Chapter Text
Charlie Spring has never been much for parties.
Even when university had come around, and there were parties every night, it just has never been appealing. The noise level, the food, the drunk and/or high people sloshing about every which way; nothing about it is exciting to him.
And so Charlie wonders why the hell he is here at some random person’s house when he has work in the morning, sitting on an absolutely tattered couch and drinking lukewarm beer from a bottle. He’s barely drinking it really. It’s more of a prop - a placeholder to stop his friends from asking why he doesn’t have a drink in his hand.
Charlie likes his uni friends, he really does. He loves Matt when he brings back an extra iced coffee for him on the mornings when Charlie doesn’t have class. He loves Alba when she helps him revise for Chemistry since she’s some kind of genius. He loves Ginger when they throw Charlie’s washing in the dryer for him when he’s too tired to go down to the washing room himself. And he really likes Ryan. Charlie thinks he likes him quite a lot.
But here - right now - Charlie hates them. He hates how Matt is already sloshed and how Charlie will probably have to drag him back to the flat tonight. He hates how Alba keeps asking Charlie if he's okay and giving him those dopey, ‘I-know-you’re-not-okay-even-if-you-say-you-are’ eyes. He hates how Ginger is flirting so effortlessly with everyone, literally moving from one person to the next in extremely quick succession as if it’s the easiest thing anyone could ever do. And he really hates Ryan. Yeah, final verdict is that Charlie hates him quite a lot.
“You alright?” Ryan asks, taking up Alba’s seat on the couch next to Charlie. Alba’s slinked off to go be incredibly annoying and lovely elsewhere; Charlie couldn’t care less really. All he can muster up in response is a nod, and Ryan sees through it immediately.
“C’mon, Charlie.” He places his hand on Charlie’s forearm and rubs it back and forth a few times. It’s kind of intoxicating - far more so than the beer in Charlie’s hand. He’s had to go so long without being touched like this.
So yeah. That. Charlie and Ryan have had this… thing going for a few months now. Ryan is Matt’s best mate, and because Charlie and Matt had been assigned a room together in the school halls, Ryan’s round all the time. And while Matt is full of loveable idiocy and dopey ignorance, Ryan had all but waltzed into their flat on the first night with a gay pride flag tied around his neck. Charlie had never encountered a person quite like Ryan before. Truham had had a few out kids, and of course he’d met other gay people, but none of them had been like Ryan. He was just so effortlessly cool. He wore eyeliner and parted his sandy brown hair down the middle so it flowed gorgeously over his perfectly angular features. His thrifted patterned tops were always sans a few buttons showing off a magnificent tattoo of Marilyn Monroe on his chest. His fingernails were never not painted, and his jewelry collection would rival that of Miss Tiffany herself. He was tall and lean muscled and popular, and Charlie has no idea what had caused Ryan to even look at him all those months ago.
But he had. Ryan had been the first person to really look at Charlie since… well, since he’d started university.
It’s very casual, this thing. They kiss sometimes. Ryan sleeps in Charlie’s bed when he stays over instead of Matt’s. He picks Charlie up from work on Wednesdays, and they walk back to the halls together holding hands. It’s nice, but it’s really nothing serious. It’s not… it’s not…
“Charlie?”
Ryan gives him a funny look and leans his head forward. For a horrifying moment, Charlie thinks Ryan’s going to kiss him. It’s horrifying because - for that one moment - Charlie hates the idea.
But instead Ryan just puts his lips to Charlie’s ear, clearly thinking that Charlie simply can’t hear him over the pounding beat of some Dua Lipa song.
“You don’t look good, babe. Should we go?” Ryan’s voice is husky and coarse. Charlie isn’t keen on smoking, but he’s had to get used to the smell since Ryan’s been around.
“Weren’t you going to drink?” Charlie inquires back. Even though nothing sounds better than heading back to his room right now, he hates the idea of forcing Ryan to cut his night short.
Ryan simply shrugs in response. “It’s alright. If you’re not feeling well…” He shrugs again, like it’s not a big deal at all, like he can’t think of anything better than spending the night alone with Charlie being boring instead of at a party getting pissed. He’s really quite lovely, isn’t he? So lovely.
But there’s just something about him. Charlie has never been able to put his finger on it.
Ryan’s hinted at things in the past. He wants to take things further with them, but Charlie has always put the breaks on it. He doesn’t know why. He’s just… not ready.
But Ryan really is lovely, so Charlie lets himself nod, lets Ryan pull him up off the couch and head toward the door.
They say goodbye to their friends. This takes another 15 minutes as they need to make arrangements for Matt to get home safely. Alba, who’s only taken a single shot, says she can get him there if she can sleep on their floor tonight. It’s not allowed, but they sneak Ryan in constantly, so Alba shouldn’t be too hard. But then Ginger’s begging to stay over as well, threatening to leave the group if they have a sleepover without them. So it’s a mate’s night apparently which Charlie isn’t too upset about. It means he probably won’t be able to spend much time alone with Ryan, but he can make his peace with that.
They finally begin to make their way to the front door, Ryan’s arm firmly around Charlie’s waist. It’s kind of exciting being led around like this - even if Charlie secretly wishes it were someone else’s arm around him instead of Ryan’s. A slightly broader, slightly more befreckled arm.
Charlie quickly shakes his head, forcing himself to look at Ryan, to acknowledge that it’s him who’s taking Charlie home. It’s Ryan who’s been there for him since the beginning of university. It’s Ryan who is in his life right now and no one else.
Charlie tries not to think about… Well, he really tries. And he’s gotten better at it in the past few months. It used to be that everywhere he went, everything he saw would act as a painful reminder. Nowadays only specific things bring thoughts of lopsided smiles, grass-stained Rugby shorts, and slicked back ginger hair into his head. Things like Ryan bringing him an extra croissant at breakfast, or Ryan’s bangs in Charlie’s eyes, or Ryan’s arm around his waist. So mostly just Ryan.
But they’re so different. Charlie doesn’t think he could have found a more different person if he’d tried. And it used to make him sad. He used to cry himself to sleep so often that Matt eventually stopped asking him what he was crying about. But now after months of lovely days and lovely nights with Ryan, Charlie’s just pissed the fuck off.
He needs to get Nick Nelson out of his head, and he needs to do it now.
“Ryan.” Charlie stops them. Right there in the middle of the hallway of some football player’s house that Charlie doesn’t remember the name of, he rests his hand on Ryan’s cheek and pulls his face forward. Ryan’s looking down at him with wide, bloodshot eyes. And yeah - maybe they shouldn’t be kissing like this when Ryan is so high, but Charlie won’t do anything else tonight. He just wants to feel him. He just wants to remind himself that other people besides Nick Nelson exist, and they want Charlie just as much as Nick had.
Ryan stumbles forward, his hands landing on Charlie's hips. He’s shocked for a moment when their lips meet, but he regains his composure quickly and pulls Charlie even closer, submitting to the kiss entirely.
It’s quite nice, kissing boys; feeling their rough stubble against his cheek and their short pricklings of hair beneath his fingertips. Charlie forgets that sometimes. In his saddest moments, when he thinks Nick is the only boy alive, he forgets that kissing is just nice sometimes. It doesn’t have to have the greatest love the world has ever known behind it. It’s just nice, and that’s all it has to be. And besides all this, Ryan is really quite lovely.
They pull back when somebody whistles, and Ryan looks at Charlie in awe, like everything makes sense to him now. Charlie can only hope that he’s looking back at Ryan with half as much admiration in his own eyes. Their faces are still close like they might kiss again, but Charlie doesn’t think they will. He just lets his hands caress Ryan’s cheeks, his ears, runs his fingers through his hair. Charlie can actually see the gears slotting back into place in Ryan’s expression as he collects himself. Charlie’s been told he’s a fairly decent kisser. He’s only ever kissed two other people, and one of them was an asshole, but the other one was fairly trustworthy. Or so Charlie had thought.
No, Charlie scolds himself. No more thinking about him. Not tonight.
Ryan starts pushing back against Charlie’s hands, begging to be allowed back into his space. Ryan’s gaze begins to flit back and forth between Charlie’s eyes and his mouth and every couple of times, his tongue flicks out to lick his own lips. He clearly doesn’t want to push Charlie, but he definitely wants to keep kissing him.
“Charlie,” Ryan says; the raspiness in his voice would surely have made any other person swoon. “Charlie,” Ryan whispers again, almost frustrated now, after another failed attempt at bringing their lips together. Charlie just brings his hands away from Ryan’s face and wraps one of Ryan’s hands up in his own. But before he can make another move, he hears his name again.
“Charlie.”
And he freezes.
Nick Nelson stands in the doorway. Charlie’s heart stops.