Chapter Text
The operating room is considerably brighter than he expected.
You always see operating rooms on television as these dark, dramatically-lit rooms that seem more like a stage than a place where a medical procedure would take place.
They have him gowned up and have a hairnet over his curls, and now he’s lying back on the table and the surgeon is walking him through the procedure one last time. It shouldn’t take very long - he won't even need to stay overnight. Nick will bring him home tonight and probably go overboard in pampering him and making sure he has everything he could possibly need - a habit he inherited from Sarah whenever anyone is ill.
The anaesthesiologist is placing the mask over his face.
“Alright, Mr. Spring,” he’s saying, “I’m going to ask you to count down from ten…”
Ten, Charlie mouths. He can hear the rush of gas somewhere. Nine… Eight…
He comes to slowly, like he’s swimming back to the surface. For a moment he’s confused. No time has passed. Did they not do the surgery? Then he sees he’s no longer in the operating room. There’s still a tube sending pure oxygen into his nose, but the mask is gone and so is the cap. He’s now dressed in a flowing hospital gown and - wait a second!
“Who took my pants?” he asks. His words sound mushy and indistinct to his ears.
There’s someone carding his fingers through his hair. The man stops. Looking up the blurry image of the man slowly resolves into a bearded figure with blonde hair and a round face, wearing round-rimmed glasses.
“You’re awake,” he says cheerfully. The man seems familiar for some reason.
“Where are my pants?” Charlie asks again. He tries to look around for them but his head won’t obey his commands. He shifts in his bed, wiggling his fingers and toes. It’s like moving through jelly.
“You just woke up from surgery, love,” the man says, continuing to stroke his head, “You’re at the hospital now.”
Realisation crystalises in his head. He knows who this man is.
“It was you!” he accuses, “You stole my pants!”
The blonde man chuckles. “Yes Char,” he says, “I stole your pants.”
“ I knew it ,” Charlie whispers. This man is a thief!
"Here," the man says, holding a paper cup with a straw attached, "drink this."
"If I do will you give me my pants back?" Charlie asks in a small voice. It seems a fair trade.
The blonde man chuckles. "Yes, if you drink this I'll give you your pants back."
Charlie leans his head forward and takes a sip. His body is starting to listen to him now. He looks up. Nick is sitting at his bedside holding the cup of water. Charlie wonders if he took it from the pants thief. He can feel the whole bed spinning.
"How are you feeling, love?" Nick asks.
"Spinny," Charlie murmurs. He giggles. It's like being on the teacups at Thorpe Park that one time the Paris Squad went in sixth form, except Nick isn't turning green and ducking for the bin to chunder.
Nick leans over and presses a kiss to Charlie’s forehead.
“You’re really cute when you’re high off your arse,” he murmurs with a fond smile.
They sit in companionable silence for a bit, Charlie asking the occasional question, most of which make Nick laugh, and slowly the room resolves itself into solid shapes, the bed stops spinning, and they’re simply sitting and enjoying one another’s company.
The spell is broken by an aching in his groin, and he remembers why they’re there.
“Are you okay?” Nick asks, “Do you want me to call the nurse?”
“I’m fine,” Charlie says, though he feels anything but. He searches with his awareness, but other than the dull ache from the surgery he doesn’t feel any different. Apparently being minus 50% of the family jewels doesn’t feel all that different unless you’re looking for it. Or maybe it’s the remaining morphine in his system.
Eventually a junior doctor comes in and explains his post-operative care. He and Nick agreed that he would take a week off from work, even though he works from home, and that someone would stop by every so often, usually Sarah or Mum or Dad. Truth be told Sarah and Mum aren’t all that different when they’re fussing over someone, Sarah’s just gentler about it and lacks Mum’s perpetually anxious energy. He’s given a prescription for painkillers and is told to use them sparingly.
They also address the elephant in the room. The doctor will call and ask Charlie to come in in a few days to discuss staging once they've had the chance to compare his scans to the pathology report on the tumor. They'll decide then if they can get away with just surveillance or if Charlie will need chemo or radiation.
Charlie's innards twist at the reminder of that possibility. He's been relying so much on the idea that this will be it, that the tumor probably hasn't had time to spread and this is it. Then he feels the twinge in his back and remembers what he'd read about it spreading to the lymph nodes, liver, lungs, and so on. He brushes that though away with effort - they don't even know what kind of tumor it is yet.
He takes one painkiller when they arrive home. The pain has already started to come back. Somehow the idea of having to look at himself changed like that, literally missing a piece of himself, seems overwhelming. He feels a twinge of panic rise from somewhere deep within him.
He suppresses it, for the time being. There’ll be time to deal later. Nick mentioned talking to the urological oncologist about finding Charlie a therapist. It’s been so long, though. The idea of therapy - of talking about all of this - seems herculean.
In a way he feels much like he did when he was 15 and self-harming and having to tell his parents about it with Nick at his side, reading off a sheet of paper he’d ripped out of a notebook in Nick’s bedroom. It's a frustrating feeling, like he's been sent back to square one. He tells himself it’ll be fine. He won’t even really have to deal with it that long. It’ll probably just be stage I or whatever it’s called, and they’ll tell him to come in for scans every couple months and that’ll be it.
Yeah, that.
Nick sits Charlie down on the couch with a bag of frozen peas and tells him to keep it on his lap, then gets him a glass of water and a painkiller. Charlie swallows it and leans back. It’s only now hitting him, the reality. They’ve removed a piece of him - actually made an incision and pulled it out root and all through his abdomen.
There’s a new scar on his abdomen.
The incision site itches, and there’s a dull ache from where they removed a piece of him. He keeps going back to that. He keeps feeling maimed.
Nick orders pizza, and they eat cuddling together on the sofa watching Agatha All Along (Nick thinks the actor who plays Billy is proper fit and likes to tease Charlie about how similar they look.) Charlie stares at his slice for a bit before Nick notices and cuts it into tiny pieces. Charlie’s pretty sure he’d feed it to him if it came to that. Maybe even chew it up and spit it into his mouth like a mother bird. This simultaneously is endearing and infuriating.
Eventually, though, Charlie begins to feel a pressure, and realises he has to pee. Which means he has to risk seeing it. The idea makes the room spin. However, if he stays he’ll make a bit of a mess, and they’ve only just trained Daisy to stop doing that.
Nick’s brow is furrowed when Charlie gets up. He closes the door behind him. It occurs to him that he doesn’t actually have to look, which feels less daunting.
The problem, he realises, is that absent the support of his pants, it feels different as well. He feels… almost deflated. He cringes at the thought, and feels quite maimed. It must be horrible to look at. Hideous and mangled, and that nee scar on his abdomen. The surgeons must have seen his other scars during the surgery.. What will Nick think when he sees it? Will he be repulsed? Will he want Charlie? Will he ever be attracted to him? Images of Nick recoiling in disgust enter his mind unbidden.
The thoughts come in quick succession, and it’s only with great effort and a feeling in his head like rust being scraped off of gears long fallen to disuse that he’s able to counter each one with logic. Of course Nick will still want him. Of course Nick would never leave him over something like this.
Of course.
He returns to the lounge and they continue their marathon. Charlie snuggles in closer with Nick, a little overheated between the weather and Nick’s furnace of a body.
Another wave hits him and he finds his eyes are wet once again. His breath hitches, and he finds he’s crying once again. Nick presses a kiss to the top of his head. He strokes the side of Charlie’s face, murmuring softly.
“It’s okay, bug,” he says, “It’ll all be okay.”
Charlie certainly hopes so.