to cuddle up in the warmth of it. He felt so glad to be alive. “Nick, I wanted to thank you,” he said. “You saved my life.”

Nick dropped his hands from Charlie’s shoulders and blushed, the pink spreading across the apples of his cheeks. “Oh, uh. It’s not–um. You're welcome.” He didn't seem to know what to do with himself, looking down and reaching across his chest to rub the back of his neck.

Charlie pinched his lips together to avoid grinning. This bashful Nick was different from first-aid Nick, who was all confident and bossy and sexy and annoying. This Nick was flustered and adorable and sexy and not at all annoying. Charlie both wanted to tousle his perfect hair and tease him relentlessly, like he had been hit with some very specific kind of cute aggression for tall, built, bashful gingers.

“Do you mind…” Nick’s brow furrowed. “Can we find somewhere quieter and chat for a bit?”

“Sure, that’d be fine,” Charlie said, nice and casual. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

Nick took Charlie’s wrist, his grip firm but gentle, and led him out of the kitchen and into the crowd in the dining room. Charlie was so focused on the place where Nick’s warm hand connected with his, their palms brushing lightly as they wove through the party, his own fingers skimming Nick’s wrist and the cuff of his hoodie, that he didn’t even realize where they were headed until the cold damp of the outside air hit his face.

“Thanks,” Nick said as he released Charlie’s hand and walked toward a porch swing to the left of the front door. He sat down with a sigh, smiling up at Charlie. “I could barely hear myself think.” 

Charlie took a deep breath of the cold air, trying to clear his mind before following Nick to the hanging swing, sitting beside him. ”Do you know how Darcy recognized you?” he asked curiously.

“I don’t. They just asked me for a piece of gum.”

Charlie held out his hand, palm up with the back of his hand resting on Nick’s knee.

Nick looked down curiously, then up at Charlie’s face. “You want….?”

“Let’s see the gum,” Charlie said with a little wiggle of his fingers.

“Oh,” Nick said, reaching into his pocket.

“What did you think I wanted?” Charlie laughed. Because whatever it is, I probably do.

Nick placed a cube of gum in his outstretched hand. He was blushing again. He shrugged and shook his head.

Charlie turned the gum over in his hand. “Bubble Yum,” he read, clicking his tongue between his teeth. Charlie handed the gum back.

“You don’t want it?” Nick asked as he took it.

“No, Nick,” Charlie scoffed. “I don’t want a piece of bubblegum.”

“Why not?” Nick laughed.

“Because I’m not an actual child!”

Nick shook his head, still smiling, and put the gum back in his pocket. “So how did Darcy…?”

“I have your coat.”

Nick cocked his head. “What?”

“You left your coat at the scene of the accident? The police gave it to me. I have it,” Charlie said.

“My Carhartt jacket?” Nick asked, his voice pitching up slightly in excitement .

Adorable. “Yeah.”

“The tan one?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that how—“

“Yeah. You had a bubble gum wrapper in the pocket.”

“Oh,” Nick was smiling. “I see.”

Charlie nodded, kicking his toes against the porch to start the swing in motion. His shoulder was tingling where it was rubbing against Nick’s.

“Can I have it back?” Nick asked.

“The gum wrapper?” Charlie asked innocently, looking at Nick through his lashes.

Nick snorted and bumped his shoulder against Charlie’s.

Charlie grinned. “Maybe someday. You also had a dog biscuit in there. Do you have a dog?”

Charlie was really feeling the alcohol now. It buzzed lightly behind his eyes and down his arms, warm and pleasant. Nick looked so handsome in the dim light of the street lamps and string lights and moonlight, the smattering of freckles on his face, the softness of his hair, falling sometimes a little in his eyes as he talked affectionately about his dog. Charlie kept wanting to reach up and brush his hair off his face for him, out of his warm brown eyes. 

They chatted about childhood pets, and where they both grew up, and their families. Charlie learned that Nick had one older brother who passed away when he was a teenager. He watched as that sad crease reappeared between Nick’s eyebrows, and clasped his hands together in his lap to resist the urge to reach up and smooth it out with his thumb. Nick looked unfairly pretty when he was sad. 

After a moment, Nick schooled his face into a neutral expression and bumped his shoulder softly against Charlie’s again. “Do you have siblings?” he asked.

“I’ve got an older sister, Tori, and a younger brother, Olly.”

“Oh. It’s funny,” Nick said, looking out into the yard. “The night of the accident, I assumed Tori was your wife.”

Charlie snorted. “No. Tori’s my sister. I’m not married.” And I’m very gay.

“Did the hospital call her? That night? When you were in surgery?”

Charlie cocked his head. “I always assumed you called? She was there when I woke up, so someone called at some point.”

Nick frowned, looking at his hands. The crease was back, along with a grim tightness to his lips. “I’m really sorry—I should have. I told you I would. I just knew…she would ask if you were going to make it out of surgery, and I couldn’t…lie to her. I thought you were already gone. I’m sorry.”

“Nick,” Charlie said softly. He put his hand on Nick’s knee. “No sorry's. It’s okay. I’m fine. It all worked out.”

Nick looked in surprise at Charlie’s hand, before covering it with his own and giving Charlie’s fingers a squeeze. He swallowed and nodded.

Charlie blinked, noticing the freckles on the sculpted looking planes of Nick’s strong, warm hand. Freckles on his fingers. Goosebumps raced up his arm under the sleeves of his sweater and he clicked his teeth together to resist a shudder. 

Nick took in a breath. “The last time I saw you, you were in the operating room.”

Charlie’s heart sank at the tone of Nick’s voice. He rubbed a small circle on Nick’s knee with his thumb.

“You’d been coding for a few minutes,” Nick continued. He closed his mouth for a moment, his jaw tightening. “I don’t know what happened after…,” he trailed off. “I, uh, got pulled out of the operating wing by a nurse when they were still trying to bring you back, but…” he paused again, his eyes flickering up to Charlie’s. “Yeah. I thought you were gone.” He took another deep breath. “I’ve seen people succumb to hypovolemic shock pretty fast. Working in trauma, it’s probably the most common fatal complication I see, someone bleeding out. But you just kept fighting it and fighting it. I was amazed that you even made it to the hospital. That ride was just… so, so long.”

Nick had not moved his hand yet from where it was resting on Charlie’s, and it was making Charlie’s hand warm and tingly. Charlie wished he could pour comfort and reassurance to Nick from where their hands were connected, that he could focus all his gratitude and his sense of safety into the touch and sooth the worry and grief out of Nick’s voice.

”I hoped you’d pull through, but…” Nick’s frown deepened. “It was taking so long to get a line started and then you crashed. I thought we’d missed our chance.”

“Well, I’m here,” Charlie said.

Nick squeezed Charlie's fingers again. "Yeah."

“You asked me to hang on, and I did.” Charlie's heart stuttered in his chest as he met Nick’s eyes. He felt a blush rising in his cheeks, but he kept his eyes locked on Nick’s warm brown ones anyway.

Nick broke eye contact first, looking down at his lap with a smile. “I think that I've been carrying a lot of regret about that night. You don’t know how much of a relief it is to see you. You look so…good.”

Charlie’s heart flipped in his chest, a whirlwind of butterflies churning in his stomach. Nick’s sincerity and openness was dizzying. Overwhelmed suddenly, he slipped his hand out from under Nick’s, giving his knee a quick parting squeeze before returning his hand to his own lap and looking out across the yard, the blinking lights casting a multicolored glow over everything. The trees were still bare, but a few bushes were budding, and there were tulips poking up in the flower bed in front of them, pearls of condensation slipping down moonlit edges to settle in the shadows between the uncurling, slender leaves. They sat quietly for a few moments, muffled sounds of music coming from the house behind them.

Charlie leaned back in the swing so his spine was pressed against the wooden slats in the back. “You said that you work in trauma?” he asked.

“I’m a paramedic,” Nick answered. “Or, I was. I’m an arborist now.”

“An arborist? Like you take care of trees?”

“Yeah,” Nick nodded.

“That’s a big switch,” Charlie said.

“I worked in fire and ambulance for years, and on fire lines as a feller. I’ll probably fight wildfires again this year, but I haven’t decided for sure yet.”

“Oh,” Charlie said. Imagining Nick as a hotshot was both sexy and instantly stressed him out. He felt this protective urge to talk him out of ever fighting a fire again. He stuffed that down. “What made you decide to change careers?”

“Um,” Nick paused, his brow furrowed. He looked straight ahead, like he was searching for something.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t—”

“No, I don’t mind. I’m just trying to think of the best way to explain it.”

“Okay,” Charlie said. He looked ahead as well, kicking his toes against the porch to start the swing swaying again.

Nick let out a sigh. “So I have panic disorder and some post traumatic stress. Last year it got pretty bad, and I just…needed something less intense.”

“Hm,” Charlie said. “That sounds hard.”

“Yep." 

When Charlie glanced at him, Nick was studying his hands, frowning again. “Are you in therapy?” Charlie asked. He winced. “Sorry, that’s none of my business.”

The corner of Nick’s mouth quirked up in a smile. “So nosy,” he said, bumping Charlie's knee with his own. “Yeah, I am.”

“Nice,” Charlie said, grinning. “Me, too.” He was surprised as he said it, not sure if it was Nick or the alcohol that was making him feel so open and at ease.

Nick glanced up, surprised. “You’re in therapy?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “I’ve got…stuff. Therapy helps.” He shrugged. “We all need help with our shit.”

“Hm,” Nick said. “I’m trying to get better at accepting help.”

Charlie sighed. “Yeah, me too.”

They rocked slowly on the swing in silence for a moment before Nick spoke up again. “What do you do for work?”

Charlie folded his arms against the chill. “I’m a grad student,” he said. “Or, well. I’ve been on hiatus because of the accident. But I’ll be teaching a little bit of English at the university this summer, and then I’ll be teaching and taking classes again in the fall.”

“You’re studying English?”

“Creative writing.”

“Oh wow!” Nick grinned. “You’re such a nerd! What do you write?”

Charlie scoffed. “I am not a nerd. I write creative nonfiction and poetry, mostly.”

Nick's eyes sparkled. “Mm yeah, kind of sounds like you’re a nerd.”

“Shut up.” Charlie gave Nick’s shin a soft kick with the toe of his converse. 

“Ow!”

Their conversation turned back to lighter topics, and they slowly loosened up again, turning slightly in the swing to face each other, elbows and knees and shoulders knocking into each other’s as they laughed together.

Charlie wondered, as the party inside swelled and died down and grew louder again without them, and the moon crept slowly across the sky, if he was reading things right: the way Nick was looking at him, the way they seemed drawn together, their shoulders brushing, the way Nick kept touching him, smacking Charlie’s leg with the back of his hand when Charlie said something inappropriate, his fingertips tapping Charlie’s knee impatiently as he waited for Charlie to calm down from a fit of laughter over something Nick was in the middle of saying and hadn’t had a chance yet to finish. They just kept touching, and every touch made Charlie’s nerves light up, fizzy excitement crawling like lightning up to his heart.

They were arguing about something silly, a theory about Lost or the best companion so far in Doctor Who or something, when Charlie caught himself glancing down at Nick’s lips. 

Because the thing was…Nick’s goddamn fucking beautiful lips. Every time Nick’s face broke out in a dazzling smile, or he laughed, or—god forbid—Charlie said something teasing and he fucking pouted ! Charlie couldn’t stop looking at Nick’s lips.

And as they laughed, leaning towards each other, and Charlie glanced from Nick’s eyes to his mouth to his eyes, questioning, and Nick smiled crookedly at him, it seemed like Nick’s eyes got darker, and he looked at Charlie’s mouth, too, and they were leaning towards each other, and Charlie’s hand found Nick’s knee again, and godfuckingdammit if the mystery number of red-solo-cup lukewarm flat beers Charlie had downed were not still making him feel more than a little brave and this stunning man beside him was not making him feel more than a little dizzy, and he tilted his face towards Nick’s, like 62% of the way there, which is more than half, which is a lot, okay? and he waited there for a moment, trying to read Nick’s expression before, heart racing, he took a little breath and murmured a question. 

“Would you kiss me?”

Nick looked at Charlie’s mouth and then his eyes, the blush fading out of his cheeks. His lips parted slightly and his eyes widened. “Would I…?” He echoed, and tucked his lower lip under his teeth, but not in a good way. He shook his head, just a tiny little no that crushed that hopeful thrumming in Charlie’s chest. Fuck.

Nick leaned away from Charlie, and Charlie recoiled as well, startled by the sudden shift in the energy between them.

“I—I’m not gay—“ Nick said as Charlie spoke over the top of him, “I’m so sorry!”

Charlie stood, a little wobbly. He was mortified. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

”Not that it’s bad or wrong to be—Charlie—“ Nick started, reaching for his hand but missing it as Charlie raised his hands to run his fingers through the short curly hair around his ears to the back of his head in distress.

“Uh! It was so nice to meet you again,” Charlie said, the words tumbling out of his mouth. “And to, uh, chat. I’m really sorry I read that wrong.” He gave a wild laugh. He was covering most of his forehead and his eyes with one hand. He couldn’t even look at Nick. Covering his face made his balance worse, and Nick caught Charlie’s arm as he tipped again. “God, I think I’m still a little drunk,” Charlie whispered as he straightened up, horrified. “I’m so sorry!”

“That’s okay!” Nick said. “That’s alright! I’m sorry that I—um—well—just…sorry.” He blushed furiously, leaning forward again in the swing to catch Charlie’s hand as he turned to go. “Wait, Charlie.”

Charlie looked down at their joined hands and felt a twinge of annoyance. Like, of course, not annoyed that Nick didn’t want to kiss him. Charlie didn’t want to kiss anyone who didn’t want to kiss him back; he wasn’t an asshole. But what the fuck? Was Nick really not feeling that? The surge of electricity between them? How could he not feel that? Then he looked up at Nick’s face, and those fucking puppy dog eyes, and there you go. Little gay heart knitting right back up again.

”Can we be friends?” Nick asked. Like they were fucking seven years old.

“What?” Charlie blinked at Nick. 

“Please?” 

Those eyes, ugh. Charlie took a deep breath in, filling his lungs with the cold March air, willing his body to sober up long enough to deal with this painfully embarrassing interaction.

He located the shame in his body and tucked it in a special place just under his diaphragm to be exorcized later when he was several hours into a bout of insomnia and needed something truly humiliating to keep him up for a few more hours. 

He pulled his hand out of Nick’s, missing the feel of Nick’s skin against his immediately, and folded his arms over his chest, straightening up his spine and mustering a haughty smirk, slipping it on like a mask. He pretended to consider. “ Maybe we could be friends. I could, you know, bring it before the council,” he shrugged. “But before you go to the trouble, you should know that if you think being my friend will help you get your jacket back, you’re dreaming.”

Nick's face shifted from a worried expression into his signature lopsided smile. He clicked his tongue. “Aw, darn. Maybe not, then.”

They smiled at each other stupidly for a second, the tension melting a little at its jagged edges, the cold spring air shifting between them, ruffling Nick’s auburn hair.

“I actually am really embarrassed,” Charlie said after a beat. “So I’m gonna go. But we can be friends. Just give me a bit to…recover, okay?”

Nick rested his elbows on his knees, his hands knit together. “So like a couple minutes, or…?”

Charlie barked out a laugh. “Jesus.” He walked away, shaking his head, hyper aware of the warmth of Nick’s eyes on his back as he stepped back into the crowded indoors.

Notes:

These last two chapters were so difficult for me to write. Whew! I'd love to know what you're thinking. Leave me a comment! & thank you for being here and reading! <3

xx
banana

Chapter 9: But you don't know what he means to me, Jolene

Summary:

In which Sarah, Darcy, and Isaac (at least) all probably know what Charlie means to Nick, even if Nick does not.
From St Patrick's Day, to April bonfire, to July.

Notes:

CW: homophobia, drinking, & a little bit of medical drama, which makes this chapter sound so much more angsty than I think it is.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Nick watched Charlie go, then dropped his face into his hands and groaned. Merde. What just happened? He stood and stepped off the porch. Their position on the swing had sheltered Nick and Charlie from the worst of the cold, but Nick shrugged his shoulders up against the nippy spring breeze as he left the yard to walk around the block, running his hands through his hair.

Earlier, when Tara told Nick that Charlie was alive, Nick hardly had time to register the meaning of her words before Darcy had dragged a puzzled looking Charlie into the kitchen and the two were face to face again for the first time in six months. 

Charlie was wearing a leather jacket. Nick would have guessed it was the same leather jacket that he was wearing at the scene of the accident, only this one had some sort of embroidery over the shoulder and arm: a golden yellow swirling pattern, like smoke, twisting from the right shoulder to curl around his elbow and up his forearm. He had on a dark tee shirt underneath—a band shirt, Nick would guess, although Nick could only see a sliver between the asymmetrical lapels of the jacket. Charlie was wearing black skinny jeans with rips at the knees and all black hi top converse, and the black on black on black made him look slim and long and lithe. His hair was cut short around his ears and in the back, his longer soft dark ringlets falling artfully across his forehead, threatening to obscure his blue eyes. He looked so fucking cool. Intimidatingly cool.

But what caught Nick’s attention and held it was the blush of pink in Charlie’s cheeks and lips as Charlie waved at him. Nick felt his heart stutter in his chest, and maybe he said hi back? but he couldn’t be sure, he was so entranced. It was like seeing a ghost, only maybe the opposite, actually. Charlie just looked so alive. Nick was surprised, but the peace and relief that chased that surprise flooded his whole body, soothing away a pain he had not even realized he’d been carrying, he’d grown so used to the ache of it.

Without even thinking, he had pulled Charlie into a tight hug, and felt Charlie’s warmth, the intake of his breath, and his heart beating against Nick’s chest, steady and strong. Nick had to blink back tears as he choked out an apology for the unsolicited contact, but he just couldn’t help but hold him for a moment, the even rhythm of Charlie’s heartbeat anchoring him to this wonderful and strange new reality where the person he met and felt instantly so connected to last September didn’t in fact die on the operating room table from hypovolemic shock but was standing here in front of him, patiently letting Nick hang on him while his brain caught up.

Charlie looked a little dazed as Nick held him at arm’s length to look at him again, one dimple showing up as he half smiled at Nick, and Nick could have teared up again at the sight of it. He laughed instead, the joy bubbling up inside him. 

Before long, Nick was dragging Charlie through the muggy, crowded, semi-darkness to the cool relief of the outdoor air so he could actually talk to him properly.

As they talked, Nick felt that same glow of familiarity that he had the first time he’d seen Charlie’s face. It was that feeling of seeing someone familiar and important to you after not seeing them for a long time. Like, hello! yes! finally! there you are! Nick wished he understood where that feeling was coming from. Even more, he wished he knew if Charlie felt the same way, like they could be best friends, even though they had really only just met.

Talking with Charlie was both easy and terrifying. He was wickedly funny and smart. Nick had felt like he could hardly keep up, and even as Charlie leaned against him, laughing at something dorky Nick said, Nick realized he was terrified that Charlie would slip through his fingers again. He kept worrying that Charlie would politely end their conversation and leave, especially after Nick spilled all his feelings about the accident. 

Bordel de merde, Nicholas. You’re such a mess, Nick cringed as he recalled that part of their conversation. 

But Charlie was gracious and comforting and kind and reassuring and Nick didn’t even deserve to be friends with someone like Charlie, really.

Especially when Charlie had given him that intense look, and Nick felt that draw to move closer to him, feeling a heavy inevitability, like gravity, pulling him into Charlie’s orbit, and Charlie took in a little breath like he wanted to say something, and when he did, Nick couldn’t help but glance at Charlie’s mouth as he waited for him to say whatever he was on the verge of saying, feeling happily nervous about whatever it could be, and then Charlie asked if Nick would kiss him, and Nick felt like he’d fallen through ice, plunged suddenly into cold dark water.

And this, more than anything, is what plagued Nick as he stalked up and down the street, the barely contained noise of the party humming from the house: He knew he had no poker face. And he knew that when Charlie had asked that question, a stray curl tickling Nick’s face where their foreheads were nearly touching, what Nick felt was terror. He had felt exposed and stunned in a way that felt totally out of proportion to the innocence of Charlie’s question. 

As he rounded the block, and the house came into view again, Nick felt sick. Why had he responded like that? Recoiling from Charlie, like he couldn’t stand to be near him? When really, the instant Charlie stood up, Nick felt nothing but desperation to get him to stay and talk a while longer. To move on past the awkward moment. To find reassurance that Charlie wasn’t going leave his life again so soon.

Nick sat on the curb, far enough up the street from the house that the night air around him was quiet. The shame curled heavily in his chest and stomach. He pulled out his cell phone and put in the number for his mom’s landline from memory.

The phone rang a handful of times before going to voicemail.

This is Sarah Nelson. Leave a message! 

“Hi, Mom. I know it’s poker night, but can we talk for a minute? I’m just—“

“Nicky!” Sarah picked up the phone. "I’m so glad you called! Say hi to the ladies! I’ll just be a second!"

“Hi, ladies!” Nick said, hoping his forced and cheerful enthusiasm was convincing enough. His mom had put him on speaker on the phone hanging on the kitchen wall, from the sound of it. There were a chaotic few moments of overlapping voices as Sarah’s friends greeted him, asked him how he was doing, and continued chatting and laughing amongst themselves.

"Okay, I’m on the line in the office. Linda, will you hang up the phone for me in there, please?"

There was a chorus of bye, Nicky ’s and then a clunk and the background laughter and chatter cut out.

Sarah spoke up again. "Sorry about that. Just us now. Is everything alright, baby?"

“Yeah. It’s not an emergency or anything, I just need your advice. And we need to get you a cordless phone.”

Sarah laughed. "What’s going on?"

Nick took a deep breath and told his mom about Charlie, from the accident and the ambulance and the code blue in the operating room to him walking into the kitchen with Darcy and talking for the better part of an hour on the front porch. He told her about his urgency to make sure Charlie was going to be around, stopping short of telling her how their conversation ended.

Sarah hummed. "So you’re worried he isn’t as interested in getting to know and spend time with you as you are him?"

“No…yes? It’s hard to…it’s hard to explain.” Nick fidgeted. He didn’t understand why he was struggling to talk about it.

Sarah made another soft humming noise. When Nick didn’t speak up, she fished again. "Are you worried that he’ll only be your friend out of a sense of obligation, because of the accident?"

“What? No? I hadn’t even thought…” Nick laughed. Shit. “Well, now I am worried about that!” Nick plunged his fingers into his hair, hanging his head. “I hadn’t even thought about that.”

"You know, Nicky, ” Sarah sighed. "People like being friends with you. You’re a really good friend."

“You have to say that; you’re my mom,” Nick said, a little petulant.

"I’m just not sure where this insecurity is coming from." Sarah’s tone was affectionate but matter-of-fact.

Nick swallowed, focusing on a sad looking pinecone nestled next to his shoe on the roadway. He nudged it with his foot. “No, um. Charlie’s gay.”

There was a long pause. "Okay," Sarah said. "I mean…you don’t have a problem with that, right?"

“No!” Nick kicked the pinecone into the street. “No, of course not. But I didn’t know, and we were talking, and I was being really touchy, you know.”

"Mm." She knew.

“And then he asked if I would kiss him, and I said no, which I know is fine, for me to say no, but the way I responded to his asking me…it kind of freaked me out, and I’m worried about what that looked like.”

"Why did it freak you out?" 

Nick groaned and buried his face in the crook of his elbow. “I don’t know.”

"Did, um,” Sarah paused. Nick could practically hear her thinking. “Did you want to kiss him?"

“No!” Nick’s heart did a series of flips and spins that would make Tony Hawk proud. “No, Mom! I’m straight. I like girls.”

“You know it would be fine if you wanted to kiss him,” Sarah said gently.

Nick blushed. “I didn’t! I don’t!” He shivered. He felt cold and a little dizzy. He hunched over his knees and took a deep breath.

“Okay,” Sarah said softly. “So, how did he respond? When you said no?” 

“We both apologized, and he was really embarrassed, and I just…asked if we could be friends, and he said later, basically.”

“Later?”

“Like he needs some time to get over being embarrassed.”

“Well, that’s fair.”

Nick sighed. “Yeah. I’m just worried that he thinks I’m uncomfortable with him being gay or that I’m homophobic or that I wouldn’t be a safe person for him to be himself around.”

“But that’s not true. That’s not who you are,” Sarah said.

“Yeah.” Nick was far from perfect; he was learning all the time. Tara’s coming out had shown him how little he actually knew and understood, but he was determined to not be homophobic. Nick had grown up hearing homophobic commentary from friends, teammates, his brother, and even his father, but Sarah had always pushed back when any kind of prejudice was expressed around her. She was vehement about the ways that minorities are othered and fearless about standing up for others. Nick wanted to be like her.

Sarah spoke up again. “What do you wish you’d done differently?”

Nick considered. “I wish I’d been calm about it, I guess. Or maybe not been so touchy leading up to it.”

Nick really was too much. He’d learned to reign in how often he hugged and touched and cozied up to his friends, especially other guys. His instinct to be physically affectionate with his friends was a point of conflict with most of the girls he dated, and his clinginess was an issue for all of his past romantic relationships. David had spent what felt like all sixteen years of his time in Nick’s life calling him a sensitive and clingy little f-word. But Charlie had seemed so comfortable and pleased even when Nick nudged him or put his hand over his or poked his knee playfully. It was nice. It felt right.

“It’s a natural misunderstanding to have,” Sarah said. “It doesn’t sound to me like you’ve done anything wrong, even if you could have responded more gracefully.”

Gracefully. Nick laughed. He’d never felt more a clumsy mess in his life. “But, Mom. He was so embarrassed.”

“You’re not responsible for other people’s feelings, Nicky.”

Am I not at least a little bit? “I know,” he said. “But what do I do ?”

“I think that, if you really are a safe person for him, and I think you are, the truth is going to show itself eventually. So just be yourself. If Charlie wants to be friends, you’ll be friends.”

“Mm.” Nick scuffed his shoe against the asphalt.

“These things have a way of working themselves out, baby,” Sarah said. “Just be patient. Charlie would be lucky to be friends with you.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Nick said. He sighed and straightened up, shifting his weight and smoothing out his hair, which was a wild mess from the combination of his fingers and the humid wind. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too, Nicky. And so does Henry. Come home soon, please, so I can give you a big hug.”

 

Nick didn’t see Charlie again that night. When Nick got back to the party, Tara suggested she ride home with Darcy so he could go home if he wanted. Part of him wanted to steal her away so he could talk to her about Charlie, too, but she was so happy on Darcy’s arm, so he left the party alone. Once in his apartment, he collapsed fully clothed on his bed, arms and legs spread out, and stared at the ceiling, too exhausted to get properly ready for bed and too wound up to sleep.

When Nick did see Charlie again, it was April. Some of Darcy’s friends organized a bonfire about forty five minutes out of town. A couple dozen people made the half mile hike in the dark from the parking lot to the wide clearing, hauling drinks, snacks, camp chairs, wood pallets, and heavy quilts with them. Nick had been hanging out with Tara and Darcy semi-regularly since the St Patrick’s Day party, but Nick had not really talked with either of them about Charlie asking for a kiss. It felt unfair to share that information with people who were friends with Charlie. Instead, Nick had carefully avoided conversation about Charlie with them, up until the three of them were standing a few yards from the blaze, sipping drinks.

“Darcy,” Nick said, “do you think you could talk to Charlie for me about something?”

Darcy snickered into their drink. “Talk to Charlie for you about what?”

“I just…I want to know if he wants to be friends, uh, with me,” Nick swallowed and stared intently at the peeling label on his bottle, avoiding Darcy’s cheshire-cat grin and Tara’s curious gaze. He was down to the dregs of his beer and reluctant to finish the last few bitter sips.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself? I mean, what is this, third grade?” Darcy teased, shoving Nick’s shoulder playfully with one hand. They made a face when he didn’t budge and tried again. Tara laughed. Darcy handed her their drink.

Nick huffed and rolled his eyes. “Darcy.” 

“How are you so solid?” Darcy grunted, planting both hands on one of Nick’s pecs and shoving.

He stumbled backwards, just a step, and bumped into someone. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said quickly, turning to see who he had stepped on.

It was Charlie. He flicked some of the drink off his fingers from where it had spilled over his hand, looking up at Nick through his curls with a scowl.

“Charlie!” Nick said. “I’m so sorry—“

“Oh, Chuck!” Darcy said with a grin. “Nick has a question for you.”

“What’s up?” Charlie wiped his hand on the front of Nick’s hoodie with a smirk. 

Nick glanced down at the wet handprint Charlie had left on his chest and back up at Charlie’s face again. “I…uh…” He noticed suddenly that Charlie was wearing a slightly oversized canvas jacket, a curly Carhartt “C” stitched over the pocket. He was wearing Nick’s jacket. Nick felt suddenly hot. 

“Nick wants to know,” Darcy cut in, “if you, Charlie, would like to be friends with him.”

Nick sighed, glaring at Darcy. They made a what? gesture at him. Tara swirled the drink in her red plastic cup, watching Nick with a curious smile. He was going to hear about this later.

Charlie arched an eyebrow, his cheek dimpled with a half smile. “I thought we were already friends, Nick,” he said. He clapped Nick on the arm above the elbow, squeezing his arm lightly. “Good to see you, dude,” he said, his voice marginally deeper than his normal timbre.

“Good to see you, too,” Nick said, his eyes on Charlie’s.

There was a commotion as someone threw a pallet on the bonfire and sparks exploded out from the blaze. A few people screamed and then laughed. Nick turned to see what the noise was all about, and when he turned around again, Charlie was gone. Nick’s arm tingled where Charlie’s hand had touched it.

“Where’d he go?” Nick said.

“I think that’s a Spring thing,” Tara said.

Darcy nodded. “The Springs are very light on their feet. Like little deer. Or, um, sparrows or something.”

Tara laughed again, and Nick thought he saw Darcy blush, grinning into their beer bottle, but it may have been the reddish light of the fire.

“He was wearing my jacket,” Nick said, scanning the people around them for another sign of Charlie.

“Yes he was,” Darcy said. “You’re never getting that back, you know.”

Nick huffed, looking again at his beer. “Yeah?”

“And that’s how you know that Charlie Spring likes you, by the way,” Darcy added. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”

Nick looked up at them. 

Their eyes were sparkling as they took a swig of their beer. “Charlie doesn’t hold onto things that remind him of people he doesn’t like.” They gestured with their bottle. “If he has your jacket, he wants to be your friend.”

“Oh,” Nick said, smiling. “Okay. Good.”

But in spite of Darcy’s assertion that Charlie wanted to be friends, Nick couldn’t find him again. He did, however, find Isaac. He was sitting in a camp chair, his back to the fire so he could read by its light. He greeted Nick cheerfully and they fell easily into conversation. They talked together for more than an hour about wildfire mitigation and land management practices, and then about land management practices of indigenous people in the northwest. Nick struggled with reading, but Isaac’s impassioned summaries of the books he recommended piqued Nick’s curiosity, and he asked him to repeat the titles and authors as he wrote them down on an old parking ticket he found in his pocket.

“That’s very chaotic of you,” Isaac laughed as he watched Nick squinting in the firelight, the crumpled yellow paper spread out on his knee and tearing slightly under the pressure of his ballpoint pen as he scribbled.

“That makes me sound a whole lot cooler than I am,” Nick laughed as he folded up the ticket and slipped it and the pen back in his pocket. “I’m just kind of a mess, actually.”

“You need a commonplace book,” Isaac smiled. 

“What’s a commonplace book?”

“It’s a little pocket-sized journal for notes and thoughts. Writers use them to capture ideas while they are out and about that they can expand in their writing journals later. Charlie introduced me to them.”

Nick’s cocked his head. “You know Charlie?”

“Yes, I know Charlie,” Isaac said with a toothy smile. “He’s my roommate. And one of my best friends.”

“Oh!” Nick said.

Isaac was still smiling at him, and Nick shifted uneasily, feeling very perceived.

“What?” Nick said. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Isaac said. He stood up from the camp chair he’d been sitting in, stretching, his thumb pressed between the same pages of the book he held as when Nick had approached him. “Let me know what you think if you read either of those books,” Isaac said. “We can have a little book club and chat about it.”

“That would be great,” Nick smiled up at him.

Nick had just a moment to feel anxious about sitting alone after Isaac left before Tara pressed through the crowd and found him.

She pulled Nick’s arm, prompting him to stand. “Come meet Elle and Tao! They were at the St Patrick’s Day Party, but I don’t think we ran into them when Darcy was on their introduce-Nick-to-everyone marathon.”

She led Nick around the edge of the fire to where a man and a woman were sitting languidly on a log, smiling at each other and chatting. The man, who Nick guessed was Tao, was leaning back on one hand, his legs crossed in front of him. His eyes scanned Nick head to toe quickly as he and Tara approached, his face shifting to cool and unimpressed. The woman, who Nick would guess was Elle, had her hair pulled back in braids not dissimilar to the long box braids Tara was sporting recently. Her face was friendly, if cautious, stopping her conversation with Tao mid sentence. Nick swallowed and slipped his hands into his pockets. He wished he’d held onto his empty beer bottle instead of tossing it in the trash earlier, if only so that he could have something in his hands.

“Hi Tao, Elle,” Tara said. “I wanted to introduce you to my friend, Nick Nelson.”

“Nick Nelson?” Elle repeated as Tao said, “Charlie’s Nick?” 

Nick felt uncomfortably hot. "Just Nick is fine," he said.

Tao’s face brightened immediately. He leapt to his feet and pulled Nick into a hug, which made Elle laugh loudly. “So good to meet you, Nick,” Tao said after the quick but enthusiastic hug. “Thank you for helping Charlie.”

“We love him so much,” Elle said, standing to give Nick a gentler but equally warm hug. “Thank you.”

Nick was grateful for the red light of the fire to hide his blush, his cheeks and ears burning hot. “So nice to meet you,” he managed. “Tara talks a lot about all of you and how great you are.”

Elle smiled as she threaded her arm through Tao’s. Tara slipped away, leaving the three of them to chat. Nick learned that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Tao had a job in video editing, which he did while working on his own creative projects. Elle cheerfully identified herself as a starving artist. She worked out of a local art studio teaching painting and sewing classes, also while making her own art on the side.

“Do you remember the jacket Charlie was wearing at the party last month?” Tao asked Nick.

“Yeah? The leather with the…” he made swirly gestures over his own arm.

“Elle did that embroidery and patchwork,” Tao said proudly.

“Wow!” Nick said, turning to Elle. “You did that?”

Elle smiled, pleased. “Yeah! I used thin leather for the patches and sashiko floss and techniques for the embroidery. I sort of hybridized a few different forms of visible mending. It was a really fun project! And Charlie looks great in that jacket.” She smiled at Nick.

“Yeah, he does,” Nick agreed. 

Elle asked Nick what he did for work and listened politely as he answered. He felt decidedly blue collar and uncool. But Elle, in her graceful way, made Nick feel like what he did was special and fascinating, and as she talked and asked questions, he felt more at ease. Tao was a little more direct and sharp, but there was an undercurrent of affection as he addressed Nick and a fierce loyalty to the way he responded to Elle. By the time they said goodbye, Nick had made up his mind that he liked them both very much.

When Nick came across Tara and Darcy again afterwards, still not having found Charlie again, they were ready to go. He guided them along the trail back to the parking lot, both of them giggly and lethargic from the alcohol they’d been drinking. He bundled them into his truck and got in behind the wheel next to Darcy.

“You and Charlie,” Tara said from the passenger side. “You should hang out more.”

“I know,” Nick said, buckling his seatbelt and putting the truck in reverse, his arm over the bench seat behind Darcy as he looked behind them.

“You should come to Tao’s movie nights,” Tara added. “Don’t you think, Darcy?”

“Oh yeah,” Darcy agreed with a nod. “The movies are horrible, but the food and company is,” they made the OK sign with their hand and clicked their tongue, “perfect. And Charlie will be there!” They dug their elbow in Nick’s ribs and bounced their eyebrows suggestively.

He flinched and batted their arm away. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Nick spluttered.

“You two would be a hot couple, don’t you think?”

“Darcy, I’m straight,” Nick said. “I date women.”

“I’ve never seen you date women,” Darcy said.

“Darcy,” Tara laughed. “If he says he’s straight, he’s straight!”

“Okay, you may date women,” Darcy conceded, “but you are not straight!”

“Darcy!” Tara protested, punching Darcy in the thigh. “What the fuck?”

They pressed on. “I’ve seen you talk to women. I’ve heard how you talk about women. You’re not straight. You’re a lesbian.”

Nick laughed, the knot in his stomach, which had been tightening since Darcy began their teasing, loosened marginally. “I’m pretty sure I have to be a woman to be a lesbian.”

“Well! I’m not a woman! And yet,” they spread their arms wide, "I’m a lesbian. Riddle me that, ‘straight’ boy.”

Tara spoke up again. “I think Nick gets to decide how he identifies, babe. You need to respect that.”

“I’m just saying: The way Nick loves women is gay.”

Tara leaned over again. “Sorry, Nick. Darcy thinks literally everyone is gay.”

“You're gonna sit there and tell me that I'm wrong?" Darcy said to Tara. They turned to Nick. "You’re a lesbian and I think you should be gay for Charlie,” they said loudly.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Nick cried as Tara yelled “Oh my god, babe!” She threw her hands up. “You are so drunk! Stop bullying Nick!”

“I said what I said!” Darcy yelled.

“Stop talking!” Tara ordered. She smacked the power button on the car stereo, turning on the CD player.

Dolly Parton’s voice filled the cab of the truck. Nick swallowed, his eyes trained on the road in front of him.

“Jolene?” Darcy exclaimed. “Fucking Jolene, Nicholas?!”

“I’m allowed to like Dolly Parton!” Nick squawked. 

“Darcy, I swear to god, I will break up with you,” Tara laughed. “Shut. Up.”

Darcy put their hands up in surrender. “Fine.”

 

The next day, Nick got a call from Darcy. He was folding laundry when the phone rang, and pinned it between his cheek and shoulder after answering, his brow furrowed. “Hello?”

“I’m not going to apologize for calling you a lesbian or for calling you gay,” Darcy said, forgoing a greeting, “because I don’t think those are bad things. But,” they sighed, “I’m really sorry that I argued with you and didn’t listen to you. I hope you know that I love and respect you no matter your sexual orientation."

Nick fiddled with the tee shirt he was partway through folding, clearing his throat at the lump that had caught in it unexpectedly. “Oh, uh,” he sat down on his bed. “Thanks, Darcy.”

"I also called Tao and he wants you to come to his movie night next week."

“Thank you,” Nick said.

“And I’m not going to give you any more crap about Charlie.”

“Thank you,” he repeated. "Did Tara put you up to this?"

"No. I mean, we talked, but...no." There was a long pause. "Okay. Good chat. I’ll see you later!"

Nick took his phone off his shoulder, giving it a baffled look before he closed it and chucked it on his bed.

 

As spring shifted into summer, Nick spent more and more time with Tara, Darcy, Isaac, Charlie, Elle, and Tao. True to their word, Darcy stopped teasing Nick about Charlie. There were movie nights and trivia nights and nights that they just got together to sit around and talk. While Nick enjoyed being around everyone, connecting especially well with Isaac and Darcy, Charlie was more elusive. By the end of July, they were seeing each other almost once a week, but Nick could count on one hand the number of times he’d managed to have a conversation with Charlie one on one. Most of his attempts ended with Nick looking away and turning back to find that Charlie was just gone, like he had been raptured or something. It was driving Nick crazy.

Then, on a Sunday night in July, Nick woke up with a start when his phone started to buzz on his nightstand. He grabbed it, sitting up and trying to blink the blurriness out of his eyes. His eyes fell on his alarm clock as he flipped his phone open. 2:04 am.

“Hello?” he said, his voice husky with sleep.

“Hi Nick! I am so sorry to wake you up!”

“Tara?” Nick asked. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine! I’m so sorry again, but I was hoping for some medical advice?”

“Okay?” 

“Darcy is on the phone with Charlie right now–”

Nick felt suddenly more alert. “Yeah? Is he okay?” He threw the edge of his quilt over and stood up. 

“Yeah! He called Darcy because he thinks Isaac needs to go to the emergency room and they need a ride.”

“Oh, no.” Nick stood by his bed, running one hand through his hair.

“Isaac’s got really bad abdominal pain and has a fever and he’s throwing up.”

“Okay. Can you describe where his pain is?” He stooped over to pull a clean pair of socks out of his bottom drawer, sitting on his bed to pull them on, the phone pinned between his ear and shoulder.

“Let me ask Darcy to ask Charlie.” There was a pause. “Okay. Isaac says it is his right side? Charlie thinks it’s his appendix.”

“Yeah,” Nick agreed. “Can you have Charlie put some gentle pressure–”

“Hold on, I’m putting you on speaker phone! …Say that again?”

Nick pulled on his shoes. “Have Charlie gently palpate Isaac’s abdomen on the lower right side, see if he can find exactly where it hurts.” He listened as Darcy repeated his instructions to Charlie.

After a minute, Darcy spoke up again. “He says it’s hurting really bad a few inches above his right hip bone. Charlie says that Isaac felt fine when he put some pressure on that spot, but it hurt really bad when he took his hand away? Is that normal?”

“Uh, if you have appendicitis that’s pretty normal, yeah. I think Charlie’s right; Isaac needs to get that checked out. How long has he been running a fever?” Nick grabbed his wallet and keys before opening his front door. The air outside was balmy and loud with the sound of katydids.

“His stomach started hurting around five, but he woke up with a fever like an hour ago, and the pain has just been getting worse, and then he started throwing up just before Charlie called.”

“Charlie and Isaac are on 13th street, right? I think I’m a few minutes closer than you.”

“Oh! I mean–” Darcy and Tara spoke over the top of each other for a moment, Darcy saying they were ready to go, Tara saying Nick didn’t need to get out of bed.

“It’s okay, I’m already up,” he said, unlocking his truck door.

Tara’s voice came through. “You’re already in your truck, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” Nick pulled his seatbelt over his chest.

“Thank you, Nick,” Tara and Darcy said in unison. Tara spoke next, “Darcy will send you their apartment number, and we’ll tell Charlie you are on your way.” Darcy spoke up, “Thank you so much, Nickname!”

“Darcy, no. Please don’t call me Nickname,” Nick laughed, starting his truck.

Darcy laughed. “Why? It’s your new nickname. Nickname.” Tara spoke up, “You’re really getting off easy there, Nick. I wouldn’t push it.” Darcy was laughing, and the two were talking over each other again. Nick made out a “We love you!” and a “Please keep us posted!” before he said goodbye and hung up the phone.

He found his way to 13th street by memory, parking on the street outside Isaac and Charlie’s building. The door to the shared hallway inside the building was wedged open with a brick. He slipped inside before pulling out his cell phone. Darcy’s message gave the room number: 205. He found the stairs, taking them two at a time, then paused to catch his breath outside of Isaac and Charlie’s door, running a hand through his hair. He took a deep breath and then knocked.

Notes:

If you're reading this and enjoying it, I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

xx
banana

Chapter 10: Chapter 10

Summary:

daddy made your favorite (hurt/comfort) open wide

Notes:

Nothing too graphic or jarring in this chapter, I think. If you think there should be a CW for something here, lmk in the comments!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Charlie rubbed Isaac’s back in slow circles. Isaac was lying on the couch, curled protectively around his abdomen with his back to Charlie, his cheek on a pillow and Darcy’s rainbow granny square blanket over his side. His face was pale, his eyes squeezed closed. Charlie felt Isaac’s forehead with his hand again.

“You don’t need to keep doing that; you already took my temperature,” Isaac grumbled.

“Don’t criticize my nurturing,” Charlie said. “My ability to nurse you back to health is a keystone of our queer platonic relationship. I take it very seriously.”

Isaac smiled, then winced. “Arches only have one keystone, and there’s no way that your taking care of me is the keystone of our friendship.” He snuggled a little deeper into the couch and sighed. “I think the word you're looking for is pillar.”

“Fine. My ability to nurse you back to health is a pillar of our friendship.”

“Carry on, then.” Isaac’s voice was creaky with exhaustion.

Charlie resumed stroking his back. “Nick thinks it’s appendicitis.”

Isaac exhaled a puff of air through his nose. “No,” he whined. “He’s just agreeing with you because he wants you to stop avoiding him.”

“He’s agreeing with me because I am very smart and always right,” Charlie huffed. “And I’m not avoiding him.”

“Bullshit,” Isaac grumbled. “Double bullshit.”

Isaac was right. Not about his appendicitis, but about Charlie avoiding Nick.

Charlie didn’t set out to avoid Nick—not right away, at least. The first time he’d seen Nick after leaving him on the porch at the St. Patrick’s Day Party was at the bonfire. Charlie had already spent the few weeks in between parties cooling the boiling mortification he’d felt at Nick’s rejection and was determined to be normal and cool and friendly and nice, to tamp down on the ridiculous straight-boy-crush and not embarrass himself again. 

And then there Nick was, looking so good in the firelight that it hurt Charlie’s chest a little bit. Charlie couldn’t get through the shortest little interaction without completely swooning over Nick, acting like a total creep. 

Charlie spent the rest of that night carefully avoiding Nick, his hand sticky from the spilled cocktail and tingling with the recollection of how Nick’s chest felt through his hoodie as Charlie had teasingly wiped off his hand, all firm and soft and perfect.

Isaac had been amused and happy to assist Charlie in avoiding Nick at first, keeping an eye out for Nick so Charlie could disappear before Nick saw him. But as time wore on and the summer progressed, Isaac seemed to sabotage Charlie’s efforts to avoid Nick more and more, going as far as telling Charlie that Nick was missing trivia or movie night, then shrugging innocently when Nick showed up after all.

“Aw, whoops,” he’d say. “Guess you’ll have to talk to him!”

Now, Charlie sighed fondly at his friend, shaking his head. “Nick’s coming to pick us up and take us to the emergency room."

“No,” Isaac whined again. “I don’t want to go.”

“Suck it up, buttercup,” Charlie quipped. Inside, the stab of anxiety that had emerged when Isaac had woken him earlier, clammy and dizzy with pain, sharpened.

“Mm. This is fine right here. I’ll feel better soon,” Isaac sighed and closed his eyes. “Don’t need to go.”

Charlie kept stroking Isaac’s back, humming softly to him, moving the silver mixing bowl by his knees to settle into a position that put less pressure on his leg.

Charlie and Isaac had been friends since their sophomore year of undergrad when they met in their intro to literary criticism class. Freshman year had been really difficult for Charlie, and the beginning of sophomore year had felt like waking up, the tunnel vision of his mental health crisis melting away. Lit crit was an intimidating class taught by an ancient but terrifying woman who dressed in khakis and men’s button up shirts and stalked back and forth across the front of the classroom as she lectured about reader-response and critical race theory and deconstruction and new criticism, leaning on a cane and glaring at her students. Charlie usually focused in class by taking diligent notes and commenting often, but in the seat beside him, Isaac was silent, eyes trained on the novel he had open inside the class textbook.

The class discussions during the queer theory unit were tense for Charlie, his heart racing as he got the courage to speak up about something so important to him, and he left class distracted and burnt out. Isaac surprised Charlie by catching him in the hallway after class.

“Here,” he’d said, handing Charlie a book.

Charlie had taken it in his hands. “Oh. What’s this?”

"Bodies That Matter by Judith Butler. They’re a queer philosopher. They write about gender and sexuality. My friend Elle recommended it to me last year, and I loved it; I thought you’d like it, too.”

“Are you...” Charlie had looked at the book and back up at Isaac, “Are you giving this to me?”

“Yeah,” Isaac grinned toothily at him. “But only if you think you’ll read it?”

Charlie had smiled, fingers tightening on the book in his hands. “Yeah, I’ll read it.”

There was a soft rap on the door, pulling Charlie back to the present. He stood and walked over, realizing too late that he was about to greet a hot guy in his ugliest sleep shirt, his bedhead way more unruly than the brief two hours of sleep he’d received before Isaac woke him justified. He opened the door and, sure enough, there was Nick Nelson in sweats, a tee shirt, and vans. His glossy auburn hair was mussed up in a way that looked accidentally sexy, his brown eyes warming and crinkling around the corners. A crooked smile appeared on his face as he saw Charlie.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Charlie answered. “Come in.” He opened the door wider for Nick to come inside, holding his breath as Nick stepped past him. “Here’s our invalid,” he said, gesturing to where Isaac lay curled up on the couch in the living room.

Nick approached the couch. “Hey, Isaac."

Isaac blinked open his eyes. “Hey,” he whispered. 

“I’m sorry you’re feeling so shitty.” Nick patted Isaac’s leg softly, in Nick fashion somehow making the awkward gesture look caring. “It sounds like you may need to go to the hospital. Can I feel your stomach?”

Isaac nodded.

Nick crouched down, waiting for Isaac to roll onto his back before peeling back the blanket. “So the appendix is about here.” His hand gently explored Isaac’s abdomen over his thin tee shirt, palpating the lower right portion of Isaac’s stomach, between his belly button and hip bone. He pressed down in the spot he’d indicated. Isaac winced, his breath catching, as Nick lifted his hand away. Nick cringed sympathetically. “Sorry. That’s your McBurney point.”

“It’s McBurney, alright,” Isaac croaked. 

Nick laughed, his hand hovering over Isaac’s stomach. “When you have inflammation, sometimes the pain is worse after pressure than during pressure as blood rushes back to the inflamed tissue,” he explained.

Isaac squirmed a little before nodding to Nick to continue.

“If I put a little pressure here?” Nick pressed on the left side of Isaac’s abdomen. ”How’s that?”

Isaac groaned. “Yeah. Hurts.”

“Hurts over here?” Nick gestured to Isaac’s right side.

Isaac nodded.

They chatted a few minutes longer about Isaac's symptoms before Nick gave Isaac’s knee a conciliatory pat, pulling the blanket back over him. “I’d say Charlie’s right; you need to go to the hospital."

Isaac groaned again. “Dammit.”

“Sorry. We got to go,” Nick said. “If it’s your appendix, you need surgery. The sooner the better.”

Isaac looked up at Charlie, who was standing at the arm of the couch.

Charlie shrugged apologetically and said, “I’m going to pack you an overnight bag. Which–?”

“Solnit, please,” Isaac rasped, sitting up slowly with his arm curled around his side. 

“You got it.” 

Nick brought over a pair of slip-on shoes for Isaac from the entryway and then offered his arm to help Isaac stand as Charlie stepped away towards Isaac’s bedroom. It took Charlie a minute to find the blue soft cover collection of essays that Isaac had asked for, locating it finally on Isaac’s nightstand underneath three other books. He grabbed a few slim hand-bound books of poetry Isaac had recently bought from a local press as well. He tucked them in Isaac’s worn blue jansport backpack. He grabbed a change of loose clothes, Isaac’s phone and charger, clean underwear, and socks before stopping by the bathroom for toothpaste and a toothbrush. When he got out to the living room, Nick and Isaac were gone, so he switched off the lights, grabbed his keys, phone, and wallet, and locked the door behind him.

Nick was just finishing bundling Isaac into the middle of the bench seat in his truck when Charlie found them. Charlie took the passenger side as Nick took his seat behind the wheel, propping a pained looking Isaac up between them. The truck had that old truck smell mingled with fresh cut lumber and lavender and smoke and Nick, which gave Charlie some irritating butterflies, and Charlie fumbled with his seatbelt a moment before offering Isaac his shoulder. Isaac dropped his head with a sigh, and Charlie and Nick’s eyes met as Nick glanced over in concern. Charlie looked quickly straight ahead again, willing the hot blush in his cheeks to cool. He was relieved when Nick started the truck, its engine a low rumble, and the cabin light turned off, slipping the three of them into the early morning darkness.

 

In the emergency room, Nick and Charlie stood on either side of Isaac by the sign-in counter. When he wobbled on his feet, they both instinctively grasped his elbows, holding him upright by his arms. Isaac giggled and made a joke about feeling like Moses. Charlie shot Nick a worried look.

“He’s making Old Testament references,” Charlie whispered.

“Is that bad?” Nick whispered back as Isaac struggled to remember his social security number, leaning against Charlie.

Charlie gave Nick a wide-eyed nod.

The nurse took Isaac’s wrist, quickly snapping on a plastic hospital bracelet.“Check that the name and birthdate is correct.”

Charlie looked over Isaac’s shoulder at his wrist as he studied it and confirmed to the nurse that it was correct with a hoarse, "Yup."

“It’s a really busy night tonight. Take a seat and we will call you back as soon as we can.”

Charlie and Nick led Isaac over to the pleather-lined bench seats lining the wall.

“I’ll be right back,” Nick said after they helped lower Isaac onto a seat.

Charlie nodded and sat beside Isaac, who slumped over to rest in his lap as Nick walked back towards the front desk.

“What’s he doing?” Isaac mumbled.

Charlie huffed a small laugh. “I think he’s flirting with the nurse.”

Isaac didn’t move but snorted. “Is he really?”

Charlie watched as the nurse laughed at something Nick said. Nick tucked a hand in his pocket and ran another hand through his hair, then leaned against the counter. Charlie couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the woman behind the counter, who looked to be around their age, was looking up at him all starry-eyed. His head was cocked in that winning golden retriever way. Charlie huffed out another laugh, shaking his head. 

“Is he flirting, or is he being friendly?” Isaac asked.

Charlie rolled his eyes. “You think I can’t tell the difference?”

“Oh, I know you can’t tell the difference.”

“I think Nick can’t tell the difference,” Charlie muttered, indignant.

Isaac laughed, then groaned and shifted slightly. Charlie looked down at his friend, rubbing his shoulder. “You okay, Isaac?”

“No,” Isaac grumbled into Charlie’s knee.

Charlie hummed sympathetically. “Are you feeling nauseous? Do you want me to get you a sick bag?”

Isaac rocked his head no. “Just hurts,” he mumbled. "I'm dizzy," he added.

Charlie could feel the heat of Isaac’s cheek on his knee through the thin material of his pants. Charlie rubbed Isaac’s back, surreptitiously slipping his fingers over the top of Isaac’s shirt collar to feel his fevered neck. He glanced up at the front desk again, resisting the urge to bounce his leg restlessly. 

The nurse was nodding at Nick, smiling and saying something to him before slipping away. Nick returned, sinking down onto the bench on the opposite side of Charlie. Charlie shifted slightly to give him more room, careful not to jostle Isaac.

“It should just be a few more minutes, Isaac,” Nick said.

Isaac didn’t respond, his shoulders shifting slightly as he breathed deeply.

Charlie wanted to ask Nick what would happen if Isaac’s appendix burst while they were waiting. Would they be able to tell? Would Isaac be okay? What would happen? But he didn’t want to freak Isaac out, so he pinched his lips shut and tried to breathe out some of his anxiety. In his peripheral vision, he could see Nick facing him and Isaac. Charlie stared at the clock on the wall above the front desk, his fingers tracing slow soothing circles on Isaac’s back, the other hand clenched on his knee, watching as the second hand slowly ticked around. After just a few minutes that felt like an eternity, a nurse called from the doorway, “Isaac Henderson?”

“You go, I’ll wait here for you,” Nick said to Charlie. 

Charlie gave a grateful half smile as he helped Isaac up.

The nurse led Isaac and Charlie down a hallway to a small room with a bed partially enclosed by a hanging buttercup-yellow plastic curtain. The nurse gave Isaac a hospital gown to change into and left the room. Isaac sank onto the bed, fully clothed, the gown wadded up in his hands. He turned towards Charlie, his face pale with a hot blush on the apples of his cheeks, eyes glassy.

“Aw, Isaac,” Charlie said softly. “I can help you change, babe.”

Isaac sighed. “Thank you,” he rasped. “I just feel so shitty.”

Charlie coaxed Isaac’s shirt off and helped him into the gown, tying it up for him in the back and then supporting him as he wriggled out of his pants while seated on the bed. Charlie took the clothes from Isaac’s trembling hands and helped him lay down. He poked his head outside of the room, catching the eye of a passing nurse.

“Do you have some blankets?” he asked.

She disappeared for a moment before returning with two scratchy warmed blankets. Charlie ducked back into the room, spreading the blankets over Isaac before they could cool.

“You take such good care of me,” Isaac said, his voice soft.

“We take care of each other,” Charlie said, returning to rubbing Isaac’s back between his shoulder blades, trying to avoid tangling his fingers in the loops of the gown. “Does this feel okay?”

“Mmhm.”

After another few minutes of waiting, a nurse came and gathered Isaac’s vitals and symptoms. Isaac’s languishing had shifted to a pained restlessness, and Charlie felt himself matching the uneasy shift himself as he watched the nurse calmly asking Isaac questions about how long and where and what kind of pain. Why was this taking so long? Couldn’t they see that Isaac was miserable? He folded and refolded Isaac’s clothes in his lap and tried to let Isaac answer for himself, suddenly understanding why his mom had always talked over the top of him at doctor’s appointments. The nurse eventually left, returning a few minutes later with a doctor who ordered a test and a blood draw, and an hour later, Isaac was being prepped for an appendectomy and Charlie was being dismissed to the waiting room.

Charlie gave Isaac a quick hug and a peck on the cheek, promising to see him after his surgery. Isaac nodded, glassy eyed, and squeezed Charlie’s hand before he was wheeled away. Charlie watched him go, a lump in his throat, and then shouldered the jansport backpack with Isaac’s things and made his way back to the emergency room waiting area.

He found Nick where he’d left him, dozing with his head tipped back against the wall behind him. Charlie approached quietly, perching beside Nick on the bench and gently shaking his shoulder.

“Nick,” he whispered.

Nick blinked his eyes open. His gaze warmed in recognition. “Charlie,” he said, sitting up and rubbing his face. “How’s Isaac?”

“They just took him in for surgery.” Charlie shifted the bag on his shoulder a little. ”Nick, you don’t have to stay; Isaac and I will be good here. You can go home and sleep.”

“That’s okay!” Nick said. “The surgery will be a few hours. Let me keep you company—make sure Isaac’s okay.”

“You really don’t need to do that,” Charlie protested.

Nick hesitated. “Do you want me to leave?”

”No, but—“

“Then I’d really like to stay,” he said. “Should we go up? The chairs are more comfortable in the operating waiting room.”

Charlie closed his mouth and nodded, not trusting his voice as a wave of gratitude filled his chest and surged into his throat. He didn’t really want to be alone with his anxiety.

In the quiet of the elevator, Nick nudged Charlie’s shoulder with his own. “You okay?”

Charlie sighed, his shoulders suddenly sagging under the weight of his dread. “No,” he said honestly, surprising himself. “I’m really worried about Isaac.”

“Yeah.” 

The elevator dinged, opening up into the waiting room. Nick gestured for Charlie to exit first, then followed him out. They found some seats in the waiting room, settling in beside each other.

Nick’s arm and knee were touching Charlie’s, and he shifted a little bit so they were still close but no longer touching. “I’m glad you were looking out for him. It’s always better to catch appendicitis early.”

“But did we come soon enough? Is he going to be okay?” Charlie asked.

“He’s going to be okay,” Nick said confidently. “He’s going to be fine. A little sore for a while, but he’s not in danger. He’ll be okay.”

Charlie nodded. “Okay.”

“I’m glad he has you,” Nick said. “Your friends are really incredible, the way you look out for each other...take care of each other.”

Charlie lifted his eyes to look at Nick. He looked exhausted and earnest and a little wistful.

“They’re your friends, too, Nick,” Charlie said. “You know that, right?”

Nick blinked at him. “Well, yeah, I guess so.”

Charlie watched him for a moment, curious. “You know Isaac was so excited when you read that essay about 1910’s Great Fire and called him on the phone to talk with him about it last week?”

Nick glanced down. “Oh,” he said. He smiled, the corner of his mouth dipping down on one side. 

Charlie looked away and cleared his throat, picking up a Reader’s Digest off the coffee table in front of them to occupy his hands. That particular smile was unbearably cute. “Even Tao likes you,” he continued. “Like, adores you. Which is super weird. Tao usually takes forever to win over. It’s disconcerting, honestly.”

Nick laughed. “You sound annoyed about that,” he said.

“Well, yeah, I am!” Charlie retorted. He wasn’t.

Nick smiled down at his hands.

They fell silent for a few minutes. The air conditioning made the air clammy and chilled, so one side of Charlie was freezing while the other, the side closest to Nick, felt ready to combust. His anxiety about Isaac and his surgery, which had eased a bit at Nick’s reassurance, threatened to bloom again, a heavy pit of dread in the bottom of his stomach. Charlie flipped through pages in the Reader’s Digest, searching fruitlessly for something to distract him from his anxiety and the way he could feel the warmth of Nick’s body beside him. 

“What about us, Charlie?” Nick said after a few minutes.

Charlie glanced up from the magazine, arching an eyebrow questioningly.

“Are we friends?” Nick leaned forward a bit on his elbows, face turned towards Charlie, his eyes locked on Charlie’s face. In spite of the bold eye contact, he looked nervous.

After a long moment of silence, Charlie broke eye contact and glanced away again. He hummed noncommittally.

“Charlie,” Nick almost whined, and Charlie had to fight down his smile, disguising his chuckle with a scoff.

“Is that why you volunteered to drive Isaac and I to the hospital?” Charlie asked, tapping the stiff spine of the magazine against the table in front of them. “So I’d be friends with you?”

“No–no!” Nick looked surprised and concerned, and Charlie backpedaled.

“Nick! I was teasing!” he said quickly.

Nick glanced down. “Oh," he said with a self-deprecating chuckle.

“Look, Nelson,” Charlie said, his tone pragmatic. “If we are going to be friends, you’re going to have to get used to me teasing you.”

“Okay,” Nick said with a smile. “I can do that.”

“And you need to stop being so,” Charlie gestured vaguely to Nick’s face, “like…that.”

“You just gestured to my whole face.” Nick frowned, but his eyes still sparkled.

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?”

“Never mind,” Charlie sighed.

“No, I want to know. What does that mean?” Nick pressed.

“Nothing!” Charlie glared playfully, and as he did, he saw the confirmation in Nick’s face that they both knew this was a game. They fell into it naturally; this pretending to fight. Charlie did his best to keep his face straight as Nick leaned back in his chair, adopting a cocky expression.

“I need to stop being so…good looking?” Nick asked. “Is that what you were going to say?”

Charlie scoffed. “No, that is not what I was going to say. And you’re not. Shut up.”

“I think I remember you wanting to kiss me,” Nick teased, his voice low, and Charlie was surprised and relieved that hearing him say it aloud dispelled some of the lingering awkward tension he was feeling between them. “At some point you must have thought I was good looking, right?”

Charlie scowled at him sideways. “Well you were much better looking when I’d had, like, five beers, so.”

It was a lie, of course. Nick was somehow just as or more handsome sitting in a hospital waiting room at four in the morning than he was at the party in March. He was there in his sweats and rumpled tee shirt, the tiredness under his eyes brought into sharper focus under the blare of the hospital fluorescents, the light casting a strange halo in his tousled auburn hair. He was kind and he was helpful and he cared and he showed up not expecting anything in return (except this annoying verbal confirmation that they were actually friends) and Charlie had never met someone so wildly attractive in his life.

Nick let out a bark of laughter. “Rude!” he protested. “Are you always so grumpy?”

“Are you always so cheerful?” Charlie countered.

Nick tilted his head, lips pursed and eyes narrowed. “No; no I am not.”

“Neither am I,” Charlie said. “I do want to be friends with you,” he said after a moment, setting down the Reader’s Digest and picking up a National Geographic instead. “I just…needed a minute, okay?”

“But we’re good now?” Nick asked immediately.

“Jesus, Nick, yes!” Charlie slapped the magazine down harder than he meant to.

A handful of people in the waiting room glanced surreptitiously in their direction, and Nick raised his eyebrows. They stared at each other for a long moment before Charlie cracked. They both stifled laughter, Nick behind his hand, Charlie by pretending to cough.

“Oh, thank god,” Nick breathed.

Charlie cleared his throat. "You’re still not getting your jacket back.”

Nick tilted back his head and laughed again. 

The sound made Charlie feel all soft and warm inside. Yeah, okay. He could endure this straight-boy-crush if he got to be the one to make Nick laugh like that. Worth it.

“Yeah, I figured,” Nick said. “That’s alright.”

They chatted quietly for another half hour before Charlie started to nod off mid sentence and Nick prompted him to try to nap.

“It’s going to be a few hours at least,” he said.

“What about you?” Charlie asked, stifling another yawn.

“I’m used to all-nighters.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me.”

Charlie leaned back in his seat with a sigh, letting his head knock against the wall behind him. He folded his arms tightly over his chest, shivering slightly as the AC kicked on again, cool air hissing out of the vent over their heads. The seats they were in, though better than the benches downstairs, were not comfortable. In spite of this, he dropped off quickly.

 

When Charlie started to wake up, he could feel his cheek resting against something warm and soft. His arms had unfolded while he slept, and his left was pressed firmly up against something warm from his shoulder down to his elbow, his hand palm up on his knee, right arm draped across his lap. His neck felt stiff, but when he went to raise his head, he realized that he had been asleep on Nick’s shoulder, and from the gentle weight on Charlie’s head, Nick had apparently fallen asleep as well, his cheek resting on Charlie’s curls. 

Charlie swallowed and blinked his eyes open, listening closely to Nick’s slow and steady breathing. Oh fuck, oh shit, what do I do? he panicked. He refolded his arms across his chest and tentatively tried to sit up again. Nick stirred, waking, and Charlie sat up straight quickly, released from his delightful cuddle prison.

“Sorry,” Charlie muttered, trying in vain to fix his curls.

“It’s fine,” Nick said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” He stretched his arms over his head, and Charlie didn’t know whether to look at the hint of a v-line under the hem of Nick’s shirt or the paradoxical soft/hard of Nick’s biceps, the skin on the underside of his arms creamy white in contrast to the coppery freckles on his forearms. Charlie glanced away, staring instead at a tile of the industrial carpeting on the floor by his feet, memorizing the blue, pink, purple flecked pattern like his life depended on it.

Nick sighed. “It’s almost seven.”

“Do you think Isaac’s out of surgery yet?” Charlie managed, shifting so he was perched on the edge of his seat and reaching for the jansport bag.

Nick stood. “Let’s go ask?”

They approached the front desk together, where they learned that Isaac was still in surgery, but due to finish up soon. The woman behind the desk explained that one of them could go back to the recovery room where Isaac would be supervised as he came out of anesthesia, and then he would be moved to a hospital room until he was ready to be released.

“You should go to the recovery room,” Nick said to Charlie. “I’ll meet you in his room after. Do you want me to call Tara and Darcy? Give them an update? And I can get us some coffee?”

Charlie stared at him a moment, biting back an impulse to propose to him on the spot. He felt high strung and anxious and relieved and delirious with exhaustion. “Yes, oh my god,” he said. “Thank you, Nick.”

Nick smiled that little half up, half down smile at him, and some wall Charlie had carefully put up between them crumbled. He embraced Nick tightly, one arm around his chest, one arm over his shoulder. With zero hesitation, Nick hugged Charlie back.

“Thank you,” Charlie said again, his face pressed into Nick’s shoulder.

“I’ll see you soon,” Nick said, only loosening his grip when Charlie did.

 

When Isaac got to the recovery room, he was starting to wake up but really out of it. He cried when he saw Charlie (“I just love you so much,” he sniffed as he wiped his face), and Charlie laughed and held his hand, trying his best to reassure and soothe him. Luckily, Isaac didn’t seem to have the same issue with nausea that Charlie had coming out of surgery, and his weepiness eased as the effects of the anesthesia faded. By the time they moved from the recovery room, he wasn’t bursting into tears every time he remembered that Charlie was in the room and seemed to be a little more aware of where he was.

They settled into Isaac’s hospital room, and Charlie texted Nick their room number. When he showed up about a half hour later, Charlie was reading Rebecca Solnit’s essay “Abandon” aloud to Isaac. 

“Hey,” Nick said from the doorway. "Looking good, Isaac!"

“Nick!” Isaac said from the hospital bed, tearing up again.

“Hey, Nick,” Charlie said, tucking Isaac’s bookmark into place. “He’s a little sensitive right now,” he explained. “Ooh, what do you have?”

Nick was carrying a cardboard drink carrier with tea for Isaac, a flat white for Charlie (although the foam had long since melted away), and a chai latte for himself. 

Nick placed the tea carefully on the tray in front of Isaac. “I just checked with your nurse, and you’re good to drink clear liquids. I put a bit of ice in it, so it shouldn’t be too hot.”

“Darcy texted me and said that you needed to show me a picture?” Charlie asked as he accepted the coffee from Nick, the hot cup warming his chilled fingers.

Nick cleared his throat and pulled out his phone. He flipped it open and held it out to Charlie. Charlie squinted at the screen for a second.

“Huh,” Charlie said.

“Yeah,” Nick agreed.

“What is it?” Isaac asked, sipping at his tea.

“Latte art?” Charlie said.

“Yeah. It was the foam on your coffee,” Nick said, scratching the back of his head.

Charlie looked at the coffee in his hands. “Oh.” He set his coffee down on the table by Isaac’s bed.

“Let me see,” Isaac said.

Charlie took the phone from Nick’s hand and held it up for Isaac.

“Ew! A dick? Darcy!” Isaac said, pushing the phone away.

Nick was also carrying a bagel and a paper cup of fruit from the cafeteria, which he gave to Charlie, along with a sweater.

“I had it in my truck. You seemed kind of cold here with the AC running,” he explained as Charlie unfolded the dark green vans sweater.

“Thank you!” Charlie said, pulling the sweater quickly over his head, relishing the feeling of the thick fabric covering the chilled skin of his arms. It was big on him, and he let the long sleeves cover his chilled hands. “Yay!”

Nick grinned at him.

Isaac smirked at Nick from the hospital bed. “You know you’re never—”

“Getting it back, I know,” Nick said, still smiling. “I don’t mind.”

Notes:

"Fire Lines" is an essay written by Isabel Marlens in 2022, and I highly HIGHLY recommend reading it, especially if you are living in a landscape that is affected by seasonal wildfires... but anyway! I'm waving my magic "this is fiction" wand here to say that Isaac had access to it in the summer of 2006 and recommended it to Nick and they had like an hour long conversation about it after Nick read it.

I really love getting comments <3 Thank you so much for reading!

xx
banana

PS please don't call me daddy - that was a Bo Burnham reference
PPS I'm taking chapter title suggestions