Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He hasn’t changed his lock screen since October, after he turned the essay in.

He wasn’t too keen on taking a poetry module; his interests have always lain with novels, something to sink his teeth into and chew on. But his options for online coursework were limited for the fall term, and Charlie figured at the very least, it would easy to pass the class. Poems are short by nature. Economy of language, and all that. How hard could the coursework be?

For weeks, he balanced his laptop on the edge of his open window at the precarious angle necessary to steal WiFi from the café downstairs. Wrapped up against the cold, he slurped instant noodles or beans on toast and watched each asynchronous lecture. Scribbled some half-arsed notes, kept his reflexes in check by rescuing his battered laptop from tumbling to the street below more than once. Assigned Coleridge as a subject for an essay, Charlie produced a serviceable 1500 words about “Work Without Hope.”

He didn’t think much of it after he submitted it. But the poem clung to him, the last two lines nestling like a burr in his thoughts:

Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,  
And Hope without an object cannot live.

The couplet bounced around his brain for days, tangling with his teaspoon as he made a cuppa before dawn and poured it into a travel mug, permeating the bleachy fog of his cleaning cart as he pushed it around the station. Nectar in a sieve. He set the poem as his lock screen and made himself read it, at intervals, through the cracked glass.

Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve. Extra shifts, budgeting pounds like a miser, sacrificing sleep to stay on top of his coursework. What does it amount to? He reminds himself—usually when he’s scraping fecal matter from the station floor, or mopping up sick, and God, is there truly no end to how many fluids a body can produce?—that this isn’t what his life is supposed to look like forever. The point of this disappointing chapter is that one day he’ll have the education and money for a better one.

The trouble is, with every paycheck that his tuition and rent eat up, the hope meant to sustain him seems very, very abstract. And very, very far away from being realised.

And Hope without an object cannot live.

So Charlie Spring decided to find an object.

Said object arrives at Bond Street Station between 08:01 and 08:15 every morning, Monday through Friday. Charlie noticed him a week after he set the poem as his lock screen. Auburn hair in one of those expensive, effortless haircuts. Classic brown wool coat, not flashy but good quality—and it doubtless does a better job keeping him warm than the layered jumpers Charlie sports under his safety vest. An incongruous red scarf. Charlie bets his mum made it for him for Christmas.

It’s a harmless crush. A daydream to keep him occupied. Hope with an object. Charlie arrives at Bond Street Station, pulls his knit cap over his curls and shrugs on his vest, and wheels his cart out of the custodial closet. He has his route down to a science so that by the time he’s emptying the rubbish bins on the Jubilee Line, he’ll be there to see him, even if only for a moment.

Most days, he doesn’t do much. Briefcase dangling from one hand, he’ll check his phone with the other until the Tube pulls into the station. He seldom smiles as he does this. Charlie imagines he’s checking his emails or reading notes before a big meeting. He has that corporate look about him. Charlie guesses he works in finance or real estate, pictures a glass-walled office in Canary Wharf.

Some days, he watches a video on his phone or has AirPods in. He’ll smile then, just a corner of his mouth turning up in faint amusement. It steals the breath from Charlie’s lungs. Once, he saw him pick up a toy a squalling baby threw onto the station floor and chase down its mother to return it. He gave the infant a tiny wave before he stepped onto the train, the skin around his eyes crinkling up as he grinned. Charlie’s pulse skipped a few beats that morning.

He made the mistake of telling his friends about him, and he’s never heard the end of it since. Even last movie night, they brought him up. “Everyone knows there’s no one more defensively heterosexual than a finance bro!” Tao told him, as if Charlie needs the warning. 

Elle and Isaac encouraged him to introduce himself. “Put yourself out there!” Elle urged him. “What could it hurt to just walk up to him and ask his name?”

Isaac nodded his agreement. “You already know he shows up 08:01 to 08:15—”

“—every morning, Monday through Friday,” Tao and Elle finished in unison, leading Charlie to wonder exactly how many times this has been his refrain.

“—so if it goes sideways, you know how to avoid him in the future.”

Charlie just shook his head. “You’re forgetting a key detail.”

“Which is?”

He gestured to himself. “I’m me. I’m a fucking station cleaner. One hour on the job and I actively reek of other people’s shit and piss and rubbish. Not to mention I have no degree, no prospects, no future—”

“You’re working on that,” Elle reminded him, tapping the cracked screen of Charlie’s phone.

He grimaced. “I’m me. And he’s him.”

So Charlie contents himself with watching. For five or so minutes each morning, he empties the rubbish bins while stealing furtive glances at him, hiding behind the assorted broom handles on his cart. Those fleeting minutes are enough to build a fantasy. Charlie envisions stepping away from the cart, pulling off his gloves, and sticking out his hand to shake. “Hi,” he’d say. “I’m Charlie.”

The man might raise an eyebrow at first, surprised at Charlie’s boldness. But then maybe he would smile—slowly, unfurling by degrees until it reaches his eyes. He might share his name, something solid like Jack or Arthur or Henry. Maybe they would get to chatting. Maybe Jack-Arthur-Henry would miss the train he was waiting for, let the next one pass them by. Insist that they can wait for him at the office and ask if Charlie would like to grab a coffee.

Coffee for the first date, really quite standard. He would issue an invitation to lunch somewhere near his office, and lunch would spiral into dinner somewhere extremely posh. It’s Charlie’s fantasy, he can indulge a little, imagining bottles of red wine with names he can’t pronounce and dimly lit booths and Jack-Arthur-Henry’s strong jaw resting in his hand as he leans on the table and listens to Charlie babble about English literature. “I’m so glad you found me,” he would say, and mean it. “My life was so boring until I met you. Please tell me more about Chaucer.”

It would be a simple, intimate wedding and an extravagant honeymoon. They would keep a cottage in the countryside for Charlie to abscond to when he needed to focus on his writing, but they’d spend most of their time in a cosy flat somewhere way out of Charlie’s price range, but nowhere too lavish. The sweet spot between trendy and posh.

It’s enough to occupy him while he’s scrubbing the filthy loos or picking up food wrappers that overflow from the bins. Whatever his hands are doing, his mind is off meeting Jack-Arthur-Henry’s family—would his mum knit Charlie a matching red scarf?—or scrolling through vacation getaways with Jack-Arthur-Henry on their couch. The weather often provides surplus inspiration. In November, Charlie imagines Jack-Arthur-Henry greeting him at the door with hot chocolate, complete with whipped cream and chocolate shavings on top. Pictures them snuggling in a spacious apartment, watching the snow fall. By December, he’s selecting ornaments and colour schemes for their Christmas tree.

The Monday before Christmas, for the better part of an hour, Charlie ponders whether or not he would be easy to buy for. Ties and cufflinks seem too cliché. The Jack-Arthur-Henry of his mind has far better taste than that, and far deeper interests. He pictures him unwrapping a journal with a rich leather cover, and when he opens up to the first page, he gasps. 

“I wrote them for you,” Charlie tells him in the fantasy, leaning over and tracing the handwritten words on each page. “I wanted you to be the first person to read them.”

In his fantasy, his eyes shine bright with something more than gratitude. It’s humility, or privilege, that Charlie trusts him enough to share his first attempts at short stories with him. And in lieu of thanking him, he cradles Charlie’s face in his huge hands and kisses him—

A rough shove cuts the dream short, and Charlie falls to his knees, hissing in pain. The gloves catch the brunt of the impact, preventing any serious scrapes on his hands—a mercy, that, considering all the bacteria thriving on these floors—but everything on his toppled-over cart is scattered on the floor. Two teenagers, determined to out-lad each other, laugh and run toward the Jubilee Line toward Stratford, looking over their shoulders to see if Charlie will follow them.

He grunts as he stands up and brushes himself off, his ears suddenly cold. His cap must have come off when he fell. He rights his cart and starts to collect the brooms, mops, and spray bottles. There’s a sudsy puddle from where the bucket overturned that Charlie does his best to avoid; he mopped up a worrying amount of sick from the loos an hour ago.

“Here.”

Charlie turns and sees his knit cap in an outstretched hand, thankfully dry. He reaches out and takes it, only then looking up to see who offers it to him. Swoopy auburn hair, cheeks pink from the chill aboveground, brown wool coat, red scarf.

He stares, dumbfounded, clutching his cap. Up close, he can see the freckles sprinkled across his nose that disappear into light stubble, gets irretrievably lost in the warmth of those eyes. Who ever said brown eyes are boring? Charlie wants to write sonnets about these eyes.

“I—er, thanks.”

Jack-Arthur-Henry nods with a tight smile. “Happy Christmas.” 

He trails the scent of his cologne in his wake, and Charlie sags against his cart as he watches him round the corner. Then he smacks himself on the forehead. “‘Er, thanks?!’” he snaps at himself. “How about, ‘Nice coat?’ Or, ‘Happy Christmas to you, too,’ or ‘you’re beautiful.’ ‘Will you marry me?’” He kicks a bottle that’s fallen out of the rubbish on his cart. “‘I love you.’”

He takes his time picking up the crumpled up paper bags and coffee cups that have tumbled onto the floor. One mortifying interaction with his dream man is enough for the day. But by the time he makes it into the station proper, Jack-Arthur-Henry is still there, typing furiously on his phone. Charlie resists the urge to duck and turn his cart around.

The platform is largely empty; the train’s likely just come through. The teenagers are still there, shoving each other back and forth and cackling. One boy makes a start at chasing the other, runs a few steps, and then pulls back. Charlie rolls his eyes, but between their games and Jack-Arthur-Henry’s phone crisis, he figures he’s audience free. He sets about sweeping beneath the benches.

Then he dares a peek. Jack-Arthur-Henry’s brow is furrowed in frustration as he scrolls on his phone. Any lingering obligation to walk up to him and thank him again for rescuing his hat dissipates; he looks too upset to bother. The teenagers near him, roughhousing as they go, but he pays them no mind. Finally, with a huff, he slips his phone into his pocket and looks up, catching Charlie staring at him.

It happens very quickly, but Charlie feels the stretch of every excruciating second. Jack-Arthur-Henry’s neutral gaze morphs into one of discomfort and confusion as his center of gravity shifts, and Charlie spots the puffy coat of one of the teenagers as they knock into him—sending him flailing onto the tracks below. There’s an awful crunch when his head smacks one of the metal rails, then his body bends in a way it shouldn’t as it slides between the rails.

Charlie’s scream is caught in his throat. He waits to see if he’ll get up, dazed and livid, from the tracks. Waits to hear him call for help. The boys look onto the tracks, their shrieks of laughter dying out.

The man lies motionless on the tracks.

“Shit,” one of the boys says. “Should we call someone?”

“Fuck that! Do you want to get fucking nicked?” The other casts worried glances around the various security cameras before darting off the platform and back into the hall, and his friend flees behind him before Charlie can even call after them.

He’s frozen with uncertainty. Isn’t anyone else here? Didn’t someone else see that? Should he call the police? The man hasn’t moved or made a noise since he fell. Charlie can hardly see him. From his spot by the benches, all he can make out is the red of his scarf, hanging listlessly over one of the rails. 

Charlie leaves his cart behind and runs over to the platform edge. “Sir!” he calls out, crouching by his dropped briefcase. “Sir, are you okay? Can you get up?”

He can see the man’s face now—ashen, with a concerning splatter of blood at his temple. Without thinking, he slips down into the very gap that Oswald Laurence tells him every Tube ride to mind, distantly aware that there is a third rail he needs to worry about but not knowing which one it is. “Oh, God,” he says to himself, “this is not good. Erm—”

Charlie hops over the rail closest to the platform and kneels near his splayed out body, afraid to touch him. What if he broke his neck during the fall? If Charlie tries to move him, he could paralyse him. “Oh, God, sir, erm—could you—are you breathing—?” He lowers his ear to his nose and hears a soft exhale, tries not to get caught up in the smell of his cologne again. “Please wake up,” he begs, barely touching his hairline, trying to ascertain where the blood is coming from. “Can you wake up? Can you hear me?”

Then he hears the unmistakable rattle of a train about to enter the station. If Charlie doesn’t move him, paralysis is the least of Jack-Arthur-Henry’s worries. “Oh, God.” Desperately, he starts to fan him, as though that will help. “Please wake up—erm—can somebody help me, please?!” Someone stirs on the platform above, and there are muffled voices. Charlie waves to try to catch their notice.

“There’s a train coming!” he tells the man uselessly. More voices start to shout and ask questions as people step onto the platform, but Charlie can’t hear them, much less understand them. His focus is on the two headlights beaming at him from the dark tunnel ahead, approaching with dizzying speed.

He looks down at the man. A man he knows nothing about, except that he takes the Tube from Bond Street toward Stratford Monday through Friday, sometime between 08:01 and 08:15. A man who has occupied all of Charlie’s daydreams for the past three months. A man who’s given him reason to hope through his existence alone.

Charlie is not going to let him die.

With strength he doesn’t know he has, he flings his arms around the man’s torso and falls back across the rail, pulling him on top of him and out from between the rails. By now, enough people have gathered on the platform edge to see what’s going on, and hands reach down to haul them out of the gap just as the train pulls in. Charlie lies on the floor, gasping like a beached fish and blinking up at the fluorescent lights while someone calls 999. When he tilts his head, he can see the lapel of the brown coat, the fringe of the red scarf, and a trail of blood on the tile.

He doesn’t get a good look at his face until the paramedics arrive and clear out the crowd. Jack-Arthur-Henry looks peaceful, his face smooth and childlike as they stabilise his neck and strap him to the gurney. Charlie gives his story hastily to the police and leaves his cart behind when the paramedics wheel him out, taking the stairs two at a time to beat the lifts to the surface. He hails the first cab he sees, not caring a whit that he can’t afford it, and orders the cabbie to follow the ambulance.

Charlie stumbles into A&E just in time to see the paramedics rushing him down a corridor behind a glass wall. He races to the front desk and says, “Erm, excuse me? Sorry, just—about two seconds ago, a—a man was brought in—”

The nurse talks him down with practised calm in her voice, her hands hovering over Charlie’s shaking ones. “All right, all right, luv, what’s his name?”

“He’s right there!” he all but screeches just as the gurney passes by. Charlie doesn’t know how to stop himself; he just drifts over to the wall and reaches for the first door handle he sees, anxious to follow him.

A doctor steps in and blocks his way. “Sir, you can’t go in there!”

“No, no, no,” says Charlie, “you don’t understand—”

“Are you family?”

“No, but—”

“Family only,” he informs him sternly, disappearing behind the glass door. The doctor joins the throng of medical personnel surrounding the man’s body, and when they wheel the gurney out of sight, Charlie staggers back from the glass wall like he’s been punched.

Shock and helplessness coalesce within him. Inexplicably, he finds himself laughing, his trembling fingers lifting to his lips to contain the mirthless giggles that spill forth. “Oh, God,” he whispers. “I was going to marry that man.”

The nurse at the desk drops her jaw. “Oh, luv.”

__________________

He doesn’t know what compels him to stay. His part in this is over. But stay he does, his knees jackknifed below his chin on a stiff waiting room chair, fielding texts from his boss. Charlie’s pretty sure the only reason he’s not sacked for walking off the job is because he promised to work through Christmas, same as last year. 

The nurse’s gaze keeps landing on him. Her nails clack on her keyboard as she speaks with patients’ families, finds rooms, provides updates, fiddles with her braids and sips Diet Coke out of a straw when she has a moment to herself. Charlie feels her eyes on him. He knows what she must be thinking. You don’t belong here. Why don’t you free up that chair for someone who’s actually waiting for a loved one to come out of surgery?

Still he doesn’t leave. His phone dies after two hours. He flips through magazines, absently wishing he brought a book. He finished his modules and won’t start the new term for a few weeks, but he could always get a head start on that Dickens course he’s looking forward to. His stomach grumbles, and as shredded as his nerves are, he forces himself to go to the closest vending machine and get a packet of crisps.

When he finishes them, a shadow crosses over him, and a hand holds out a cup of brackish coffee. “Here, luv,” says the nurse, freed from her desk. “Meant to bring this to you sooner, but it’s been full on here today. Ice skating accidents, fallen Christmas trees, the whole lot.” He takes the cup, and she taps her name tag. “I’m Tara, by the way.”

“Charlie.” He grants her a thin smile and raises the styrofoam cup in a toast. “Cheers.”

“So I called Dr. Farouk,” she says, “and they’ve released Nick from surgery. They’re taking him to critical care right now.”

He frowns, confused. “Nick?”

“I can take you to him, if you like.”

Nick.

Hope has a name.

Charlie swallows hard and nods. Tara steers him out of the waiting room and through corridors and into lifts. There’s a jarring contrast to it, the bright overhead lights and intermittent beeps interspersed with festive cheer, tinsel banners wound around nurse’s stations and plastic holly in every eave. Tara leads him into a wing where the lights are dimmed and voices drop to a murmur, then stops him in front of Room 902.

“Now, I don’t want to alarm you,” Tara says, “but Nick’s in rough shape. The head trauma he sustained caused massive swelling in his brain. Dr. Farouk was able to get the swelling down during surgery this morning, which went as well as we could hope.”

“Surgery?” Charlie should have paid better attention in the station. He should have chased after those boys when they pushed him and told them to keep their hands to themselves. He should have told them to knock it off on the platform before someone got hurt.

“Dr. Farouk’s the best there is,” Tara reassures him. “But it’s a lot of trauma for the body to handle, so for now, Nick’s been placed in a medically induced coma.” She places a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Charlie, it’s all standard. The coma gives Nick’s body a chance to heal and relax, and the critical care team will keep a close eye on him. If his condition improves in a day or two and the swelling continues to go down, we’ll try to wake him up.”

“Try?!”

Her mouth presses into a grim line. “One day at a time, yeah?” She twists the handle on the door behind her and opens it. “Are you ready to see him?”

Charlie doesn’t belong here. This isn’t his responsibility. Surely he—Nick—has family, friends, maybe even a partner who would be sick with worry to know where he is, what’s happened to him. Charlie is just a bystander. A fool with a crush.

But he’s all Nick has right now. He takes a fortifying sip of coffee and walks in behind Tara.

The lights are low, and the monstrous hospital bed takes up most of the space in the room. Charlie can hardly find him in it, covered as he is from head to toe in wires and tubes. Tara sees him scan all the equipment surrounding him and points to each machine. “This is the ventricular drain,” she says, not quite touching a tube that extends from the crown of his head. “Drains the fluid build-up from his brain, lets us know if the pressure’s getting too high.”

She hesitates, unsure if this is too much, but Charlie nods at her to continue. A gentle fingertip grazes the tube fastened to his mouth, the one that scares Charlie the most. “The ventilator, so the machines can do the breathing for him for a little while. Gives the brain a break from sorting out functions like that, hmm?” Her hand moves to his nose. “NG tube, helps with feeding. We’ve also got a catheter here for fluids, meds, anaesthetics, nutrients.” She taps the tubes taped to his hand, and then her hand gestures to the wires that disappear beneath the hospital gown. “EKG wires to monitor his heart. We’ve got a catheter in to catch waste, socks on to prevent clots…” She claps her hands softly together. “You see? We’ve got it all under control. Your Nick couldn’t be in better hands.”

He flinches at how she phrases it—your Nick. Is his pointless crush that obvious, even to strangers? He sinks into the seat next to Nick’s bed, away from the machines all the tubes feed into. There’s gauze taped to his temple, but Charlie can see faint dots of blood that leak through the fabric and the shadow of stitches. His hair is matted and mussed, and his face—those freckles—are pale in the glimpses Charlie catches in and around the tubes.

“How long will he be…” Charlie shivers involuntarily. “…like this?”

Tara shrugs. “It’s hard to say, luv. Could be days, could be weeks. Of course, there is always the chance…”

No Christmas trees in a colour scheme they pick out together. No scrolling through vacation options, no meeting the family, no first coffee date. Nick’s story might end here in this hospital, without fanfare or outcry. Just a beautiful man who never wakes up. Charlie’s eyes fill with tears.

“I’ve seen patients come back from far worse,” she tries to reassure him, taking the styrofoam cup out of his shaking hands and setting it aside. “I’ve also lost patients who were in better shape. There’s no way to know, so this isn’t something we want to rush. But you being here will help.” Tara makes a little shooing gesture with her hands—go on, then. “Talk to him. Let him hear your voice. Oh, and I almost forgot.” She retrieves a stuffed plastic bag with a familiar red scarf spilling from the open top and places it in Charlie’s lap. “These are his personal effects. We called the emergency contact listed in his phone as he went into surgery, he should be here any minute.”

With a final pat on his shoulder, Tara makes herself scarce. The door clicks shut behind her. Liquid drips out of one tube and into another with eerie little splashes. A heartbeat beeps on the monitor. His chest expands and contracts with the rhythm of the breathing machine.

Charlie lets the plastic bag slide to the floor. Tentatively, he raises a hand and looks for somewhere safe to place it. The hand closest to him is wire-free. Charlie covers it with his own, his heart breaking a little at how cold and waxy it already feels. He blinks his tears away and says, “Hi, Nick.” In spite of himself, he smiles. “I wasn’t too far off. Something solid and classic. Nick.”

There’s no reply, no interruption to the rhythm of beeps and splashes and forced air. Charlie pets his hand with one finger, in time with Nick’s heartbeat. “It’s going to be all right, Nick. It’s going to be fine. You’re not alone.”

Inspiration strikes. He tugs the red scarf from the bag. There’s no way of knowing whether or not his mother actually made it for him, but Charlie can tell it’s handmade. Someone cared enough about Nick to make this for him, imbuing the yarn with their love for him. It’s the one talisman he can give him now. He tucks the scarf across Nick’s knees and places the fringe under his cold fingertips before he takes his hand again. “You’re not alone,” he repeats. “I’m here with you. Everything’s going to be okay, Nick.”

There are raised voices outside Room 902, and Charlie’s head whips over his shoulder to determine their source, his grip tightening on Nick’s hand. He can hear Tara try to employ a soothing yet stern tone with a man, and then the door swings open and someone blusters in.

The man—older than Nick by a good few years, blond with a mustache fighting for its life on his upper lip—goes rigid when he sees Nick in the hospital bed. “Fucking Christ.”

“Mr. Fournier, please!” Tara says, throwing an apologetic glance Charlie’s way. “I know this is a lot to absorb, but this is the critical care unit, and we do ask that—”

“How the fuck did this happen?” he asks. He rakes a hand through his hair. Too young to be his father, Charlie identifies him as a brother; there’s something similar in the shape of their faces and eyes. The brother lifts an arm, ensconced in the sleeve of his black designer coat, and then lets it fall. “I mean, what happened to him that turned him into a bloody vegetable?!”

Charlie stands up, nearly knocking the chair over, and buries his hands in his pockets. “Erm, I can explain that,” he says in a rush. “He was pushed off the platform at the Tube station at Bond Street, took a bad fall and hit his head on the rail. I—I pulled him off the tracks before the train came in, and the paramedics rushed him here—”

“You.” The brother points to Charlie like dog shit on the bottom of his leather oxfords. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Now, Mr. Fournier, as scary as this situation is, there’s no need to raise your voice and there’s no need for that kind of language,” Tara reprimands him. “Not in the critical care unit and definitely not toward the man responsible for saving your brother’s life.” 

Charlie demurs at the compliment, secretly chuffed at Tara’s defense of him, so he’s entirely unprepared for what comes next.

She scoffs and crosses her arms. “Especially considering that he’s his fiancé.”

Charlie thinks, for a moment, that he got it wrong, that he misheard Tara and the irate man in front of him is Nick’s fiancé. It’s only when he sees how Tara’s triumphant grin is trained on him that he realises. She means him.

“Oh,” he chokes out, “I’m—”

“He’s not his fucking fiancé.” The man—brother it is, then—cringes, repulsed. “What the fuck are you on about? Are you mental?! My brother’s not gay, and he’s certainly not engaged to a bloke!”

Charlie’s eyes narrow. He harboured no illusions that the Jack-Arthur-Henry of his imagination was even a little queer in real life, but that’s no excuse for the brother to act so disgusted at the prospect of Nick being engaged to a man. 

Then again, if Nick is anything like his brother, the prospect might disgust him, too. There isn’t any time to waste in clearing this up. “There’s been some kind of miscommunication—”

“I mean, he’s only been in London three bloody months,” the brother says. “He just ended things with that blonde, and he never mentioned—not once, not one fucking phone call—he would have told me—” He digs into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. “What is it you’re after, hmm?” he asks Charlie. “Heard the name Fournier and did your research, did you? Thought you could bag yourself a sugar daddy?” He grabs a handful of bills and starts counting. “How much do you want?”

Charlie just looks on in horror, and Tara’s patience finally breaks. “Now, that is quite enough from you, Mr. Fournier! Your brother is fighting for his life, and the bloody hero who saved him, who waited six hours while his fiancé was in surgery and has been sick with worry over him, doesn’t deserve to be insulted by you!”

Nick’s brother is half a head taller than Tara, but he cowers a bit under her reproach. She takes a steadying breath and adds, in a calmer voice, “Accidents like this bring out the worst in us, and there will be plenty of details to sort out later. But right now, Nick needs your support, and some decisions have to be made.”

“Decisions?” For the first time since he swaggered in, the flicker of concern crosses his brother’s face. He looks at Nick in the hospital bed, and the scarlet flush in his cheeks starts to fade. “W-What kind of decisions?”

“Nick’s condition is highly critical. We’ll do everything we can to help him heal, but his injury was severe, and there’s a possibility—”

“—that he won’t wake up?” There’s still an edge to the brother’s voice, somewhere between inconvenienced and deeply grieved.

Tara doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to. “Point is, if he has family, now’s the time to call.”

“I’ve already let our father know,” his brother informs her sharply. “He’s—he’ll be here as soon as he can.”

“And your mother?”

He pockets his wallet and makes a dismissive hand gesture. “Better not to let her know.”

Heat prickles in Charlie’s fingertips. He peeks down at Nick, at the scarf looped over his knees, and then looks up at his brother. “Sorry,” he says, “but what the fuck do you mean, ‘Better not to let her know?’ She’s his mother.”

Tara doesn’t chide him for swearing, though he wonders if he shouldn’t have spoken up. The mother he pictured knitting the scarf for Nick is an angel, but Nick’s actual mother might be a terror. Maybe she’s abusive, or neglectful, or completely out of the picture.

His brother runs his fingers through the hair at the back of his neck, looking abashed. “She just—she’ll kick up the worst kind of fuss, and she’ll blubber and make a scene, and—”

“And that’s somehow not the kind of reaction you’d want from a mother whose child is in a medically induced coma?” He shakes his head. “What if—sorry, but what if Nick dies before she finds out? What if she never gets to say goodbye to her son? You want that on your conscience?”

His brother stares at the floor. “We’ll sort it out once Papa gets here. Of course we’ll tell her, we just—” Hostility returns, chasing out the shame, and he fixes Charlie with a glare. “Sorry,” he seethes, “but this isn’t exactly your business. I have no clue who you are, so as far as I’m concerned, you’re a gold-digging opportunist who seduced my baby brother into some gay shit—”

“I didn’t—”

“—and for all I know, you’re the one who pushed him onto the bloody tracks,” he concludes, arms crossed. “I don’t know what you did to make him propose, but I can promise you this: if you think you’ll squeeze a single bloody pound out of my brother, dead or alive, you will not only end up just as skint as you clearly are now…” He gestures to Charlie’s grubby jumper, the reflective vest, the torn up jeans. “You will fucking regret the day you set your sights on him in the first place.” Then he turns to Tara. “I’m Nick’s emergency contact, and unless this arsehole can produce a fucking marriage license, that means I have power of attorney. And I’m saying we don’t call our mother. Not until we know what’s going to happen to him.”

Though she looks eager to fight him on it, Tara retreats and closes the door behind her. The brother wraps his hands around the footboard at the end of the bed and asks, without looking up, “Could you give us a minute?”

Charlie hesitates. This man has as much healing power in him as a bottle of weed killer, and he highly doubts that any time spent at Nick’s bedside would spur on rest and relief. But he is Nick’s brother. Nick listed him as his emergency contact. And their father is on the way.

Charlie stayed with Nick until his family could take over and care for him. He might not like what he’s seen of Nick’s family, but it’s not his call to make. There is no reason for him to stay. And God, what a thing to say! Why on earth does Tara think he’s Nick’s fiancé? If he leaves now and never makes an appearance again, Nick’s brother will assume he got it right, that Charlie was a fortune hunter who left when it became clear there was no payday on the horizon. He probably won’t even mention him when Nick wakes up.

If he wakes up.

Charlie thinks of his own mother. He hasn’t spoken to Jane in over three years. But if it were him in that hospital bed, despite everything he’s put his mother through and the wreckage of their relationship, he would still want someone to call her if there was a chance he was dying.

He leaves without a word, but takes the bag of Nick’s personal effects out with him into the hall, carrying it to the nearest waiting room. Item by item, he unpacks it. Nick’s warm wool coat, the suit he was wearing, a pair of shoes, his briefcase. AirPods, a wallet stuffed with shiny credit cards under the name Nick Fournier. Finally, in the bottom of the bag, he finds Nick’s phone—a flashy iPhone, the latest model, with a golden retriever puppy as the background screen. Charlie smiles at the picture and finds the phone unlocked. Evidently, there’s nothing worth hiding on it.

He scrolls through the contacts until he finds ‘Mum,’ takes a deep breath, and presses the call button. 

A female voice answers after two rings. “Nicky? Darling, is that you?” Charlie opens his mouth to reply, but the woman trills ahead on the phone, high-pitched and nervous. “Did you get the card I sent for your birthday? I know it isn’t much, but I wanted you to know I was thinking of you. I was hoping, maybe for Christmas, you might come visit—oh, I’m sorry I didn’t pick up your call this morning, but—”

“Sorry, erm—is this Nick’s mum?”

The unfamiliar voice stops her in her tracks. “Yes, this is Sarah Nelson. Who is this?”

“I’m…Charlie Spring.” He doesn’t see the point in hiding his identity. He hasn’t done anything wrong. “There’s been an accident. Could you come to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington as soon as you can?”

Chapter Text

The phone is his last responsibility. Or at least that’s how Charlie rationalises it. He flips the comforting weight between his palms, volume high in case Nick’s mother calls for directions. Nick’s brother—David, he begrudgingly introduced himself—leans back in the chair next to Charlie, arms tights across his chest. He makes a show of sighing at his own phone, tapping with aggression as he cancels plans like he’s in a queue for some bureaucratic nonsense and not sitting vigil to see if his own flesh and blood survives the night.

Charlie falls back on plausible deniability. The moment he admits he’s not Nick’s fiancé is the moment David kicks him out of this hospital room. But Sarah Nelson has to get here first. Then he can hand off the phone, explain the misunderstanding, and duck out without any residual guilt. If he leaves now, he doesn’t trust David to let Sarah get past the front desk.

Even though Nick’s phone is unlocked, Charlie doesn’t snoop. A few texts come through, which he checks only to make sure they’re not from Sarah and leaves unread when he sees they aren’t. He couldn’t understand them even if he wanted to. The majority are from someone named Imogène, and they’re all in French.

Charlie slips the phone into his back pocket around dinner time. “I’m headed down to the café,” he says. “Can I get you anything?”

The offer is perfunctory and David knows it. He doesn’t even lift his head from his screen. Charlie hopes David hears the implicit warning in his request: I’ll be right back. You’re not rid of me yet. But he doesn’t hurry. He takes his time, memorising the route from the ninth floor to the café, just in case Sarah asks when she gets here. When the barista calls out his order of another cup of coffee and whatever sandwich is fresh, a ringtone goes off in Charlie’s pocket.

He scoops up his dinner and scrambles to fish the phone out, disappointed to see that it’s not Nick’s mother. It’s an alarm with an instruction: 18:00—WALK DAISY. Charlie silences the alarm and carries his purchases back up to the ninth floor, chewing but not really tasting.

He stops short of the door to 902, which David apparently did not see fit to close after Charlie left the room. A stream of panicked French flows from inside the room. “—putain de merde, Papa, combien de temps faut-il pour prendre un putain d'Eurostar pour Londres?”

Charlie’s limited French yields him only three words: Papa, Eurostar, and Londres. Given the climbing hysteria in David’s voice, his best guess is that their father’s arrival in London isn’t imminent. A deep voice rumbles, unintelligible, on the other line, and he hears a sharp intake of breath before David’s reply. “Nick est dans un putain de coma, Papa! Ne comprendront-ils pas que tu as une urgence familiale?!”

He’s about to take a lap, nibble on his sandwich around the ninth floor until David finishes the phone call, but then he hears a wounded sound. David’s voice drops low. “Papa, j'ai peur. J'ai vraiment très peur. Ils ont dit qu'il pourrait ne pas se réveiller. J'ai besoin de toi ici. S'il te plaît, Papa.”

Charlie has no idea what the words mean, but he doesn’t have to. He hears the way David’s voice breaks on his last appeal. He might even hear a sniff as David wipes his nose—and maybe his eyes, too—on his sleeve and then clears his throat. “D’accord,” he says dully. “À demain, alors.” David hangs up, then whispers, “Fucking prick.”

He suddenly regrets not picking something up for David at the café anyway. Homophobia aside—and that’s a big aside, but Charlie endeavours to be generous—he is dealing with a brother on his potential deathbed right now, and faced with a stranger announced as a future in-law, Charlie’s not sure how much better he would have fared. Maybe David deserves a little latitude. Before he can strategise how to give it to him, he hears the squeak of trainers on the floor and rustle of coats; two women burst into the ward, scanning the wall for room numbers.

If he had to pick Nick’s mother out of a line-up, this is exactly whom Charlie would choose. Warm brown eyes, like his, though glassy with unshed tears. Close-cropped brown hair. Looks like she gives the kind of hug you never want to end. At her elbow is another woman, slightly younger but equally frazzled, long brown hair sticking up from the static of a just-removed cap. They don’t even spot him once they zero in on Room 902, though Charlie follows them as they burst in.

“Mum!” David looks at her, aghast. “What are you—how did you—?!”

The woman who must be Sarah Nelson wails when she sees her son, ignoring David’s questions. Her knees buckle, and the younger woman holds her up. “Courage, dear,” she murmurs, helping her into the seat Charlie claimed earlier and slipping her coat off her shoulders. 

Sarah’s hand slips into Nick’s. “My baby,” she weeps. “Oh, God, my child, my poor, poor baby boy.” 

The three of them watch, unable to look away, as Sarah presses kisses to Nick’s limp fingers and cradles them to her cheek. Then, at the same moment, they all cough and look at their shoes, embarrassed to have borne witness to such a tender moment between mother and son. The younger woman takes off her own coat and shucks both off to a corner before enfolding David in a hug he accepts only under duress. “Hello, David. Thank you for coming all this way to be with him.”

“Of course,” he says gruffly. “It was nothing.”

Charlie holds his tongue so he doesn’t mention that if it had been up to David, neither she nor Sarah would be here right now. The sound of his voice awakens Sarah, who leaves Nick’s side only to launch herself across the room and hold David tight. David is stiff in her arms—this was the fuss he was hoping to avoid—but Charlie sees how his posture relaxes after a few moments of Sarah refusing to release him. “Mum,” he grumbles, “it’s fine. You don’t need to coddle me, I’m not the one in a coma.”

But the mere mention of the word sends Sarah into a fresh round of tears. She pulls back only to hold David’s face in her hands. “Who’s his doctor?” she asks. “Can we ask them to tell us what the prognosis is, how soon we—God!” She sways again, unsteady on her feet, and David puts a reluctant arm around her waist. “How did this even happen, Davey? How could this have happened to our boy?”

“Ask him,” David says acidly, and everyone turns to look at Charlie.

He grips his coffee and sandwich tight. A few crumbs fall to the floor. “I—”

“Are you Charlie?” Sarah asks him.

Charlie nods, shoving his sandwich into the front pocket of his jumper and putting his coffee cup on the ledge by the window so he can explain himself and hand over the phone. This is his official exit. Mother at bedside, mission accomplished. The end.

Sarah wails again, throwing herself into Charlie’s surprised embrace. “Thank God for you,” she whispers into his collar. He has to give her credit, she doesn’t even cringe at the smell. “If you hadn’t called, I might’ve been too late—”

“So you know him?” David asks, incredulous. “You already knew about Charlie?”

“He’s the one who called me,” Sarah informs him. She takes a step back from Charlie but tucks an errant curl behind his ear in an immediately familiar, fond gesture. He can’t remember the last time someone did that for him. “I came as soon as I heard, dearest, and Aunt Diane got the first train she could and met me here.”

“But you know about him and Nick?” When he’s met with twin quizzical stares, David smiles without a hint of warmth. “Ah. Didn’t think so.”

“Know what, David?”

“Charlie here,” he says, “claims to be Nick’s fiancé.”

Silence fills the hospital room.

Charlie never once lied. Sure, he’s omitted the truth for the last two hours, but he was never trying to fool David long term, and he has no intention of fooling anyone any longer. All he wanted was to make sure Nick was looked after. To make sure he saw a gentle face when he woke up, or was held by loving arms as he drifted off forever. He looks down at his hands, pinching the skin around his thumbnail, and says, “I can explain. You see, Nick was on the platform at Bond Street, and there were these two boys—they weren’t looking where they were going—”

“So you were there?” Aunt Diane asks, gesturing to Nick in bed. “You saw it happen?”

“I was the one who, er—” He mimes pulling Nick up, but then shakes his head. “Actually, there were a lot of people who helped me lift him from the tracks—”

Sarah goes frighteningly still. “So, just to be clear,” she says, “You’re the man who saved my son, and the man who made sure I knew Nicky was in hospital, and the man my son loves?” Charlie’s ready to contradict that last one, but the smile that makes its way onto her face—peaceful, relieved—feels unfair to take from her considering today’s shock. Her arms wrap around him before he can say anything more. “Charlie, darling, how can we ever thank you?”

“Sorry, but why am I the only one who finds this strange?” David all but peels Sarah off Charlie and puts his hands on her shoulders. “Mum, you just found out that Nick’s gay and you’re not even a little shocked?”

She shrugs off his grip. “I had my suspicions. He did go on about that instructor at the rugby summer camp…”

“Had us binge watch Pirates of the Caribbean that one summer in Mallorca,” supplies Aunt Diane.

“I never asked,” Sarah says, “but I was ready to listen if he ever wanted to tell me himself.”

“But that’s the thing! He didn’t tell us!” David says, jabbing a finger in Charlie’s direction. “Three months he’s been in London working on the business expansion, and he doesn’t mention that he’s fallen in love? With a man, for Christ’s sake? Never once calls and tells us he’s getting married?!”

Sarah gazes at him coolly. “I’ve been the last to know about the details of your lives for the past sixteen years. Why should this be any different?” 

That chastens him. David crumbles under the weight of her gaze and backs away. Charlie looks over to Nick again, a pang of disappointment running through him. It was much better to imagine that Jack-Arthur-Henry had a stellar relationship with his mother, that he was the kind of son who deserved a handmade red scarf. If Nick’s the sort of person who could get engaged without Sarah knowing—and not surprising her when she’s the last to know—then Charlie isn’t sure he’s the man he’s been dreaming of.

“None of that’s important now,” she says in a softer tone, reaching for David’s hand. “Nick needs us, and we need to be here for him. And the reason we still have him is Charlie.” With her free hand, she takes Charlie’s. “Darling, I don’t know how to begin to thank you for saving my son. But I sincerely hope we have a lifetime to show you our gratitude. Nicky already loves you, and I can tell it won’t take long for us all to love you, too.”

Aunt Diane leans over and squeezes his shoulder. “Welcome to the family, Charlie.”

There’s a sort of static whine in his ears, the buzzing prelude to a panic attack. Charlie just nods like a dolt, feeling sweat bead on the palm Sarah holds fast. His mouth feels dangerously dry. He knows he can’t let this go on, but then Sarah looks over her shoulder at Nick, and her face crumples. She releases them both without a word and takes her seat by Nick’s side again, petting the back of his hand. “Diane,” she asks, “could you fetch the doctor? I want to know what we’re dealing with.”

“Of course. Be right back.” Aunt Diane ducks out, and David takes his chair, pretending to be absorbed in his phone. Charlie sees Sarah notice the red scarf he placed on the bed, and a wistful smile plays at the corners of her mouth. Knew it.

“I, erm—” He edges toward the door. “I should—some privacy—”

The walls of the corridor flex in the same gruesome, mechanical way that Nick’s chest inflates and deflates. Charlie gets the sense that the straight line he’s trying to walk in is veering sharply left as he leaves as fast as he can, and near the lift, he collapses against the nearest wall and slides to the floor. His breath rattles in his ears, and he draws his knees up under his chin and makes himself breathe in slow, measured pulls of air.

What the fuck is he supposed to do?

Nick has Sarah with him now, a mother he’s barely been in contact with for sixteen years. Charlie remembers how she picked up the phone, so hopeful that Nick had received a fucking birthday card—had he not even called her to thank her?—and that he might visit for Christmas. Nick has David, who’s a premium arsehole, but even at that, he sounded so terrified and small on the phone with his father. And said father is still out of the picture.

He imagined better for Nick, in his fantasies. A wholesome, accepting, affectionate family. But now he’s not even sure Nick’s the sort of person who deserves a wholesome family at his bedside. What kind of man picks up a fallen toy to return to a baby’s mother, but can’t be bothered to call his own?

Charlie knows he has to leave. The fantasy is falling apart. But he did his bit. He might not have the strength to walk back and tell Sarah Nelson to her face that he’s a virtual stranger to Nick, but he doesn’t have to perpetuate this insane idea anymore.

He’s jolted out of his thoughts by an insistent ringtone emanating from his back pocket. Shit. Charlie forgot to return Nick’s phone. He pulls it out of his pocket and reads the same banner on the alarm he silenced down in the café. 18:00—WALK DAISY.

Charlie turns the alarm off, then squints at the screen. Namely, the golden retriever grinning up at the camera, pink tongue lolling out. Well, that’s just not playing fair. What are the odds that an innocent puppy is whimpering by a door somewhere in London, waiting for Nick to come home? Does she have an automatic feeder? Does David know about her?

Experimentally, he opens up Nick’s phone and scrolls through his camera roll. A few screenshots and memes, some photos of pints of beer and plates of food—fucking bleak, that—and bingo, picture after picture of a golden retriever puppy. Rolling around in the grass, snoozing on the couch. He zooms in on one to see the name on the tag dangling from her pink collar.

That’ll be Daisy, then.

The proper thing to do, at this juncture, is to go back to Room 902 and confess everything. Tell Sarah that as lucky as Charlie would be to have her as a mother-in-law, that’s not a future either of them have to look forward to. Check with David to see if he knows about Daisy’s existence. Let them sort out who takes care of the dog.

It’s just. Well. Is it really fair to add another thing to their plate?

Charlie gets up, brushes himself off, and marches back to Room 902 before he can talk himself out of it. But when he opens the door and meets three pairs of eyes, he falters. And he scarcely believes what comes out of his mouth next. “Sorry,” he says, “but could you pass me that bag?”

Aunt Diane lifts up the plastic bag of Nick’s personal effects, and Charlie digs around for his keys. David peers over the hospital bed. “What are you doing?”

“Getting his keys,” he says through gritted teeth, rooting around in the pockets of Nick’s coat.

“Why do you need his keys?”

“So I can walk the dog.”

“Nick doesn’t have a dog.”

Charlie’s not proud of what he does next, but as soon as he finds the keys, he pockets them and flashes Nick’s phone at David to show him the screen as he straightens up. “You sure about that?”

David looks genuinely stricken at that. Charlie wonders what else Nick has kept from him these past three months. He doesn’t look at Nick’s body on the way out of the hospital, barely nods his acknowledgement as Sarah coos her thanks. This is just tying up a loose end. That’s all this is.

David seems like he’d be shit with dogs, anyway.

__________________

The next part takes a bit of proper sleuthing. He catches the bus outside the hospital and heads in the direction of Bond Street Station, figuring that Nick lives close enough to take it to work. Unless he transfers from another line, in which case Charlie’s fucked. But he finds Nick’s address in Uber Eats and is vindicated: a flat in Marylebone, less than a ten minute walk from the station. Another thing he’s guessed right about Nick.

The flat itself is a metal-and-concrete monstrosity at complete odds with the charming storefronts and brick rows surrounding it, some corporate development nightmare. Charlie almost swallows his own tongue when he sees it. There’s an honest to God doorman who doesn’t blink an eye at scruffy Charlie as he enters the building and waits for the lift. The kind of doorman you pay extra for tact alone. Maybe he just assumes Charlie is delivering food.

The address was easy enough to find. It’s the “PH” he can’t interpret until he gets inside the lift and sees numbers for all fifteen floors, culminating in “PH” near the top, next to the button for the rooftop terrace. Penthouse. Jesus Christ. His hands shake as he feeds the key into the lock, ready for the burglar alarms to blare. He hears nails scratch at the door on the other side. “It’s all right, Daisy,” he reassures her as he fumbles with the doorknob. “It’s okay, I’m coming in!”

She pounces on him as soon as he sets foot inside, whining and sniffing at his battered Converse. Charlie kicks the door shut behind him and falls to his knees, arms outstretched. “Hi, Daisy!” The dog yips at the sound of her name and leaps right into Charlie’s arms, licking his face. “You’re so adorable! I know, I know I’m not who you were expecting, but I’m here to look after you!”

Daisy leaves off with the licking and makes a thorough inspection of Charlie’s clothes, doubtless smelling traces of the sick Charlie mopped up this morning and the faint sweaty rubbish scent that he’s never managed to wash out of his vest. He looks around the vestibule of the penthouse and sees a lead on a hook by the door. Daisy’s tail wags when he yanks it off and attaches it to her collar. “Ready to go?”

She makes a perturbed little snuffle, and Charlie sees that a little down the hall, there’s a puddle of piss. “That’s all right,” he reassures her. “You were left alone too long. That’s not your fault, Daisy. Let’s go for a walk, I’ll clean it up when we get back.”

Daisy drags him to the lift, and Charlie lets her take the lead as soon as they reach the ground floor. He’s never had a dog, has no clue how long they need to walk, but Daisy is remarkably self-directed for her age. She prances down a few blocks, pausing for frequent sniffs or to take a wee, and flops onto the pavement after fifteen minutes with a sated smile on her face. Charlie can’t resist carrying her back to the flat.

He tries not to gawk at the penthouse, though it’s far and away the poshest place he’s ever been to. If Nick’s only been here for three months, like David said, Charlie guesses the place came pre-furnished. If so, there’s hope for Nick yet; there isn’t a whiff of character in the entire flat. The kitchen is all chrome appliances surrounding a grey marble island and light fixtures that look like they come from a spaceship. Charlie searches for Daisy’s food, raising an eyebrow at the surplus of ingredients hidden in the stark white cupboards. Did the kitchen come fully stocked, too? Or did Nick buy the sugar, flour, and spices himself?

He even checks the refrigerator and freezer when he can’t find Daisy’s food. There’s a blue frosted cake beneath cling film with only one slice cut out and half a dozen pints of bubblegum ice cream. Charlie grins and shakes his head at that. What adult in his right mind eats bubblegum ice cream?

Turns out that Daisy’s food is in a plastic container in the linen cupboard. Charlie replenishes her bowl, serves her fresh water, and permits himself sitting on Nick’s pristine white couch and borrowing his phone charger so Charlie has enough battery to get home.

Daisy joins him after a few mouthfuls of dinner, jumping onto the couch and settling her head on his lap. The sun’s long since set. He looks out over the rooftops, then looks up at the soaring ceiling. Here he is, in the home of the man of his dreams. Somewhere in this labyrinthine penthouse is a bedroom that Charlie’s dreamed about more times than he cares to admit. 

But that was the point—it was a dream. Something to keep his spirits up as he works to cobble his life back together. He was never supposed to get this far. And definitely not under these circumstances.

Daisy huffs, and Charlie scratches her behind the ears. “I know, girl. He’ll be back soon. He has to.”

He lifts up his own phone and opens Instagram. Time for some peer review.

@charlie_spr1: i did something bad

@elle_universerocks: r we talking bad as in 😈😈 bad or bad as in ☠️☠️ bad?

@charlie_spr1: BAD bad

@charlie_spr1: like i don’t know what to do kind of bad

@charlie_spr1: like i’m kind of freaking out kind of bad??

@elle_universerocks: omg babes! we’re here for u 

@isaac_paperback: What’s going on? How can we help?

@charlie_spr1: so you guys remember my little tube crush?

@isaac_paperback: 08:01 to 08:15 every morning, Monday through Friday

@the.xu.tao: 08:01 to 08:15 every morning mon thru fri

@elle_universerocks: 08:01 to 08:15 every morning monday thru friday

@elle_universerocks: well done, u lot 😂

@the.xu.tao: went and asked him out, did u

@the.xu.tao: told u he was str8

@charlie_spr1: not exactly

@charlie_spr1: he was kind of in an accident this morning. fell onto the tracks, almost got hit by a train

@isaac_paperback: Holy shit! Is he okay??

@charlie_spr1: um no

@charlie_spr1: he’s at st marys hospital in a medically induced coma 

@the.xu.tao: 🤨🤨🤨

@the.xu.tao: how do u know this

@charlie_spr1: because i’m the one who saved him from being hit by said train

@elle_universerocks: CHARLIE!!!! you’re a goddamn superhero!!! 😍🤩

@charlie_spr1: and then i went with him to the hospital and might have said something stupid when they wheeled him off to surgery

@the.xu.tao: oh god charlie wut did u say???

@charlie_spr1: 🤦🏻 i might have said he was the man i was going to marry

@the.xu.tao: u WOT

@isaac_paperback: 🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭

@elle_universerocks: charlie babes… 😓

@charlie_spr1: I DIDN’T INTEND THAT ANYONE SHOULD HEAR ME!

@charlie_spr1: but a nurse did and she thought i meant it

@charlie_spr1: she let me see him after his surgery

@elle_universerocks: u waited for him to be out of surgery?

@elle_universerocks: u’ve invented a whole new level of down bad 😭

@charlie_spr1: i thought she was just being nice, letting me know he survived

@charlie_spr1: then nick’s arsehole brother arrived and she told him i was his fiancé

@isaac_paperback: Tube Crush has a name?

@charlie_spr1: he’s called nick fournier

@charlie_spr1: his brother was being a huge dick and homophobic to boot, and i was going to tell him it was a mistake, but then he said he didn’t want nick’s mum to know he was in a coma and was trying to keep nick’s accident a secret from her

@the.xu.tao: christ on a bike 

@charlie_spr1: so i sort of took nick’s phone and called his mum to let her know he’s in hospital

@the.xu.tao: jesus charlie it wasn’t any of ur fucking business!!!11!

@elle_universerocks: aww but tao that’s kind of sweet? like of course nick’s mother should know he was hit by a train!!

@isaac_paperback: NOT hit by a train, thanks to Charlie.

@isaac_paperback: As a side note, a cursory Google search informs me that Nick Fournier is the youngest member of his dad’s property management firm in Paris.

@isaac_paperback: They own loads in Paris and Nice, looks like they’re eyeing an international expansion to London.

@charlie_spr1: wouldn’t surprise me one bit, the penthouse he’s staying in is insane

@the.xu.tao: charlie

@the.xu.tao: why do u know about this stranger’s penthouse

@charlie_spr1: 😬😬😬

@charlie_spr1: so nick also has a puppy

@the.xu.tao: CHARLIE NO

@isaac_paperback: Also he apparently broke off a high profile engagement to Parisian socialite Imogène Henne, was all over the tabloids.

@charlie_spr1: so his mum showed up and it was a whole drama and i know i should have said something, but then nick’s phone kept going off telling me to walk daisy and it didn’t seem right to ask his mum or brother or aunt to do it because they should be the ones sitting with nick right now, so i borrowed his keys and went to his penthouse and walked the dog

@charlie_spr1 has sent a picture

@charlie_spr1: here’s daisy

@elle_universerocks: awwwww cutie! 🥺

@the.xu.tao: ELLE NO

@isaac_paperback: The dog seems like a recent addition, if his Instagram is anything to go by. Looks like he only adopted her a few weeks ago.

@the.xu.tao: ISAAC UR NOT HELPING????

@isaac_paperback: Sorry.

@the.xu.tao: charlie this has gone waaaay 2 far

@the.xu.tao: im proud of u 4 saving this bloke’s life but it has to stop here

@the.xu.tao: go back to the hospital, tell his mum u don’t know him, give back the keys and the phone

@the.xu.tao: AND TELL THEM 2 WALK THE DAMN DOG THEMSELVES

@charlie_spr1: 😔 i know

@elle_universerocks: it does seem like this was a crazy day

@elle_universerocks: i can understand it being a mistake and not finding a good moment to explain with everything else going on

@elle_universerocks: but tao’s right, u’ve got to get this under control

@isaac_paperback: Just out of curiosity, why did you say it? That you were going to marry him?

@charlie_spr1: idk because i’ve been daydreaming about this man for months and his skull cracked in front of me and i thought he was going to die?

@isaac_paperback: And when he didn’t die, why didn’t you immediately tell the nurse she was wrong?

@the.xu.tao: he might still die tho

@elle_universerocks: TAO

@the.xu.tao: sry

@charlie_spr1: it just seemed like he needed someone to protect him. didn’t seem like his brother was going to do it.

@isaac_paperback: 🚨🚨🚨

@isaac_paperback: Sorry, my bullshit detector just went off.

@isaac_paperback: Try again.

@charlie_spr1: UGH

@charlie_spr1: it’s so fucking stupid

@charlie_spr1: it all happened so fast

@charlie_spr1: but i dunno

@charlie_spr1: i know nick fournier would never come close to being married to me, not in real life, not if he knew me.

@charlie_spr1: and from the little i’ve learned about him today, i’m not sure i’d want to marry him

@charlie_spr1: but for just a moment, it seemed nice

@charlie_spr1: it was nice to have him belong to me, and me belong to him

@the.xu.tao: fucking hell

@charlie_spr1: i’m aware of how messed up that sounds

@charlie_spr1: i know what i have to do

@charlie_spr1: i’ll go to the hospital after work tomorrow and tell them everything

@elle_universerocks: we can go with u if u need backup

@elle_universerocks: ur still a hero for saving his life

@elle_universerocks: u never know, he might wake up and thank u for it!

@elle_universerocks: ask u out properly and fall in love w/ u

@the.xu.tao: it’s encouraging delusions like this that got charlie into this mess in the 1st place!!!!

@isaac_paperback: For what it’s worth, Charlie, I think you’re wrong.

@charlie_spr1: how’s that?

@isaac_paperback: I think Nick Fournier would marry you, in real life, if he knew you.

Chapter Text

Charlie is well aware that the accident did not happen to him. But when he descends into Bond Street station that night, he’s the one who feels like a ghost. He’s not even on the same line that Nick takes to work—the decrepit flat he shares with three other UCL students is in Ealing, on the Elizabeth Line—but he can’t help himself from shuddering when he passes signs for the Jubilee Line. He wonders if someone cleaned up Nick’s blood from the platform.

He worries that’ll be his job tomorrow morning.

Charlie isn’t delaying, per se. There are very real demands on his own time that he can’t put off. He arrives home, waves a desultory greeting to his flatmates crowded around the telly with the remains of their dinner, and showers the day off him. He sets his alarm at an even more ridiculous hour than usual—someone has to walk Daisy in the morning, after all—and falls asleep with a half-eaten bowl of ramen tucked into the crook of his arm.

Up before dawn, Charlie brings a change of clothes with him. He didn’t miss David’s disdain at his work uniform. When he tells Nick’s family today that he isn’t engaged to him, he wants to look decent enough that the reply is, What a shame, you seem like a nice young man, instead of, Naturally, Nick would never deign to associate with a povvo like yourself. Daisy’s happy enough to see him as he refills her food and water and gives her another walk around the block.

It’s strange. He’s arranged his route through the station so that he ends up ready to see Nick between 8:01 and 8:15, like clockwork. But today, he avoids the platform like the plague, scrubbing every loo and sweeping every line before there’s nothing else to do but wheel his cleaning cart over to the Jubilee Line. Charlie doesn’t know what he expects to see—maybe some police tape? something to signify the scene of a crime?—but the station is its usual level of dirty. There’s nothing to indicate what happened here yesterday morning. Someone even mopped up the blood.

He feels a swell of longing to see Nick again, but he buries it. Now’s the time to plan. He sweeps up wrappers and coffee cups and thinks of what he’s going to say tonight.

Hi, Sarah. Bit nippy out, isn’t it? Nick any better? No? Shame, that. Well, I came round to confess that I am not, nor have I ever been, engaged to your son. The truth is, we’ve exchanged maybe five words in our entire acquaintance. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and said the wrong thing. But I’m not the only one to blame here, Sarah! If you hadn’t contributed genetic material that made the single fittest man on the planet, I wouldn’t have been on the platform to ogle him, and we wouldn’t be in this mess, would we?

Hey, David! Good news, you were right. Your brother is as safely heterosexual as you presumed—though you might want to check your mum and aunt on their assumptions, they seem pretty sold on Pirates of the Caribbean being a very illuminating franchise for Nick. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use your posh phone to call a posh lawyer to sue my arse into oblivion. Nobody got hurt, after all.

Well, Nick got hurt. But I’m not liable for that bit.

Aunt Diane, you seem lovely. We never really got the chance to talk, so I don’t know what to say to you. But maybe you could do us all a favour and take the puppy out for a walk until Nick wakes up?

No matter how many times he tries to construct a confession and apology, it comes out warped and embittered, either hating himself or hating the situation. Charlie puts away the cleaning cart and boards the bus toward St Mary’s, hoping that the right words will find their way into his mouth when he needs them. He spots a flower stand by the hospital entrance and inspiration strikes. The news might be softened with a gift.

Forty-five quid later—highway robbery—Charlie walks into the hospital with a potted poinsettia wrapped with gold foil paper around its base. He ducks into the loo to change and stuffs his uniform in his bag, putting on an emerald green jumper and the least ripped pair of jeans he owns. Elle gave him cologne for his birthday; he spritzes a bit on his wrists, splashes some water on his face, and twists in front of the mirror to inspect how he looks. Not bad. Not bad at all, actually.

What Isaac texted last night comes back to him, making him flush. I think Nick Fournier would marry you, in real life, if he knew you. Maybe not, but out of his station cleaner’s uniform, he might at least have caught Nick’s eye and made him pause before he went about his straight—or perhaps bi?—business.

Charlie signs in at the front desk, plasters on a visitor badge, and heads up to the ninth floor with his peace offering in hand. Before he can lose his nerve, he opens the door to Room 902.

Not a Nelson or Fournier in sight, except the one lying in the hospital bed. Charlie recognises Tara, the nurse from yesterday, fiddling with the tubes. She turns at the sound of the door opening and smiles when she sees him. “Oh, good. You’re back.”

“I…had work.” He shrugs. Charlie supposes he could tell Tara first, but he wants to minimise the damage of this upcoming revelation. No need to make her feel guilty for misinterpreting what he said. She was only trying to be kind. “Wish I could have skived off, though. I wanted to be here.”

What’s pathetic is that he means every word.

Tara nods in sympathy. “Been there. Bill collectors don’t care for sob stories.” She points to the potted poinsettia. “Those are gorgeous! This place could do with a bit of cheer, especially after today.”

Charlie places them on the counter next to Nick almost at once, as though he can put the flowers to work as a charm against misfortune. “What happened today? I haven’t heard anything—” No need to mention that none of Nick’s family has his number, because they’re complete strangers to each other.

“Oh, Nick’s fine!” Tara reassures him. “The swelling in his brain has gone way down, just like we wanted. He’s even showing some signs of responsiveness, which is great news. With medically induced comas, timing is everything. We try to keep someone under for only a day or two, because it gets harder to wake them up the longer it goes on. But we might start to wean him off tonight.”

He doesn’t know how to describe the feeling her words create in him. It’s more than joy, more than relief—there’s a solemnity to it, even awe. Yesterday, Nick’s condition seemed like such a delicate thing, a state that felt both emergent and indefinite. Charlie had no sense of timeline for if and how he would pull through. He sinks into the chair next to him, his hand automatically reaching for Nick’s, and is caught up in a surge of pride for how hard Nick’s body is working to bring him back. Then he frowns. “Wait,” he says. “If that’s great news, then what happened that wasn’t so cheery?”

She sighs, then checks to make sure the door is closed. “Nick’s father arrived this afternoon. Do you…know him well?”

“We’ve never met.” That much is true.

Tara chews on her lower lip, debating with herself how much is appropriate to share. “It seems he and Nick’s mum didn’t…end on good terms. And now that he’s here, it’s an even split. Nick’s brother and dad want to have Nick moved to a hospital in Paris—”

“Are they joking?!”

“—and Nick’s mum and aunt say he shouldn’t be moved.” She gestures to their entwined hands. “You’re not technically Nick’s POA, but I was hoping you could be the tiebreaker vote. Throw your weight around a little, talk them out of doing anything rash.”

He wants to agree immediately, promise that he’ll do what he can, but then he remembers why he’s here. A not-insignificant part of him wonders what the harm would be to just play along a few more hours, at least until Nick wakes up. If Charlie can intervene and keep Nick in London to heal a little more before there’s talk of moving him, that can’t be a bad thing, right?

But it’s not his business. Not his family. Not his fiancé. Charlie has to stop this before it goes too far. “Where’s his family?”

“They all went to the café together,” she tells him. “Dr. Farouk suggested they cool off, grab a bite, and try to talk civilly with one another. They’ll be back in a bit.” She backs away from the machinery next to Nick and says, “I’ll leave you two alone.”

Charlie considers leaving Nick in peace and heading down to the café. The Nelson-Fournier clan is already in an uproar, what’s one more log on the pyre? If anything, Charlie’s confession might go practically unnoticed, small potatoes compared to the very real concerns of what should happen to Nick.

But he doesn’t get up from his chair, not even to shut the door she left open behind her. The truth will keep a little longer. For now, Charlie just leans forward, his elbows on the thin mattress covered by the starched, waffle-print blanket, and watches the monitors. Nick’s heartbeat is steady. Screens beep and blink with lines and numbers he can’t decipher, and bags drip medication with comforting consistency. 

Charlie looks at the man himself. His pallor has lifted somewhat; a bit of rosiness has been restored to his cheeks beneath his freckles. His hair is as hopeless as ever, but it’s the one hopeless thing about him. This is a man who just might beat the odds and wake up.

“Hi, Nick,” he whispers. “Well done, you. The nurse says you’re doing much better. They might be able to wake you up soon.”

The monitors keep beeping. The drips keep dripping. Nick stays still.

“So…I suppose I should introduce myself. My name’s Charlie. Charles Francis Spring, actually, but everyone calls me Charlie. And I think you should know, erm…that your family thinks we’re engaged.” He snorts to himself at what he’s let happen. “Never been engaged before,” he jokes. “This is all very sudden for me. But don’t worry, I’m going to tell them the truth when they come back from he café, so you won’t have to deal with this mess. By the time you wake up, I’ll be gone. You’ll never see me again—well, you will if you go back to Bond Street Station. Monday through Friday, between 08:01 and 08:15. Be sure to stop by and say hello sometime before you go back to Paris.”

With his free hand, he rubs his face. “Here’s the thing, Nick, I—I didn’t mean for this to happen. I don’t know what to do, I just…” He sighs, then dares to look at Nick. Sees the man he’s daydreamed about for months, beneath the ventilator and the gauze and the stitches. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

Nick, predictably, doesn’t answer.

“I bet you don’t,” says Charlie. “I bet you’re more sensible that that. But…have you ever seen someone and known that—that if only that person knew you, if only they gave you a chance, they would see that you were meant to be together?” He squeezes Nick’s hand lightly, then feels guilty about it. “That’s how I fell in love with you. It sounds stupid, I know. But if you lived my life—and God, I don’t think two people have ever lived such opposite lives, Penthouse Lad—then you’d know. You’d know that…”

He feels tears form at the corners of his eyes and hates himself for them. This isn’t about him. Nick’s the one who deserves to be cried over, not him. “You’d know how hard it is to find a little bit of hope when you’ve lost everything. When you’ve worked your way out of hell and you’re just trying to find a bit of peace. You were my peace, Nick. Monday through Friday, for a few minutes each day I got to imagine what it would be like to be part of your life. I needed that so much. I’m sorry this was the result. I’m sorry for—for everything.” He wipes at his eyes and releases Nick’s hand. “But my shitty, lonely life isn’t your problem. So I’ll take care of this misunderstanding, and when you wake up, you’ll only have to focus on getting better, okay?”

A little noise of protest comes from the direction of the door, and when Charlie looks to see its source, there’s Aunt Diane, hand pressed to her lips, eyes wide.

“Fuck,” he says. “I—I can explain—” He stands up abruptly, knocking over the chair and then wincing at the clatter it makes, and his arm bumps into the poinsettias and nearly sends them hurtling to the floor. He just barely catches them. “I work as a station cleaner at Bond Street,” Charlie says in a rush. “I—I only know Nick because he’s there every morning before work, but we don’t—we hadn’t even spoken until yesterday, he—he helped me when those boys pushed me over—”

Aunt Diane enters Room 902 and shuts the door behind her.

“I wasn’t lying, I did pull him off the tracks when they pushed him, too—I just, when I got to the hospital to make sure he was all right, and they wouldn’t let me see him, I said—it was a stupid joke I said to myself, I didn’t mean it, and I didn’t think the nurse would overhear me.” He looks down and stuffs his hands into his pockets, laughing bitterly. “Next time, I’ll just tell myself I’m single and end the conversation.”

Aunt Diane removes her hand from her face, her lips pressed in a thin line. She glances over to the door to make sure it’s shut good and tight, and then says, “You’re not single, Charlie. You’re engaged to my nephew.”

He raises an eyebrow, wondering if she hasn’t understood or if she’s just in denial. “N-No, I—we don’t actually know each other, this was all just a big mistake—”

“Charlie,” she says slowly, deliberately, “you’re engaged to Nick, okay?”

“But I’m—”

“Trust me, I can’t believe I’m asking this,” she continues in a rush. “I’m ashamed to even—it’s not right, I know it’s not right. I’m a psychiatrist, I know the many levels on which this is so, totally fucked up, but—but my sister Sarah, she—” She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and when she opens her mouth again, her voice is firmer and steadier. “Sarah has always been a giver, since we were little kids. She gives, and she gives, and she gives. Well, it was just her luck that she fell in love with someone who loves to take, and take, and take. And Stéphane made sure to take everything that mattered in the divorce. He had the better lawyers, and I’m sure there was some Fournier money in the judge’s wallet. He proved he could provide their boys with a better life, a better education, made it seem like a poor single mother couldn’t take care of them.”

“Oh, God.” Charlie sets the chair back upright and takes a seat again, not trusting his legs to hold him given the shock of being discovered like this.

“It started out that she got to see them for summer holidays, but then Stéphane found convenient excuses to cut those short. And what could the boys do? They couldn’t disappoint Stéphane. For sixteen years, I’ve watched her relationship with her sons dwindle to no more than a call on her birthday and a lavish gift for Christmas. It’s—it’s broken her heart, Charlie. She lost both her boys long ago, and now she might lose her child for real.”

“She won’t,” he says uncertainly. “The nurse said—”

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” she interrupts, dropping to her knees on the floor in front of him and clutching his hands in hers. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m begging you, Charlie, just for a few more days—if what you just said to Nick is true, don’t tell Sarah. Don’t tell any of them.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Just for a few more days!” she repeats. “If Nick wakes up, Sarah will be so happy that it won’t even matter. I’ll tell her the truth about you myself. You won’t even have to face her.” It’s a tempting prospect, but Charlie tries not to let that show on his face. “But if Nick—if Nick doesn’t wake up, and she loses her son…then she’ll have you.”

Charlie wants to argue that’s beyond the pale. He doesn’t need a mother. He has a mother, even if it’s been years since they’ve spoken. And Sarah doesn’t need a son. She has two, and even in the circumstance where Nick wouldn’t make it, she still has David. They don’t need each other.

“You’re a good person, Charlie,” she says, not relinquishing her grasp on his hands in the slightest. “Even if you’re not engaged to Nick, even if this was all a huge misunderstanding, you saved his life, you waited to see if he would be all right, and you brought us here to be with him. You have a good heart. And strictly speaking, Nick could do far, far worse.” She tightens her grip almost to the point of pain. “Please. I am begging you. Just a few more days, just until we see how Nick does. Please don’t break my sister’s heart. It’s taken enough of a beating in the last twenty-four hours.”

He looks into her beseeching face, then over to Nick’s placid one. Remembers what Tara said about the fight to move Nick to Paris or keep him in London, how he could be the tie-breaker vote. One shaky breath later, he clarifies, “And you’ll tell her yourself if he wakes up?”

She finally lets go to cross her heart. “Promise.”

The door creaks open, and both of them jump to their feet, Charlie adjusting the poinsettias and Aunt Diane fussing with her blouse as the rest of Nick’s family files in. Sarah’s grin when she sees Charlie seems genuine, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Something has sapped her of her energy, and Charlie’s pretty sure the anonymous older man who enters behind her is the culprit. Salt and pepper hair, relaxed leisurewear in quality fabrics that announce their expense. David follows him, his tail well and truly between his legs. His eyes flit between his parents anxiously until he notices Charlie. “You’re back, are you?”

He feels Aunt Diane go rigid next to him, worried what he’ll say. Charlie never exactly gave her his word that he would go along with this. He looks over to Nick again, to the brightness starting to seep promisingly into his skin, and tells himself, Just a little longer, okay?

“My place is here,” he affirms, wrapping a hand around the headboard. Then he nods to Sarah. “Good evening, Sarah. Everything okay?”

Her hand waves limply until it finds a place to rest against her collarbone. “Well enough, darling. Stéphane, this is the boy David was telling you about. Charlie is Nick’s fiancé.”

The man who must be Nick’s father extends his hand to shake. “Enchanté,” he says, his accent warm, and maybe it’s pro-Sarah bias, but Charlie does not like the shape of his smile. “Comme c’est étrange that Nick never mentioned his wonderful news to us.”

“Well…” Oh, God, this is going to be harder than he thought. “You know how it is. Those early months of falling in love, everything happens so fast…”

He chuckles. “Amour à la folie. We will have to get to know each other better, non? Though I’m sure Nicolas has told you all about us.”

Charlie squints. There’s a question behind Stéphane’s words, though they come out with ease, the sort of small talk you’re supposed to make when meeting the family. Stéphane regards him with some apprehension, and Charlie can’t puzzle out why. He changes the subject. “What’s this I hear about moving Nick to Paris?”

David speaks up, though he avoids his mother’s gaze. “The doctors in Paris are just as good as they are here. It’ll be easier to have him a little closer to home, so it’ll be less of a transition for him when he wakes up.”

“He hasn’t even woken up yet,” Charlie points out. “What did his doctor say? Is it really advisable to move someone who had a massive head trauma thirty-six hours ago to a different country?”

“Dr. Farouk is firmly against it,” Sarah says, vindicated.

“It’s not against the law, though. If the patient’s power of attorney signs the AMA papers—”

“AMA papers?” asks Charlie.

David has the grace to look sheepish. “Against medical advice.”

“C’est mieux, Nick is used to Paris,” Stéphane says, placing a firm hand on David’s shoulder. “He wakes up here—quel choc!—and he is so far from home, far from famille, it is better for him to be where he belongs—”

“He’s not far from family,” Aunt Diane grits out through her teeth. “We’re literally all here.”

“And what would you have Charlie do?” Sarah asks. “Do you expect him to uproot his life and follow you to France to be with his fiancé? You can’t just separate them!”

“Bien sûr, Charlie can follow if he wishes.”

Charlie widens his eyes in Aunt Diane’s general direction to telegraph that this ruse does not extend to international fucking travel, but everyone in the room goes silent as another nurse bustles in to add medication to one of Nick’s IV bags. When she leaves, Stéphane claps his hands together. “D’accord. There is no use arguing. David, tu as une procuration, it is up to you. I will call Dr. Farouk, we will have the papers processed.”

Sarah swallows down a shriek, but David shuffles away from his father. “It’s getting late,” he says. “Even if we started the paperwork tonight, they wouldn’t even be able to move him until tomorrow.” Every eyebrow in the room raises a centimetre, though David just shrugs. “Look, we’ve all had a trying day. This isn’t the sort of decision you make lightly. Why don’t we get some sleep, and we can talk about it again tomorrow morning?”

Sarah reaches out for Aunt Diane, who clings to her side, hardly believing the reprieve David’s granting them. Stéphane just rolls his eyes. “Bien, comme tu veux. David, did you book a hotel room for us?”

“Oh, I’ve, erm…been staying here.” He pulls out his phone, and Charlie feels an unexpected rush of affection for Nick’s arsehole brother. He assumed Sarah wouldn’t leave Nick’s side, but he never expected that David wouldn’t, either. After a few clicks, he shows his father the booking details in his email. “But I got you a suite at the Royal Lancaster, it’s not far.”

“Parfait.” He looks up from David’s phone and flashes Charlie an affable smile, rubbing his back. “These old bones, they do not do well sleeping in chairs. I will see you all tomorrow.” 

David types away at his phone, and Stéphane’s dings in his pocket as the booking hits his email. “Before I go,” he says, “I would like to have a word with you, Charlie. Perhaps outside, en privé?”

Busted. He can’t exactly say that it was fun while it lasted. “Of course.” 

He doesn’t know what awaits him outside Room 902, only that it will probably be something to the tune of the-jig-is-up, so he tries to signal an apology to Aunt Diane for not keeping the ruse up very long. And since this might be the last time he ever gets to see Nick, he leans down over the hospital bed. He can’t kiss him, is afraid to even touch him, so he just whispers, “Keep fighting, Nick. There are people here who love you. Fight for them, okay?”

Stéphane ushers him out of the room and away from the critical care unit, over to a waiting room full of chairs and vending machines with a flickering light overhead. “So,” he says, slapping his hands on his knees as he takes a seat, “they told me you were with him, avant l’accident?”

Maybe not busted, then? Charlie just blinks at Stéphane, unsure of what he means, and Stéphane shakes his head and chuckles to himself. “Désolé, I am not used to speaking so much English. Nick is better, il est vraiment bilingue…”

“También soy bilingüe, gilipollas.” God, Charlie hopes Nick takes after his mother.

Stéphane looks mildly impressed, though Charlie wagers he doesn’t understand that last bit, which is just as well. “You were with Nick before the accident? Sarah said you saw him pushed onto the tracks, then you pulled him up?”

“That’s right.”

“Was Nick on the phone?” He smooths his palms over his knees again. “He and I, we were au milieu d’une conversation—sorry, in the middle of…an important conversation. And when he stopped replying—” He throws up his hands in some kind of confused gesture that Charlie can’t even begin to interpret. “I was curious if il n’a pas repondu parce que—if he didn’t respond because of the accident. It was a…a difficult conversation, you understand?”

Charlie hasn’t the foggiest what Stéphane means, but he does vaguely remember what Nick was up to that morning. He recalls his surprise that the platform was nearly empty and Nick was still there, that he had skipped taking the train in favour of typing something out.

“He was on his phone,” Charlie says carefully. “He—he looked upset. He didn’t see the boys coming his way.”

He bets all the money he has, though it isn’t much, that if he had revealed to Sarah that an upsetting conversation they’d had led to Nick being too absorbed in his phone to notice when his life was about to be in danger, Sarah would have collapsed in grief and guilt. Charlie sees a flicker of guilt cross Stéphane’s face, but then he asks, “Did he happen to mention what we were discussing?”

Charlie gulps and decides it’s safest to stick with as much truth as possible. Easier to remember later. “No. He hasn’t really told me much about you.”

A line uncreases in Stéphane’s forehead. “Ah. Well, we have a lifetime, non?”

“Right.”

“It was a surprise to learn que mon fils est fiancé à toi,” he says. “He never told me he was gay. And there have been so many women—my son, he has always been un homme à femmes, you understand.”

Garden variety homophobia is alive and well across the pond, it seems. “Is that going to be a problem?”

He waves his hand. “Pas de problème. In France, this is very common, you know. Men will try anything once, switch back and forth—c’est amusant, oui? Not me, of course, but in this day and age, I understand if Nick wants to try quelque chose de nouveau. But to get engaged so soon after Imogène…” He lets the sentence hang, hoping Charlie will fill in the rest.

He just folds his hands in his lap. “You would have to ask him about that. What happened between him and any previous partners is Nick’s business. I haven’t pried.”

“Non? Then what do you two talk about?”

“His dreams,” says Charlie, though he has no idea where it comes from, “and mine. How we can support each other. How we can make each other better.”

“Ah, well. Dreams, they are a funny thing, non? What we think might make us happy and what might make us vraiment heureux, they are not always the same thing. Nick has always struggled with that.”

“Really?” This is maybe going a little too far, but Charlie’s sick of whatever act Stéphane is peddling. “I haven’t found that to be true.”

Stéphane opens his mouth to respond, but fast-paced squeaks on the floor grow in volume as Sarah races down the hall and into the waiting room. “Charlie!” she cries out. “Charlie, it’s Nick—he’s—he’s—”

He stands up at once, though his heart sinks like a stone, certain it was all about to be for nothing. Saving Nick’s life, bringing his family here, faking this engagement to keep him in London and support Sarah—none of it matters if Nick dies.

“He’s waking up!” she says, grabbing his hand. “Come on, come quickly!”

The words don’t compute; they float around abstractly in his brain as Sarah tugs him back into the critical care unit and back into Room 902. Stéphane is close behind, though he hangs by the door when Sarah bursts in. David and Aunt Diane are already hovering by the machinery. Sarah takes the chair on the other side and interlaces her fingers with Nick’s hand, leaving a spot by the headboard for Charlie.

It doesn’t feel like he’s the one in control of his legs as they move him closer. He puts no conscious thought behind bracing himself on the headboard and leaning down to watch as Nick’s eyes make minute movements beneath the thin skin of his eyelids, like he’s dreaming. And then there’s a determined flutter of his sandy eyelashes against his skin, and everyone holds their breath.

Then Nick’s eyes open.

Chapter Text

If Charlie never sees another ventilator removal again, it will still be too soon. He grips the headboard for dear life to keep from fainting dead away. A glance away from the bed lets him know he’s not alone; David looks similarly green.

“All right, Mr. Fournier,” says Dr. Farouk in a clipped, no-nonsense tone that Charlie hopes will translate into kindly getting the fuck on with this. “Keep still for me.” 

Tears leak from the corners of Nick’s eyes as he struggles not to move, tensed against the onslaught of sensations he’s woken up to. His heartbeat gallops away on the monitor, which Tara periodically checks as she preps a towel and tubes for the doctor and lays them on Nick’s chest. Dr. Farouk unhooks the ventilator mask from around his face and says, “Deep breath in on three, yeah? One—two—three.”

Charlie head swims as Dr. Farouk gives the breathing tube a clean, fluid tug. Nick splutters when it comes free, and Charlie just stares at how deep the tube went and valiantly tries not to pass out. Dr. Farouk sticks another tube in for a moment, something like the little suction device Charlie hates at the dentist’s office, and Tara slips a cannula over Nick’s ears and under his nose. His hand twitches, like he wants to touch his neck to soothe it, but then it falls limp on the blankets.

“Welcome back, Mr. Fournier,” Dr. Farouk announces, wrapping up the tubes with the towel from Nick’s chest. “You gave us quite a fright there, but you’ve pulled through. Can you understand me?”

Nick opens his mouth to speak, but only a wheeze comes out. Instead, he lifts a few fingers in acknowledgement.

“It’s Tuesday, December 20th. You were in an accident yesterday morning, and you were brought here to St Mary’s Hospital for neurosurgery. You were placed in a medically induced coma so the swelling in your brain could go down. But you’re awake, and you’re alive, and you’re doing really well. You’re safe here, Mr. Fournier.”

Nick opens his mouth again, this time wetting his lips with his tongue. The action looks lazy, even a little clumsy, like Nick’s forgotten its shape. He takes a breath, winces, and then chokes out, “Daisy?”

“She’s all right!” Charlie doesn’t even think before he speaks. The words rush out of him, soft and fervent, as he continues, “I’ve been looking after her.”

Nick’s head rolls back against his pillow, and the relief in his eyes as he stares up at him is so complete, so trusting, that Charlie forgets that they don’t know each other. But then the eye contact feels too intimate, too meaningful, so he babbles on, “A walk in the morning and a walk at night, like you scheduled. She misses you, though. I found her rolling around in your laundry this morning.”

Nick’s cracked lips quirk up in a smile.

Tara wheels the ventilator machine toward the back of the room while Dr. Farouk inspects the machinery still attached to Nick, tactfully tuning everyone out so the family has the illusion of privacy for this reunion. Stéphane clears his throat and says, “Dieu merci, tu vas bien, mon fils.”

Nick’s head swivels on the pillow. “Papa?” A little crease forms between his eyebrows as he squints. “David?”

“Gave us quite a fright there,” David says. “It’s a good job you’re alive. I didn’t want to win ‘hottest Fournier brother’ by default. Got to earn my title rightfully.”

Nick’s tired smile remains on his face, though he doesn’t quite seem up to an eye roll. His lids just flutter closed at the joke, and when he opens them again, he sees his mother. Charlie hears him gasp, and then in a voice like a child’s, he whispers, “Mum?”

Tears stream down Sarah’s face. She takes a tentative step next to Charlie. “I’m here, darling. Came as soon as Charlie called. Nicky, I—I was so worried—” She lifts her hand to smooth down his matted hair, thinks the better of it, then withdraws it.

Nick just keeps looking at her. “Mum.” And there’s so much affection and regret in that single syllable that Sarah bends double over the bed and starts to weep into Nick’s shoulder, clutching the fabric of the hospital gown. Nick’s too weak to hold her, but he turns his head and nestles it into her hair.

Charlie tamps down the surge of triumph within. Whatever else he’s messed up, he was right to call Sarah Nelson. Nick did want her here.

When Sarah pulls away, patting his cheek as she does, Aunt Diane slides in by her side. “We’re glad to have you back with us, Nicky.”

Nick nods to her, his fingers twitching again on the blankets, and Aunt Diane takes the invitation to reach out and gently squeeze his hand. Too exhausted to move his head anymore, Nick just gazes around the room: Stéphane, wringing his hands. David by the footboard. Aunt Diane and Sarah, arms around each other’s waists, leaning over Nick’s bed. Charlie by the headboard.

Charlie sees the moment it happens. The fleeting look of confusion, then confusion heaped upon confusion as Nick tries to fit Charlie into the picture with his family, somehow trusting that Charlie should be here over what his mind already knows—that he doesn’t belong. Finally, he licks his lips again and rasps out, “Who…are…you?”

What’s stupid—what’s unforgivably stupid and beyond irrational—is that for a minute there, Charlie thought they would just skip this part.

Sarah claps a hand over her mouth to stifle a cry. David goes rigid. Every pair of eyes in the room, including the doctor’s and Tara’s, fix on him. He turns to Aunt Diane, which he knows is the coward’s way out, but then again, she did promise. He maintained the fiction of their engagement until Nick woke up. It’s not his fault that happened ten minutes after she begged him to keep up the pretence. Now it’s time for her to fulfill her end of the deal.

She stares back at him, her face ashen. “Oh, my God,” she says slowly. “He must have amnesia, poor soul.”

That does it for Sarah. She collapses onto Nick’s chest again, giving more of her weight this time so Nick lets out a shocked oof. There’s enough alarm in the room that Charlie’s fairly certain they all miss the daggers he shoots in Aunt Diane’s direction. She immediately ducks her head to avoid his glare, and Dr. Farouk manoeuvres around the bed to pull Sarah off Nick.

“Right, then,” he says. “Mr. Fournier, do you remember yesterday’s accident?”

Nick’s brow scrunches up again. For a few seconds, he’s silent, concentrating. Everyone holds their breath. Then his face falls as he admits, “No.”

Sarah lets out another wail, this time burying her face in Aunt Diane’s neck and soaking her blouse. David and Stéphane exchange worried glances, but Dr. Farouk ploughs ahead, undeterred. “What’s the last thing you can remember?”

Nick blinks like he’s trying to sort through dates. The longer it takes him to respond, the more horrified he looks. He tries to speak, but he grimaces at the pain, his scraped vocal cords uncooperative. “Dunno,” he manages, and Room 902 explodes into an uproar. Sarah hustles around the foot of the bed to tug on Dr. Farouk’s sleeve while Aunt Diane goes after Tara, and David and Stéphane speak in rapid-fire French, pulling out their phones and tapping away.

Charlie can’t even consider what this means for the lie he agreed to. He only watches Nick. Watches how he traces the tubes still connected to his wrist, the wires connected to his heart monitor—which picks up speed again—and the NG tube still threaded into his nostril. When, with a grunt of effort, he raises his hand to the bandage over the stitches and the tube still draining fluid from his brain, his eyes go unfocused with panic. He starts to pull at the tubes and stitches, his heart rate a soaring staccato beneath the clamour of the room.

“WOULD YOU ALL PLEASE SHUT UP?!”

The sharpness and volume he produces both catch him by surprise, but he doesn’t back down, not when it works. Once again, he has everyone’s attention. Nick’s hands freeze where they are, though his heart rate still speeds along on the monitor.

“Right,” says Charlie. “Sorry. But you all have to save your nervous breakdowns for later. You’re all here to support Nick. He’s the only one who gets to freak out right now, okay? So…” He coughs a bit, embarrassed, and nods to Dr. Farouk. “Can you please explain what’s going on?”

He nods back, grateful for the assist. “Post-traumatic amnesia and memory problems are extremely common after a TBI. Mr. Fournier’s only just come out of his coma, and his brain is still recovering from the accident and the surgery. There’s every reason to hope this is typical disorientation related to the TBI.”

“But how soon will we know?” Sarah seems to have mastered herself, her voice trembling but quiet. “How long will it last?”

Dr. Farouk sighs. “It’s hard to say. Could be hours, could be days, could be weeks. Mr. Fournier might recall some things quicker than others. I’ll page one of colleagues in neuro and have them consult on the case, and we’ll take him to get a few scans if he continues to stabilise.”

“He only just got engaged,” Sarah offers. “It was sudden, wasn’t it, Charlie? Only since he came to London, right? That might account for not remembering it right away.”

He feels a flush spread across his cheeks as Nick slowly, incrementally, scoots his head across the pillow so he can study Charlie, who refuses to meet his eyes.

“I think it’s too early to identify the degree of amnesia Mr. Fournier suffers.”

“But there’s a chance he might not remember certain things, even with time?” asks Stéphane. “That those memories are gone for good?”

“Again, it’s entirely too early to make any definitive calls,” says Dr. Farouk, “and we have more pressing concerns. Now, there are still some tests I’d like to run with Mr. Fournier, and I’ll need to clear the room. He can keep one guest, but the rest of you will have to leave for a bit.”

“Obviously I’m going to stay,” Sarah declares. “I’m his mother!”

Stéphane scoffs. “Bien sûr, a mother he has barely seen for sixteen years…”

“And whose bloody fault is that?!”

Before their bickering has a chance to continue, Charlie cuts them off. “David will stay,” he says in a voice that brooks no argument. David raises an eyebrow in shock, so Charlie continues, “You’re Nick’s POA. You’re the one he wanted to make decisions for him. It should be you.”

He gulps and then nods, stepping a little closer to the hospital bed. Chastened, their parents make room, and Tara says, “Right, then. Everyone out!” Sarah attaches herself to Tara’s side while she escorts everyone out of the room, overwhelming her with questions while Stéphane makes some sort of dismissive gesture with his hand and mumbles something in French about, if Charlie’s not mistaken, a cigarette. Aunt Diane walks slowly, almost as if she knows she doesn’t have a prayer of escaping Charlie once she steps outside the room and isn’t going to try. He’s about to follow when he feels a nearly imperceptible tug on his jumper.

Charlie looks down, thinking a thread got caught on the sideboard, and sees Nick’s fingers wrapped around the hem. He doesn’t say anything, only stares up at Charlie uneasily.

“It’s all right,” he whispers. “David’s kind of a dickhead, but he’s been worried about you. He’ll make sure you’re okay.”

Dr. Farouk coughs none too elegantly, Charlie’s cue to leave, but Nick doesn’t let go of him. With an immense amount of concentration, he presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth and forces out, “En—ennn—engaged?”

He’s lied by omission by Nick’s gurney, at his bedside, in the waiting room. But he cannot—will not—lie to Nick’s face.

But he also can’t drop a bomb like this on him. “We can talk later,” he says, carefully extricating Nick’s fingers from his jumper and trying not to relish how Nick’s hand—a little warmer than yesterday, more vital—feels brushing against his. “Listen to Dr. Farouk, okay?”

Nick lets go with reluctance, or maybe Charlie just wishes. “Later,” he agrees. 

Charlie flashes him a thin smile as he goes, and as soon as the door shuts behind, he scans the critical care unit for Aunt Diane. She stands next to Sarah, who’s still deep in conversation with Tara, and honest to God, she cowers a bit when she sees him coming. He marches right up to her and mutters, “Can I have a word in private?” Then he steers her out of the critical care unit and over to the lifts.

“What,” he seethes, “the actual, ever-loving fuck was that?!”

Aunt Diane cringes. “I know, I know. God, I’m so sorry, Charlie, I—I just panicked.”

“Amnesia?!”

“He does seem to have amnesia!” she defends herself. “He can’t remember the accident!”

“But you didn’t know that when you said it!” Charlie rubs his face. “Diane, you promised. You swore that if Nick woke up, you would tell everyone yourself and I would be able to walk away from this. How the bloody hell am I supposed to walk away now? You’ve convinced Nick he’s forgotten his own fiancé! A fiancé who, by the way, is an entirely different gender than anyone he’s ever dated, even if your Pirates of the Caribbean theory is true!”

“I know,” she says again. “It’s completely mental. I don’t even know why I said it. I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am. I’m—I usually have a cool head in a crisis, I swear. It’s just, when it’s your own family, your own sister and her son, you kind of—” She twists her wedding ring on her finger over and over. “I understand that I’ve put you in a difficult position. Truly, Charlie, I’m sorry for that.”

He wants to have more of a strop, but she still looks so pale and worn out from what was undoubtedly a sleepless night comforting Sarah. “This is my fault to begin with,” he says as graciously as he can. “I never should have—but it has to end here, Diane. And you promised you would tell them.” He expects more apologies to spill forth, maybe some tears thrown in for good measure. What he doesn’t expect is for Aunt Diane to purse her lips and tuck a strand of brown hair behind her ears, chewing on a thought. “No,” he says. “No, no, no, do not even think about it. Don’t even say it out loud. This is over.”

“Nick’s only just woken up,” she points out. “Only just started to recover—it would be cruel to—”

“To lie to him, yes!” Charlie points down the hall. “Go back there and tell them the truth.”

“Charlie, I—” She stops fidgeting with her ring and levels him with her stare. “I can’t do that. Not yet. I’m sorry.”

The fury that seizes him at her denial is so intense, Charlie fears he might be ill. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll do it myself.”

“Will you?” she challenges him, and Charlie hates how fast she calls his bluff. “Charlie, I heard you. I heard what you said at his bedside. You fell in love with Nick.”

The flush returns to his cheeks. He doesn’t even bother to deny it. “That doesn’t give me license to—to fool him into thinking he’s—that we’re—how could I love him, really? He was—he was just a daydream, we don’t even know each other—”

“But you could know him,” she says. “Look, I’m not saying you need to book the wedding venue tomorrow—”

“Jesus.”

“—but couldn’t you just wait to see what happens?”

“That’s what you said last time!”

“No one would blame you,” she says in a soothing voice that Charlie has a sneaking suspicion she uses on her own patients. “Memory loss after a short engagement, who could blame either of you? In a few weeks, if the two of you fundamentally aren’t working out, it would make sense to call off the engagement. No one would bat an eyelash.”

He just stares at her. “You ought to be defrocked. Or—or lose your license, or whatever it is they do to psychiatrists off their rockers. Fucking Christ, do you hear yourself? Are you trying to find a free caregiver for your nephew, or a reason to keep him in England so he doesn’t go home to France?”

She bristles at that. “If Nick wants to go back to France, then that’s what he’ll do. None of us would stop him. And it’s not like Stéphane couldn’t afford the most attentive home aide in Europe. That’s not what I’m proposing. My nephew, he’s—” She huffs, at a loss for how to describe him. “He’s a good kid. You could tell that about him just from looking at him, couldn’t you?”

Against his better judgment, Charlie remembers watching Nick return the toy back to that mum, how the memory of it warmed him the rest of the day. “So what?”

“He’s a good kid,” she reiterates, “but he’s—the life he’s lived in France, it’s not good for him. It’s all profits and real estate and finance, and he doesn’t have any real friends, just his father’s sycophants. And the boy he is, the one with the good heart, is in serious danger of being eaten alive by the man his father wants him to become. But someone like you, someone—someone brave and kind, you could—you could be really good for him, Charlie. It didn’t take Sarah very long to realise you’re special, nor did it take me long. It won’t take Nick long, either.”

But that can’t be true. Charlie isn’t special. He’s a station cleaner struggling to finish a degree his ex distracted him from, along with every other good thing in his life. What does he know about saving people from themselves? 

“You said you loved him,” Aunt Diane reminds him. “You saved his life. You kept him safe. You rallied his family around him. You protected him in that room when he woke up. You could have left whenever you wanted. You could have told the truth at any time. But you never did. Don’t pretend like part of you doesn’t want this.”

What sickens him is how big that part of him actually is. “He could literally get his memory back at any moment.”

Whatever reply Aunt Diane has in store, she keeps it to herself as David approaches from the critical care unit. Hands shoved into his pockets, shamefaced, he says, “Nick’s asking for you.” Charlie crosses his arms and shoots her an expectant look, but Aunt Diane mutely shakes her head. David frowns at the exchange. “Everything all right?”

“Yes, everything’s fine,” says Aunt Diane. “Charlie and I were just discussing Nick’s care going forward. Isn’t that right, Charlie?”

Oh, he might kill her. He takes a deep breath in through his nose and asks, “You’re sure he meant me?”

“Trust me, I wasn’t exactly keen to fetch you.” He pulls out his phone and scrolls through his notes app. “Dr. Farouk talked far too fast, I was trying to write everything down before I forgot it all. But Nick insisted. Little princess is going to be giving us the bratty treatment from his hospital bed, mark my words.”

Charlie looks at Aunt Diane in appeal one more time, but she shakes her head again. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll go.” And the look he gives her over his shoulder as he follows David is one, he prays, that conveys his utter conviction that he is going to walk into that hospital room and tell Nick Fournier the truth. They don’t know each other, not really. When Charlie explains himself, Nick will be confused, maybe even appalled, but not hurt. And with everything else going on, a week from now, he might not even remember Charlie was here except as a footnote in his healing journey.

This is what he has himself halfway convinced of when he passes Dr. Farouk, on his way out just as Charlie enters Room 902. And then he sees Nick.

The top half of the bed, tilted at forty-five degrees before, is now nearly at a right angle, allowing Nick to sit up. Clutching a plastic cup in both hands, Nick takes a slow, grateful sip of the water inside from a straw, smacking his lips softly after. His mouth twitches into a tiny grin when Charlie shuts the door behind him, and he lets out a gravelly, “Hi.”

Shit. “Hi.”

He lifts the cup. “Really thirsty.”

“I’ll bet. That ventilator looked pretty dodgy.” There’s no way he can do this. “Er…listen, Nick, I—I can imagine this is all coming to you as some terrible shock, with the accident and the coma and the memory loss, so I completely understand if—”

“How long?”

“What?”

Nick gestures to the empty chair by his bed with a free elbow. “How long…have we…?” He winces and holds his hand to his throat, coughing hard. “Sorry,” he says. “Still hurts.”

Charlie takes the seat and looks down at his lap. We haven’t. We’re not.

He can’t play along anymore. Dr. Farouk said he could get his memory back in a matter of hours or days. Eventually and in all likelihood, Nick will remember the accident and the months preceding it. He’ll know Charlie isn’t anyone to him. But Charlie looks up at Nick’s eyes, that warm amber colour that makes him want to wax poetic, and when he opens his mouth to speak, he knows.

He’s doomed.

“We've been engaged two weeks,” he says. “I know it’s a bit mad, since we don’t really know each other that well—” Understatement of the century.

“At all.”

“Hmm?”

Nick takes another sip, and when he swallows, he muscles past the discomfort in this throat to produce a cheeky grin. “Don’t know…each other…at all. Now.”

Charlie’s jaw drops. “Did you just make an amnesia joke?”

He shrugs. “I’m…brain…damaged. But. Still…funny.” He places the plastic cup with water on the little tray attached to his bed, his fingers shaking with the effort, and then relaxes into the bed. “I’m…tired.”

“Oh.” He looks around the room, wondering if he should call Dr. Farouk or Tara back in to administer pain or sleep medication. “Of course, I should—I can go ask—”

Nick makes a noise of protest. “Wait. Wanted…to say….”

Charlie pauses in the chair, his heart breaking incrementally as he watches Nick struggle to form the words. Even awake, even beating the odds like this, Charlie is all too aware of the machines Nick’s hooked up to, of the critical condition he’s in and the pain he must feel. The tube is still connected to his brain, draining fluid and relieving pressure. When Nick gets frustrated that he can’t spit it out, Charlie finds himself leaning over and placing a gentle hand on his forearm. “There’s no rush,” he says. “I can wait to hear it. It’s all right.”

Nick closes his eyes and takes a few measured breaths through his nose. “Wanted…to say…thank you.”

Of all possible things, Charlie could never have expected this. His skin feels like it’s on fire for even perpetuating this lie a single sentence. “For what?”

“David…told me. You…saved me.” Nick’s breaths are slowing now, verging on the brink of sleep, and his eyes close. Charlie almost wants to shake him and keep him awake, afraid that if he goes to sleep, he’ll succumb to a coma again. But it’s probably for the best to let him rest. “And…Daisy. And…with my…family.” He waves his hand in a gesture Charlie can’t quite interpret, but it’s something to do with his thoughts on the shouting match they narrowly avoided before between his parents. “Just…thank you.”

He swallows hard. “You’re welcome.”

Nick’s eyes remain shut. His breathing slows, and as anxious as Charlie is, it doesn’t frighten him. He drifts off just as Charlie rises from his chair, but before he goes under, he mumbles, “’M so…hungry.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he slurs. “Want…ice cream.”

Charlie hates himself for what he says next. “Bubblegum flavour?”

Nick cracks open one eye, the shock on his sleepy face so comedic Charlie stifles a laugh. “How did you…?” Then it hits him. “Oh.”

That’s the sort of thing a fiancé would know.

__________________

Charlie doesn’t so much as look at the freezer that night when he lets himself into Nick’s flat after walking Daisy again. He sets her lead on its hook by the door, feeds her with her dry food from the linen cupboard, replenishes her water from the sink. The freezer he avoids, knowing its contents. When he goes home, he ignores his friends’ DMs.

The next morning, his resolve wavers. He tries to stay strong as he walks Daisy around the neighborhood, stopping to snap pictures of her, but he’s officially out of willpower once they get back. He sends off a quick text to his boss, calling in sick and blaming a twenty-four hour stomach bug, and grabs a pint and a spoon before he loses his nerve.

Charlie makes himself walk to the hospital, reasoning that the cold December air will keep the pint from melting. He transfers the pint from mittened hand to mittened hand, the ice on the sides of the carton catching on the yarn, and feels the cold like a punishment. What he’s doing is wrong, evil, base manipulation.

Stéphane is the first familiar face he sees when he makes it to the ninth floor, wrapped up in his laptop. Charlie flips up the hoodie on his jumper to keep his face hidden and stuffs the ice cream into his front pocket, unwilling to have another confusing conversation in Franglais with his would-be father-in-law. 

Sarah’s smile greets him as soon as he walks in Room 902. “Charlie, dear. So nice to see you. Our boy’s much better today, come see for yourself.”

“Is he?” he asks, trying not to blush at the mention of ‘our boy.’ But it’s true. Nick’s sitting upright in bed again, and some of yesterday’s tubes have disappeared. The NG tube is gone, which bodes well for Charlie’s ice cream gambit. There’s still some exhaustion there, the skin beneath his eyes violet and delicate, but his hair is combed and he’s in a fresh hospital gown.

He grins at Charlie. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

Sarah looks between them both, trying to hide her satisfaction, and rises from her chair at Nick’s side. “I’ll leave you two alone for a bit. Aunt Diane’s with David talking with the social worker, bet she could use some back-up.”

Once the door swings shut behind Sarah, and after a cursory look through the pane of glass to see that no doctors are on their way, Charlie pulls the ice cream out of his front pocket, brandishing it like the spoils of war. And Nick’s smile widens so much that Charlie stops caring where this charade takes him.

“This is contraband,” he says, taking the chair Sarah occupied. “Don’t tell Dr. Farouk. He scares me.”

Nick makes these adorable grabby hands and reaches out for the pint, looking awed. “Christmas came early this year,” he says, even moaning a bit when he pulls off the lid and smells the ice cream. 

Charlie forces himself to look away and fish the spoon out of his bag. “You’re sounding better,” he mentions. “Full sentences.” When Nick gratefully takes the spoon he offers and digs in, moaning again at the taste, Charlie starts counting the ceiling tiles.

“I was literally dreaming of this in the coma,” he enthuses, his mouth full of globs of pink. “Big, fluffy pink clouds of it.”

“All right, all right,” says Charlie, “you were only in a coma thirty-six hours, no need to be dramatic.” Nick just hums happily, and Charlie pulls out his phone. “Got something else to put a smile on your face.”

It shouldn’t be possible, but Nick brightens even more at the prospect. “Daisy?”

“Mm-hmm.” He unlocks his phone, opens the photo app, and hands it over to let Nick scroll through photos of this morning’s walk. “She’s lucky she’s cute. She wants to smell every bloody corner. I’m freezing my arse off, day and night, just so she can get her sniffs in.”

Nick strokes the cracked screen like he can transmit the touch to her through the phone. “You’re a very good fiancé,” he says.

Charlie has no idea what to say to that, so he just shuts his mouth and takes the phone back when Nick’s done with it. Nick muses over another spoonful of ice cream, then admits, “I still don’t remember anything. Like…I remember that I came to London to take the the company international. But I don’t…I don’t remember where I live. I know that I have Daisy, but I can’t remember the day I adopted her. And you…” He points to Charlie with the spoon, spilling a single pink drop on the blanket bunched around his hips. “I do remember you. Something about you—like, something about your face is familiar. But I don’t remember meeting or, or falling in love with you, or…” He sticks the spoon upright in the ice cream and hands it over to Charlie. “Here.”

He wrinkles his nose. “I’m not having any of that.”

“What? We’re engaged but we don’t share spoons?”

“We don’t share tastes. Unlike you, I make good choices.”

“I cannot believe you’re disrespecting the bubblegum flavour in front of me.” He shakes the pint. The spoon wobbles. “Humour me. I could have died.”

Charlie rolls his eyes but takes the pint. Somehow, sharing a spoon with Nick feels too familiar. But he gamely takes it, like they’ve shared a spoon a dozen times, and carves out some ice cream to give an experimental lick. 

“So,” says Nick, “I was hoping we could talk.”

The ice cream tastes like Pepto Bismol. Charlie grimaces and hands it back. “All right. What about?”

“How did we meet?” When Charlie’s eyebrows shoot up in response, Nick takes the pint back and starts in on another spoonful, hiding his blush behind the carton. “Dr. Farouk said it could be good for me to talk about what I can’t remember. He says it could trigger a recall. Mum’s been trying all morning, but she doesn’t really remember much of the last three months. She—she and I, we weren’t…” He coughs. “We weren’t really in contact.”

Charlie’s fairly certain that fabricated memories won’t help with recall. But here he is, the man of his dreams, blushing in a hospital bed and eager to hear the story of how they first met. Apparently unfazed that he’s woken up engaged to a man. Score one for Pirates of the Caribbean. 

“At the café beneath my flat,” he lies. “Back in October. I was working on an essay for a course I was taking on English poetry, stealing the WiFi. I hadn’t touched my coffee for hours.”

Nick nods, engrossed. “You’re a student?”

“Trying to be.” Now it’s Charlie’s turn to blush to the roots of his hair. “I would’ve graduated this year, actually. But I—I dropped out of uni after my first year. I only just started taking online courses last year to make up for lost time.”

“What are you studying?”

“English literature.”

Nick winks—actually winks—at him. “Romantic, then.”

He snorts. “You’ve no idea.”

“I must have noticed you,” Nick decides, and Charlie’s almost relieved that he’s filling in the story himself. “How could I not have noticed you? Looking all cool, studying poetry in a café, looking like that.”

“Looking like what?”

He gestures to him as though it’s obvious. “Like that. Go on, what did I say?”

“You asked if you could buy me a drink.”

“Not very creative.”

“You’re not a very creative person.”

“Oi!”

“It’s true!” Charlie at least thinks it is, guesses it is. Even if Nick hasn’t been living in the posh flat very long, there’s hardly a single personal touch in it. Daisy’s presence, the ice cream, the baking supplies, they’re the only signs of life. The rest is chrome. “But that’s all right. You have other redeeming qualities.”

Nick preens. “Such as?”

“You’re…gentle. Thoughtful. Joyful, even. Sometimes.”

He lowers the spoon. “I wanted to be. I was trying to be, when I left Paris. I wanted…” He shrugs and then eats another spoonful. “Well, maybe I was. Maybe when I met you, I started acting more like myself. More like the me I want to be, at least. Did I? Was I?”

“I dunno.”

Nick lets it go. “First date?”

“That day, at the café. I told you I already had a drink. You said that’s all right, you’d wait until I finished my first one. Then you bought us two coffees and some scones. You let me talk your ear off about Coleridge.”

“First kiss?”

Charlie’s face feels engulfed in flames. “You walked me back upstairs to my flat.”

“Did we…?”

He buries his face in his hands. “Not then, no.”

“But we have.” Nick seems entirely too smug. “We have, haven’t we? I mean, we wouldn’t have gotten engaged if we hadn’t, right? Unless you were marrying me for some kind of ILR situation—”

“No, no, nothing like that.”

“So we have?”

Charlie peeks through the cage of his fingers at Nick, whose suggestive smile over the carton of ice cream has been imagined by him dozens of times, in countless fantasy scenarios. “Well, we’re engaged,” he mumbles by way of an answer.

Nick just blows out a breath through his teeth and relaxes into the bed. Charlie would absolutely expire of humiliation were it not for the quickening of Nick’s pulse on the monitor. “You’re cute when you’re embarrassed,” he says, not even bothered by the heartbeat that betrays his excitement.

“And you’re entirely too pleased with yourself,” says Charlie. “It doesn’t bother you at all?”

“What doesn’t?”

“You wake up from a coma with a fiancé you can’t remember, someone you met only a few months ago but you decided to spend the rest of your life with, and you’re not even a bit concerned. What if I’m after your money?” he asks, almost hoping Nick will start to suspect him and consider sending him away. “What if I’m just—just using you for sex, or something? What if you can’t trust me?”

“Can I?” asks Nick. “Can I trust you?”

Charlie sighs. Not in the least. But he doesn’t want to lie to Nick about anything except the one thing, now, that he’s committed to lie about. “For the most part, yeah.”

He shifts uncomfortably in the bed. “Are you after my money?”

“God, no.”

“Are you just using me for sex?”

“Not yet, I’m not.”

Nick laughs out loud. “Then I’m not worried. I—I dunno, Char—wait, do I call you ‘Char?’ Do I have some kind of pet name for you?”

Charlie can’t help how soft his eyes get. “You can call me Char.”

“I just—I have a good feeling about you,” he says. “The people I was with in France, the people at Groupe Fournier, my old mates, they—I didn’t feel like myself around them. But there’s something about you that feels…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, just sets the ice cream down and reaches out for Charlie’s hands, which are folded in his lap. “It just didn’t surprise me, that’s all. I mean, it surprised me a little bit that I was engaged to someone I can’t remember, but after that, I could see it.”

Charlie lets out a nervous giggle. “You don’t even find it surprising that it all happened so fast?”

“No,” he says. “No, that’s the one thing that doesn’t surprise me at all. If I knew I was in love, I wouldn’t wait.” Then he lets go of his hands. “Chalk it up to being Stéphane Fournier’s son. We like to seal the deal, we Fourniers. So, how did I seal the deal?”

Charlie tries not to betray how breathless the remark leaves him. “What?”

“How did I ask you to marry me?”

“What makes you think you asked?”

He waves his left hand. “No ring.”

“Your ring could be in the bag with the clothes you were wearing during the accident,” Charlie points out.

“Is my ring in the bag with my clothes from the accident?”

“Well…no,” he says, “but I’m also not wearing a ring.”

“I bet I gave you one,” says Nick. “A really nice one. I bet you balked the second you saw it, fretted that it was too expensive, told me that you didn’t need it.”

“Is that what happened with Imogène?” He flinches as soon as the name leaves his lips. “God, forget I said that. I shouldn’t have brought her up.”

Nick just tilts his head. “Have we talked about her?”

“Not really, no. It’s not—your past is your own business, I didn’t mean to pry. Shouldn’t have said anything.”

He shrugs a shoulder and goes back to eating his ice cream. “As it happens, no. Imogène’s mum picked out the ring, and Papa paid for it and gave it to me to give to her when our families summered together in Nice. I didn’t even open the ring box until I was actually asking the question.” He doesn’t say anything more about it, instead weaving the fantasy for Charlie. “But I picked out yours. Bet it’s in the sock drawer of my flat, waiting for you to change your mind. You’re probably the type to freak out that you’d lose expensive jewelry.”

Surprising himself, Charlie takes the pint out of Nick’s hands and takes a large, defensive bite. “As a matter of fact,” he says, muscling his way past a brain freeze, “you didn’t propose with a ring. We were sitting on the couch in my flat—my flatmates were out for the night—and you were letting me prattle on about an idea I have for a story. And you just looked at me and you said—” 

He startles himself by how easily he finds himself spinning out the lie. But Nick just nods, equally spellbound. “Go on.”

“You—you just looked at me,” Charlie says weakly, “and you said that you loved me, and I said I loved you back. And then you said, ‘Marry me.’ And I—I said I would. No frills. No expensive jewelry. No summers in Nice. Just…you and me in my shit flat in Ealing.”

Nick stares and stares and stares. Charlie puts the ice cream back on the bed, tucking it against the sideboard, anxious for something to do with his hands. Finally, Nick nods to himself like Charlie has passed a crucial test. “I like it,” he pronounces. “It feels like us.”

Chapter Text

@charlie_spr1: how long have we all been friends?

@the.xu.tao: 🤨🤨🤨 wut did u do

@charlie_spr1: just answer the question

@elle_universerocks: lol since our truham days, babes

@elle_universerocks: going on about eight years

@elle_universerocks: unless you don’t count 👻 the lost years 👻 but i like 2 think we still loved each other even when we weren’t talking

@charlie_spr1: so you guys know that while i sometimes have shit judgment and make stupid decisions, i try not to be a completely awful person, right??

@the.xu.tao: I WAS RIGHT TO BE SUSPICIOUS

@isaac_paperback: Charlie, seriously, what did you do?

@charlie_spr1: i went back to the hospital to tell nick’s family everything, like i told you i would, but then his aunt begged me not to say anything until nick woke up because there’s a huge family drama and she didn’t want me to make it worse

@elle_universerocks: WHOAAA

@elle_universerocks: that’s a bold ask

@charlie_spr1: i KNOW 😰

@charlie_spr1: and then his dad was like interrogating me about what was going on before the accident

@the.xu.tao: this is so fcking dodgy

@charlie_spr1: but then it didn’t matter

@charlie_spr1: nick woke up

@isaac_paperback: Holy shit.

@isaac_paperback: He’s okay?

@charlie_spr1: he’s fine

@charlie_spr1: i mean he’s not, he’s still in hospital and being cared for

@charlie_spr1: but he sort of has amnesia

@charlie_spr1: like he can’t remember anything since he moved to london

@the.xu.tao: charlie

@the.xu.tao: do not tell me u told this coma patient ur engaged

@charlie_spr1: well

@charlie_spr1: i didn’t

@charlie_spr1: his aunt did

@elle_universerocks: 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

@isaac_paperback: I swear, Charlie, this sort of thing only ever happens to you.

@charlie_spr1: so i told her to tell everyone the truth but she kept saying that it wouldn’t hurt to just go along with it and see what happens

@charlie_spr1: and NICK 🤦🏻‍♂️

@the.xu.tao: he didn’t get the homophobic brother 2 throw u out??

@charlie_spr1: no

@charlie_spr1: he’s actually really excited

@charlie_spr1: like

@charlie_spr1: like he said i seemed cool and nice and like a good fiancé

@elle_universerocks: NO FUCKING WAY

@charlie_spr1: he even seemed kind of pleased that we’d, like

@charlie_spr1: i dunno

@charlie_spr1: had sex

@the.xu.tao: EXCEPT U HAVEN’T

@the.xu.tao: BECUZ HE’S A FUCKING STRANGER

@the.xu.tao: AND UR LYING 2 HIM?!?!!!!

@charlie_spr1: I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW I FUCKED UP I REALLY REALLY FUCKED UP

@the.xu.tao: THEY’RE GOING TO FUCKING ARREST U, CHARLIE!!!!1!

@elle_universerocks: pretty sure there’s no law against pretending to be engaged 2 ur crush, babes

@elle_universerocks: but this is insane, charlie

@elle_universerocks: what r u going 2 do??

@charlie_spr1: i haven’t the fucking foggiest 

@charlie_spr1: it was easier to justify it when i felt i was helping him, like getting his mum to the hospital or walking his dog

@charlie_spr1: he doesn’t need me now, but he kind of

@charlie_spr1: wants me?

@charlie_spr1: it feels weird to leave now

@elle_universerocks: what exactly is ur plan? pretend 2 b engaged until he remembers ur not?

@isaac_paperback: You said he has amnesia, right?

@isaac_paperback: Technically he might never remember.

@the.xu.tao: ISAAC! ONCE AGAIN! HOWW IS THIS HELPNG?????

@charlie_spr1: guys i don’t have a fucking plan!

@charlie_spr1: i don’t even know what i’m still doing here

@charlie_spr1: i just don’t know how to tell him, the lie’s gotten too big at this point

@the.xu.tao: charlie i can’t believe ur doing this

@charlie_spr1: 😡 tao, imagine if you and elle met the way nick and i did, and she woke up and started thanking you for saving her life and asking you to tell her how you got engaged and bragging that she probably got you a huge ring because she was so thrilled to be with you and how it’s not surprising at all that you got engaged quickly because when she falls in love, she’s all in

@charlie_spr1: tell me you wouldn’t have immediately folded

@the.xu.tao: 😐😐

@the.xu.tao: i take it back

@the.xu.tao: u might have found the 1 person even crazier than u

@charlie_spr1: i know it’s wrong

@charlie_spr1: all i’m asking is for some support while i figure out what to do

@charlie_spr1: and for you to not call the police

@elle_universerocks: 😣 do u promise you WILL tell him

@charlie_spr1: yes ofc i’m not going to actually marry him, that’d be mental

@elle_universerocks: then i have ur back

@elle_universerocks: ur a good person, charlie, i know u were just trying to help, and u’ll figure it out

@the.xu.tao: i still think this is gonna blow up in ur face

@the.xu.tao: but i won’t say anything abt it

Charlie startles at the flash of a camera, dropping his phone into his lap before he sees Isaac’s reply.

“Sorry, darling,” Sarah chirps. “Should’ve told you I was taking a picture. Dr. Farouk said it might help to document things going forward, just so Nick’s got some point of reference.”

Nick’s eyes go wide, inspired. “Wait, that’s a great idea, Mum!” Sarah just glows under his praise, which Charlie imagines has been in short supply for sixteen years. Then Nick turns and looks at Charlie. “I haven’t seen my phone since I woke up. Maybe we could go through the photos on it together?”

Charlie’s own phone continues to buzz with Instagram notifications. He shoves it into his pocket. “Erm, maybe. I’d have to find it first.”

Nick’s phone is currently charging on the kitchen counter of the Marylebone flat, full of photographic evidence that Charlie is not and has never been part of his life. Charlie didn’t know what to do with it. Still doesn’t.

“Come on, you two,” says Sarah, lifting hers to take another picture. “Lean in together, let’s have a smile.”

Nick tries to arrange himself in a pose for the camera, but the ventricular drain tugs on his head and the IV pulls taut as he moves away from the bags behind his bed. “Hold on,” says Charlie, stilling him with a careful hand on his shoulder. “Don’t want to undo all the work the doctors put into keeping you alive.”

Sarah snaps the picture like that, before they even have a chance to pose. “Oh, would you look at that?” She hands the phone over to Charlie, who hovers awkwardly over the bed to show Nick. In the picture, Charlie looks down at him with something approaching loving chagrin, his hand close to Nick’s heart to keep him steady on the bed, and Nick looks up at Charlie like—

Like he hung the moon. Charlie hands the phone back to Sarah without comment. She tucks it back into her purse and says, “Right, then. Nicky, they’ll be coming round with your lunch tray soon. I’m off to the café to grab something. Charlie, can I pick up anything for you, darling?”

“No, I’m all right.” He straightens up, ready to follow in Sarah’s wake. Unsure of how to make an exit when Nick is conscious, he sort of pats Nick’s hair, avoiding the gauze and stitches. “I’ll be back later, okay?” Nick leans upward, lips pursed, and Charlie freezes. “What—what are you doing?”

“Erm…” A delicious flush of pink spreads underneath Nick’s freckles. “Kissing you goodbye?”

Charlie didn’t think this far ahead. Of course, there should be kisses. Nick thinks they’re engaged. Kissing his very much alive fiancé who woke up from the brink of death is sort of expected. Charlie might have gotten away without kissing him when Nick first woke up; he was exhausted and confused. He could claim that it wouldn’t be fair, considering his amnesiac state.

But now Nick’s lucid. And he’s expecting it. He puckered, for Christ’s sake. Though his face falls with every second that goes by without Charlie responding. “Is that not…?”

“No, it’s—” This can’t be their first kiss. Charlie’s imagined their first kiss a hundred different ways, in a hundred different places. Never like this. Never in a hospital bed, never as a passing peck. “I just assumed, since you didn’t remember me, that it wouldn’t be—I mean, it’s not fair of me to—”

“Right, but—” 

They both stare at each other, at an impasse. And there’s no possible explanation for Charlie’s reluctance, so he just says, “It’s your breath.”

Nick’s brow furrows. Unconsciously, he cups a hand to his mouth and breathes into it. “My breath?”

“You haven’t brushed your teeth in two days,” Charlie says matter-of-factly. “And the last thing you had to eat was that disgusting bubblegum ice cream. Honestly this whole situation,” he declares, circling Nick’s head with his hand, “is foul. Kissing you would probably put me in a coma.”

He’s laying it on a bit thick, but thankfully, Nick just laughs. “I haven’t exactly been able to walk over to the loo and brush my teeth, all right?”

“I’m sorry, Nick. I have my own health to think of.” Charlie eyes the door, but then caves a bit and leans over to kiss Nick on the forehead, on a gauze-free spot. “Be good while I’m gone.”

David knocks on the open door, grunting his acknowledgement of Charlie as he passes by him on the way out. Once he’s in the hall, he grabs his phone and checks the messages. Isaac left the group chat and DMed him privately.

@isaac_paperback: So here’s the thing, Charlie.

@isaac_paperback: I think you can do this.

His jaw drops. He finds an empty alcove of the critical care ward and types.

@charlie_spr1: you don’t think this is absolutely, 100% mad?

@isaac_paperback: I never said that.

@isaac_paperback: But think about how all this happened. You fell in love with Nick from afar, so you would be the one to notice when he was in danger, and you would be the one to save him. There’s a certain poetry to it. And I know you don’t want to take advantage of him.

@isaac_paperback: What can I say? I want to believe in romance 🤗

@isaac_paperback: The question that remains is, do you want to do this? Or do you want to come clean?

Charlie knows the answer he ought to give. He knows if he were a good person, he would have put a stop to this days ago. He knows if he were a halfway decent person, he would have at least put a stop to it last night when Nick woke up, or this morning when he proved that he was going to pull through. But if he lets himself think for just a moment about Nick Fournier—not the man of his dreams, but the man who’s now very much fixed in his reality—then he doesn’t have a clue how he’s supposed to let him go. Maybe Nick’s gotten to him, with his talk of how it somehow makes sense to him, how they make sense, but the way they talk, the way they even sit together in silence…

It’s even better than Charlie’s daydreams. Maybe Aunt Diane was right. Maybe they could make it work. Maybe they do fit. He doesn’t know what kind of person that makes him. He’s afraid to think it through too much.

@charlie_spr1: i want to do this.

@isaac_paperback: All right.

@isaac_paperback: But you’re going to need help. And you’re going to have to really commit to it.

@charlie_spr1: what did you have in mind?

__________________

Charlie arrives at the Marylebone flat with his arms full of bags, dropping them all inside the vestibule the second Daisy greets him at the door. She delights herself by poking her nose into them, and Charlie scratches her behind the ears and promises to take her for a walk later.

He takes a deep breath, shoves down all the guilt, and gets to work, kitchen first. From a Tesco bag, he produces some cheese, butter, and bread, which he puts in Nick’s fridge and cupboard. A can of beans and some packets of instant ramen get crammed in with Nick’s baking supplies.

Charlie throws a jumper of his onto the couch and leaves his dogeared copy of The Iliad on the coffee table. He still has some of his notes from last term, which he shoves into one of the drawers of the coffee table, and he puts an old notebook of story ideas by the lamp.

The bedroom is a different story. Charlie only let himself in here yesterday morning to clip the lead on Daisy for her morning walk when she bolted from him in favour of rolling around in Nick’s knocked-over hamper. Now, he hesitates before he goes in. It feels too sacred to trespass into. The guilt threatens to rise up like bile. He pushes it down again and opens the door, bags in hand.

Nick’s dirty clothes are still on the floor—designer dress shirts, form-fitting trousers, some gym clothes. Charlie stuffs them back into the hamper and adds some socks of his own, a t-shirt, a pair of jeans he seldom wears. He sticks a toothbrush in the en-suite, some of his hair products on the sink counter, and—trying not to blush and throw up at the same time—a box of condoms and some lube beneath the sink. 

An opened box, with some missing. And the lube is only three-quarters full. Isaac had insisted. Fiancés who have sex would have that sort of thing. It’ll raise eyebrows if you don’t.

He shuts the door to the en-suite like it’s radioactive. There are two bedside tables with lamps, identical and empty. Charlie squints at the bed, which has been made—perhaps Nick has maid service?—and sees a slight indent in the right side, which he guesses is Nick’s preference. So he puts more of his books on the left side’s table, some Dickens novels for next term. Before he can lose his nerve, he opens some of Nick’s drawers, finds his boxers, and shoves in two pairs of his own black briefs.

The next part feels seedier. He pulls out the bag of Nick’s personal effects from the hospital. It’s innocuous enough at first; he hangs up his coat, puts his suit in the hamper, puts his shoes away and slides the AirPods into the drawer of Nick’s bedside table. Charlie pulls out the cards in his wallet. There isn’t much to go on, no pictures or customer loyalty cards. In addition to the credit cards, Nick’s license tells him that his birthday is in September and that he just turned twenty-four. Charlie slips a Polaroid Elle took of him into the billfold. He’s laughing at the camera, a little blurry with motion and too much white wine. It’s one of his favourites. He thinks Nick would like it, too.

Next is the laptop, password protected. Charlie scoffs at how troublingly easy it is to hack—it takes him three tries, the password is his birthday. Isaac insisted on this part, too. A fiancé would know about his future husband’s job. Charlie opens Nick’s email, though he doesn’t have a prayer of understanding it. Everything’s in French. There seem to be a lot of contracts, pictures of immense properties in France and England. One single draft exists, a fragment of a sentence addressed to Nick’s brother.

David,

Voici tout ce que j'ai collecté

There’s nothing else in the body, though attached is a rather large file. Charlie clicks on it and sees rows and columns of numbers in large amounts next to French names he doesn’t associate with anything, so he just leaves the draft alone. Instead, he peruses Nick’s browser history. There are dogs toys in his Amazon shopping cart and rented Marvel movies. He even, though he hates himself, scrolls back long enough to see what sort of porn Nick watches late at night, though he doesn’t dare click on it. By the titles alone, it looks like a lot of homemade stuff, lots of real couples both straight and queer. Score two for the Pirates theory, Sarah and Diane know Nick better than David thinks. There’s enough here to at least predict the kind of sex Nick likes: sappy, authentic, connected. Romantic. Charlie harboured hopes before, but he doesn’t dare reawaken them now. This is just research in case Nick asks anything else about their sex life, he reasons. If Nick was really into the BDSM scene, that’s something Charlie would have to know. 

The last decision to be made is what to do with the phone, now fully charged. Charlie unlocks it and scrolls through some of Nick’s apps, doing more research. Texts—mostly with David, some with Stéphane, and plenty unopened from Imogène. Spotify playlists that are pretty good, all things considered. YouTube videos that recommend Formula 1 content. The last call he made the morning before the accident was to Sarah.

The easiest thing would be to pretend that the phone was lost in the accident. But Charlie can’t bring himself to throw it away, just in case it contains something he’ll need later on. He unplugs it from the counter and pockets it to bring home. He’ll lock it in a drawer, only to pull out in case of emergency. And just so he doesn’t feel like the most morally bankrupt person on the planet, he takes Daisy for an extra walk, gives her some treats, and grabs an Adidas jumper to take with him to the hospital, just in case Nick is cold.

__________________

Nick isn’t in the hospital bed when he returns. Charlie backs up out of the room to make sure he’s in the right place, then looks around to see if Sarah or David or even bloody Aunt Diane are nearby, but there isn’t a familiar face in sight. Sarah would have texted him if Nick took a turn for the worse, right? Did the pressure increase in his brain? Did they rush him to emergency surgery?

The bed looks rumpled, recently occupied, so Charlie forces himself to breathe normally and step back inside the room. When the door clicks shut behind him, he hears someone from the bathroom, where an empty wheelchair stands guard just outside. “Who is it?”

“It’s Charlie,” he says, recognising Tara’s voice. “Sorry, is everything all right?”

“Of course, of course, you can come in!”

He hears Nick grumble inside. “Jesus, Tara, can’t I have a minute of peace?”

“It’s not like it’s anything he hasn’t seen,” she giggles. “Besides, he’ll be happy to see how well you’re doing.”

Charlie’s not sure he wants to see what’s going on in the bathroom, but after he sets Nick’s jumper on the bed, he grits his teeth and slowly opens the door. He misses seeing Nick’s arse by the slightest angle; Nick stands by the sink in his hospital gown, which is tied up in the back but not doing much for his modesty. Tara is by his side, her arm looped around his waist for support, and she holds his IV bags safely out of the way. “See?” she says. “He stood up for two whole minutes after lunch today. And he went to the bathroom all by himself, without the catheter.”

Nick tucks his head down like he’s trying to hide in the folds of his hospital gown. “Tara, seriously.”

“These are big steps, Nick!” She pats him on the back. “Don’t be jealous, Charlie, but I did have to help him aim a little. But I’m a raging lesbian, it did nothing for me.”

“Oh—erm, that’s fine, no worries—” Charlie allows Nick another moment to grumble his embarrassment, preoccupying himself with the lintel. “What are you—what’s happening now?”

Nick turns on the faucet. “Brushing my teeth.”

“Oh.” He just observes as Nick runs a toothbrush, which Tara has ready for him, toothpaste already squeezed, under the water and then lifts it to his mouth. “Why?”

Nick gets a few scrubs in before he spits out some foam. “For you.”

He’s about to ask another stupid question until the memory from earlier today hits him, and then it takes every reserve of strength he has not to hyperventilate. Nick Fournier forced himself to get up out of bed only a day after waking up from a coma so he could walk to the bathroom and brush his teeth, because the man he thinks he’s engaged to told him he wouldn’t kiss him otherwise.

Nick wants to kiss him. Nick is putting in a Herculean amount of effort to kiss him. Charlie watches him, dumbfounded, as he does a thorough job of brushing his teeth. Nick clings to the bathroom sink until his knuckles go white from the effort, until Tara tut-tuts and warns him he’s pushed himself enough for the day. She steers him in the direction of the wheelchair and Charlie scoots out of their way while she wheels him back to bed and helps him lumber out of the chair and beneath the covers again. He feels useless as they engage in this clumsy pas de deux, knowing a good fiancé would have jumped in to help. But it takes all his power to stay upright.

Tara smooths the blankets over Nick’s knees and attaches a little clip to his forefinger in lieu of the sticky pads on his chest to monitor his heart rate. To Charlie’s relief, the tube draining out of his head has disappeared. “How are you doing?”

“Much better without the catheter,” he sighs. “And Charlie was right. My mouth tasted like the tooth fairy died in it.”

He lets out a bark of panicked laughter. Tara checks his stitches. “Still don’t think you’re ready for a shower, though. I’ll arrange for a sponge bath tomorrow, unless Charlie wants to help with that.”

“I dunno,” says Nick, looking over at Charlie with a cheeky grin. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“You’re not funny,” Charlie grumbles. He makes himself put one foot in front of the other to retrieve the Adidas jumper and push it into Nick’s lap. “Brought you this. Thought you might be cold.”

Nick smiles his thanks, unsure of how to put it on without disrupting the tubes and wires, even though their number has diminished. Tara helps him unhook and pull and manoeuvre until the jumper’s on, then pats him on the head. “All right, cosy lad. I’ll check on you after dinner.”

And then it’s just the two of them. Charlie wishes this didn’t keep happening. With both of Nick’s parents, his brother, and his aunt taking turns looking after them, one would think they’d scarcely have a chance to be alone. He has the sneaking suspicion that Sarah and Aunt Diane are united in creating as many of these opportunities as possible, though for different reasons.

And Nick looks so fucking hopeful. “There,” he says, tapping his upper lip. “Squeaky clean. Though, of course, feel free to test it yourself and let me know. I’m very open to feedback.” Once again, another nervous laugh escapes Charlie, and this time, Nick doesn’t miss it. “Oh, God,” he whispers. “You don’t want to.”

“I didn’t say that—”

“You didn’t have to.” Nick covers his mouth, blinking fast, and speaks into his folded hands. “Oh, God, I’m such an idiot. You were engaged to this suave Parisian who loved you to bits and then you—you almost lost me, and when I came back I couldn’t even remember you—” Unless Charlie’s mistaken, he sees actual tears forming at the corners of Nick’s eyes. “You must be so disappointed in me,” he continues, dropping his hands. “You had someone you loved and now I’m just—just some stranger to you. And you’ve been so kind to me, taking care of me and my family and Daisy, but inside you must be heartbroken because I’m not the man you—God, I’m so sorry, Charlie—”

“Nick.” He can’t help himself, he just crosses the room in two long strides and sits on the edge of the bed, taking Nick’s hands in his. “None of that is true. I could never be disappointed that you’re alive.”

“But I can’t remember you,” says Nick. “All those months, they’re lost—”

“So we’ll rewrite them,” swears Charlie. “You and me, we’ll start over.” And then, because there’s nothing else he could possibly do—nothing else he wants to do—he moves his hands to Nick’s face and presses their lips together.

Nick’s lips are soft, so soft. A little cracked and dry. He tastes like spearmint. Charlie realises, a little too late, that this isn’t just their first kiss. It might be Nick’s first kiss with a man, ever. Or maybe it isn’t. He has no way of knowing. He pulls back before he can give the kiss a proper start. “Sorry,” he wheezes. “I should’ve been more gentle—your stitches, I mean—”

“Do that again.”

Charlie bites his lip, checking out the heart monitor, which has begun to speed up. “We shouldn’t.”

He feels Nick’s hands reach for his waist, trying to bring him closer. Nick doesn’t have enough strength to pull it off, but Charlie can sense the intent. “Do that again,” he repeats, his eyes fixed on where Charlie’s teeth worry his bottom lip.

Charlie is more careful this time. He brushes his thumbs across Nick’s cheekbones, then slots their noses next to each other so for a moment they do nothing but share each other’s air and listen to the heart monitor ping with increasing speed. “Bloody thing,” Nick murmurs against Charlie’s lips, “giving me away like that.”

Charlie hates that he lets himself enjoy it. The monitor goes off like a hummingbird’s wings next to them, certain to garner a nurse’s attention, but while they have a moment, he relaxes into the kiss. Nick’s grip on his waist is tight, fiddling with the hem of his shirt to touch the tiniest sliver of skin there, and Charlie shivers into the touch, into his mouth. Nick makes a pleased noise in the back of his throat, somewhere between a whine and a laugh.

Sure enough, Tara knocks on the door before letting herself in, and Charlie lets go and ducks into Nick’s shoulder. “Just checking in,” she says. “Your heart rate was a little high there for a minute.”

“Just making sure my lips still work,” Nick tells her over Charlie’s shoulder. “What d’you reckon, Charlie? Still in working order?”

He flashes a thumbs up at Tara. “Yep. They’re—yep. All good. Thanks.”

He hears her snort. “Just be careful with him, Charlie. He’s not up for what you have in mind just yet.”

“Do we have a timeframe on that?” Nick calls out after her, even as she leaves and the door swings shut behind her.

Charlie pulls back and laughs. “You’re terrible.”

Nick just shrugs adorably and leans back against the hospital bed. “Worth it.”

Chapter Text

They arrange themselves into factions on either side, Nick’s bed the de facto battlefield. Aunt Diane and Sarah station themselves by the remaining tubes and wires connected to Nick, visual aids to their point about the ongoing delicacy of Nick’s condition. David and Stéphane stand by the door like the two of them could each grab an elbow and hustle Nick out of the hospital—out of the country—at a moment’s notice. Charlie supposes his place is with Sarah and Diane, but he finds himself at his usual spot by the headboard, an arm slung protectively behind it.

“All right,” says Dr. Farouk, his tone measured. He knows how explosive this discussion might get. “I think we all need to bear in mind that Mr. Fournier’s made tremendous progress since he woke up three days ago. The swelling in his brain has gone down immensely, and his scans are incredibly promising. Even more impressive, he’s ambulating, speaking, and showing no signs of anterograde amnesia. As long as we schedule follow-up appointments over the next few weeks to continue monitoring his progress, I see no reason why this young man can’t go home for Christmas.”

Sarah claps her hands together in relief, and it seems she’ll be making the opening salvo. “Dr. Farouk, we can’t thank you enough for taking care of our boy,” she says. “I live just a little over an hour from here, and I have Nick’s childhood bedroom all set up for him. He’s more than welcome to stay with me for the next few weeks as he convalesces, and I’ll bring him to his appointments.” She pats Nick on the arm, and though he smiles up at her weakly, Charlie knows she’s nowhere close to winning this fight.

“Tu parles!” Stéphane mutters under his breath, it’s like a boom of a cannon. Charlie tightens his fingers around the headboard.

Sarah narrows her eyes. “I’m his mother, Stéphane. And on top of that, I’m a bloody GP! How could you care for him, if you brought him back to France? You’re always at work! You’d set him up alone on the couch in some Paris flat and call him every 48 hours, meanwhile our boy could have a brain hemorrhage and—”

“All right, all right,” says David, “let’s not talk about fucking brain hemorrhages, okay? Nick’s going to be fine. Anyway, he wouldn’t be alone, he’d be with me. He’d already been staying with me since he broke up with Imogène.” Then he frowns. “We might have to do something about the dog, though. Not sure I want a puppy pissing on my furniture.”

“Daisy is very well-trained,” Nick argues, but David pays him no mind.

“Look, if you’re that worried, I’ll hire a carer myself to look after him, Mum. Paris is the one home Nick’s ever really known. You want him to go back to Kent? He hasn’t slept in that bedroom for more than a few weeks since he was in grammar school.”

“And whose fault is that?”

David holds up his hands—don’t blame me—and before either parent can rehash their divorce out over Nick’s hospital bed, Nick’s voice rings out strong and clear. “I want to move back into my London flat.”

Strangely enough, everyone related to Nick in the room seems united on the stupidity of this idea. “Ne sois pas ridicule,” Stéphane says, and Charlie glares at him, knowing enough French to guess that the last word is an insult. “It is a rental only, a lease from my friend’s company, ça n’a pas de sens…”

“Nicky, darling, you can’t even remember your flat,” Sarah reminds him. “You said it yourself. How will you know where to find anything?”

“It’s a flat, Mum, not a maze. I’m sure I can manage finding the loo just fine. Besides, Dr. Farouk said it’s important for me to go back to my routine,” he says, nodding to the doctor who has wisely elected to stay out of the family feud. “As close as I can get to what I was doing before the accident. He said it’s the best chance I have for getting my memories back. And I want them back.” He tightens his hand into a fist on top of the blanket, and for the first time, Charlie really, truly sympathises with how frustrating it must be to be Nick right now. How difficult must it be to have months missing from your life?

“It’s not a bad idea,” agrees Aunt Diane. “I’ve consulted on a few amnesia patients, and returning to routine really is the ticket with most of them. But Nick shouldn’t recover alone.” She refuses to meet Charlie’s gaze for the next suggestion. “If Charlie would be willing to stay with Nick…”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” Nick asks, and Charlie ought to make a rule about how often Nick can deploy those impossible-to-resist eyes. “I mean, we were living together before the accident, right?”

“We hadn’t—I’m still technically at my place in Ealing,” Charlie says. “It all happened rather quickly—”

“Sorry, but this is bullshit!” interrupts David. “I’m not letting my brain-damaged brother be looked after by a complete stranger! A stranger he told us nothing about, by the way! All of us here have known Nick since the day he was born, and yet we’re trusting the random man who shows up and claims to be his fiancé to watch over him? A man who can’t have known him more than three months?! I won’t fucking allow it!”

“David, please—”

“No, Mum,” begs David, “there’s something else wrong here, can’t you see that? Look, Charlie, I—I know I wasn’t very kind to you when we first met, and I’m sorry for that. I hope you can understand that I was shocked, not just about you but about what happened to Nick, and I acted like an utter pillock. But you still haven’t shown us any good reason to believe you are who you say you are! Not a ring, not a bloody photo of you two—and even if you really are engaged, it happened too fast, and there must be a reason why Nick didn’t tell us about you. So I’m sorry, but I can’t let you be the one to look after him.”

Everyone in the room, even Dr. Farouk, looks insulted at his diatribe, but Charlie doesn’t even try to defend himself. Every word is true.

“You’re not the one to make this decision,” Nick says before Charlie can respond. “I’m awake, and I’m of legal age, and I can make this decision myself.”

“C’est vrai,” Stéphane cuts in, and his voice has notes of surrender and finality to it. “You’re absolutely right, mon fils. You’re awake, and you must make this decision yourself, and you’re an adult, non? You’re no longer a child whose parents fight over who will take care of him. Tu es un homme, Nicolas.” He takes a step closer to the bed, his arms crossed over his chest. “Mais un homme a des responsabilités, non? If you can speak, and you can walk, and you feel well enough to go home, then you are needed at home. You’re needed in France. We need you at Groupe Fournier. And pauvre Imogène, she needs you. And who knows? Maybe with so much you cannot remember, you might not remember why you two parted ways. Maybe you find that you miss her.”

Charlie wonders at Stéphane’s audacity to imply that amnesia would make someone willing to swap out one fiancé for another. But Nick just looks down at his blankets. “I remember enough, Papa. Imogène is fine without me.” When he does look up, his eyes are narrowed. “And no offense, but the last thing I need right now is to have everyone fight about what they think is best for me. I don’t fancy being dragged back to France and chained to my desk again, all right?” His voice softens, but not by much, when he addresses his mother. “And I don’t want to go back to my childhood bedroom and be coddled, either. I had a life in London, and I want to get back to it.”

Charlie knows what this means. This is an expansion to the charade, another layer to the lie. He won’t just be required to keep it up in this hospital room, but in actual living quarters with Nick. And yet, when Nick looks up at him, shy and hopeful, it feels like he’s asking him as his actual boyfriend. “I know it’s a lot to ask,” Nick says. “You probably have work—God, I don’t even know what you do—and it would take a lot to look after me, make sure I’m taking my medicines and not dying in my sleep—”

He chokes. “Don’t say that.”

“—and I know there might not be a lot left of the man you fell in love with,” he finishes quietly, “but I’m hoping there’s enough left that you’d be willing to stick it out with me. I totally understand if you didn’t sign up for this, though.”

He knows there’s an audience, but he tenderly brushes some of Nick’s hair away from the gauze on his forehead anyway. “I sort of did, though,” he says. “In sickness and in health, right?”

“So you’ll do it?” he confirms. “You’ll stay with me, here in London?”

“Of course,” says Charlie, and then he breaks the eye contact before he promises Nick anything else. “And I understand that none of you know me very well. I think it would be good for Nick to have you come round and keep supporting him. I mean, it’s almost Christmas, after all. Family should be together for Christmas.”

Dr. Farouk bends slightly at the waist in acknowledgement of the decision. “I’ll start the discharge paperwork.”

Sarah hides her disappointment well, having at least won the battle to keep Nick in England. “Charlie, darling, I think that’s a wonderful sentiment,” she says as Dr. Farouk leaves. “Family should be together for Christmas. Yours must be missing you terribly, so near the holiday. We’ve been keeping you all to ourselves here in London. Where’s your family from, dear?”

“Oh, erm, from Kent,” he says stiffly, “but don’t worry, they’re not expecting me home. I usually work on Christmas.”

Sarah clucks her tongue at the state of the economy. “Shame, that. And from Kent, too! And I live in Kent, I wonder if we ever ran into each other before. Your last name is Spring, right? Any relation to—”

“I don’t really keep in touch with them,” he says, and he prays that Sarah isn’t the snooping type. He nods to everyone and leaves the room without another word, spotting Dr. Farouk sitting at a computer by the nurse’s station. Dr. Farouk beckons him over and asks him for Nick’s address, then prints a series of sheets for him detailing the next steps in Nick’s care. The words swim in front of Charlie—surgical site hygiene, compression socks to prevent blood clots, cognitive exercises, mood swings—and he knows he’s going to have to reread them all at least four more times.

But he will. He’ll commit it all to memory. Nick deserves at least that much.

Dr. Farouk prints out a list of Nick’s appointments, which they add to the calendar on Charlie’s phone. He already knows there are some days he’ll have to switch shifts to make it work. But once he has a decent enough handle on it, he folds the papers up and shakes Dr. Farouk’s hand before the doctor leaves to process the discharge paperwork.

When he comes back, Sarah and Diane are gone. Almost as though Nick can sense Charlie’s confusion, he says, “I sent them home. They’ve been here for days, and poor Aunt Diane has kids of her own. She ought to be with them at Christmas. And Mum deserves a night in her own bed. You have their numbers, yeah?”

“Yeah.” He waves the papers. “Dr. Farouk’s getting it all sorted. I’m pretty much an expert in the home care of brain surgery patients now.” He looks over to David, conciliatory, and adds, “I’d be happy to go over them with you, if that would make you feel better. I know you’re worried about him.”

David just sniffs. “Whatever.”

“And if you’d like to come by and see how he’s doing—”

“Oh, you can be sure of that,” he sneers. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m taking over Papa's suite at the Royal Lancaster.”

Charlie turns to Stéphane. “You’re not staying? Not even for Christmas?”

“Quel dommage, I know,” he says, raising his arms, “but business is business. I have taken off as many days as I can. But Nick, he is strong, eh? He wants to stay in Londres, so here he will stay. He doesn’t need his papa to look after him.” He crosses over to Nick’s bedside and drops a kiss on the top of Nick’s hair. “Be well, mon fils. Tu es forte, tu guériras rapidement. La perte de mémoire, ce n’est pas si mal. Ça aurait pu être pire!”

Nick’s expression is blank, unfathomable, as he replies, “Oui, Papa. Il y a beaucoup de choses que j’aimerais pouvoir oublier.” 

Stéphane goes ashen, clears his throat, and then nods to David and Charlie as he leaves.

Charlie busies himself with preparing the outfit he brought from Nick’s flat for the discharge: another jumper, a pair of boxers, some soft joggers and socks, a t-shirt, and trainers. He puts them in a pile on the edge of the bed—Tara promised to swing by later and help Nick change—and places his wallet and keys on top.

David eyes the pile with suspicion. “Where’s his phone?”

“Hmm?”

“Nick’s phone.”

Charlie hopes he can’t see how the blood rushes, traitorously, to the tips of his ears. “Hmm, I dunno. Couldn’t find it.”

“I probably dropped it onto the tracks,” Nick says, once again helpfully painting the picture of his own exploitation. “Or maybe someone stole it from the scene.”

“No,” says David. “Charlie had it the day of the accident. He showed me a picture of your dog.”

Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.

“Pretty sure that was my phone,” he says through a tight smile. “I haven’t seen Nick’s since before the accident. We’ll have to pick up a new one for him, but you can call me in the meantime if you want to talk to him.”

David looks like he wants to argue, but then Tara arrives to help Nick change, and so he leaves without a word. 

Charlie leaves the room to give them some privacy and answers some texts from Isaac, confirming that he’s left everything at Nick’s flat as instructed. Then he reads the discharge instructions for Nick’s care over and over again. The chemist’s that's closest to the hospital calls to alert him that Nick’s medication is ready for pick-up, and when he peeks back into the room, he checks with Tara to see how long until the discharge will be finalised.

“Probably another few hours,” she tells him apologetically. “You know how hospitals are with their fussy paperwork. A lot of hurry up and wait.”

Charlie nods and pulls on his coat, pulling his knit cap out of the pocket and yanking it over his curls. “Right, then,” he says to Nick. “I’m headed over to the chemist’s to pick up what Dr. Farouk prescribed.” But Nick doesn’t reply, only looks at him with a little crease in his brow. “Is that okay?”

He blinks, then smiles. “Hurry back.”

__________________

Nick stares up at the building while Charlie pulls the wheelchair out of the boot of the Uber, hoping that he looks like he knows what the hell he’s doing. The Uber driver signals his impatience—checking his watch, clearing his throat, accidentally leaning on the horn so both men jump—and Charlie unfolds it and brings it to the side of the car. He helps Nick to slide off the seat and into the chair. “You don’t have to do this,” Nick tells him. “I can walk just fine.”

“The longest you’ve walked without needing a break was twelve minutes,” Charlie replies primly, pulling Nick’s bag out and then shutting the car door with a little more force than necessary. The driver speeds away. “Dr. Farouk said not to push it.”

Nick just hums his surrender, continuing to look up.

“Ringing any bells?” asks Charlie.

“No,” he admits. “It looks like all of our other properties, honestly.”

The doorman rushes to open the wide, full-paneled glass doors for Charlie and Nick, even doffing his cap. “Good to see you back, Mr. Fournier.”

“You, too,” he says cheerily.

As soon as they’re out of earshot by the lift, Charlie informs him, “That’s Terrence. He’s got all your packages, when you’re ready for them. Loads of toys for Daisy, if I had to guess.”

“Probably some Christmas presents, too,” he says when the lift arrives and Charlie wheels him inside. “Hope I remember which one I intended for each person.”

He’s about to offer to help him figure it out, but his guess would be even worse than Nick’s. They ride the lift up to the penthouse, and Charlie manoeuvres Nick out into the tiny space between the lift and his front door, fumbling with the keys. The sound of people just outside has Daisy whipped into a frenzy, and her sudden barks awaken something in Nick. “Daisy-girl!” he says, smoothing his hand on the lintel as Charlie jams the keys into the lock. “I’m right here, Daisy, I’m almost home!”

Once Charlie manages to unlock the door, Nick launches himself out of the wheelchair and into the flat, sinking clumsily to his knees with his arms open to catch Daisy. Her tail wags so fast it’s a yellow blur, and Nick’s face is covered with puppy saliva, but Charlie reckons it’s a better cure than most of the medicine they pumped Nick with over the last few days. He shakes his head, grumbling good-naturedly, and pulls the empty wheelchair inside and locks the door behind them.

“I missed you,” Nick whispers into her fur. “I missed you so much, Daisy-girl. I’m so sorry I left you all alone, but it wasn’t so bad, was it? Charlie took good care of you, didn’t he?”

Charlie drifts past them and puts Nick’s keys on the kitchen island, then starts turning on the lights in the flat. “Are you hungry?” he calls out. “I could make you something for dinner before I take her on a walk.”

“Can’t I come with you?” Charlie walks back to the vestibule with a look on his face that he hopes is answer enough for Nick on this one. Nick seems to get it; he raises his hands in surrender. “All right, all right. Help me up, would you?”

Daisy doesn’t make the job easy, winding in figure eights around the wheels as Charlie helps to pull Nick to his feet and settle him back in the chair. “Right,” says Charlie, finding himself in the unlikely position of expert on a flat he has never actually lived in. “Shall I give you the grand tour?”

“By all means.”

Daisy hops onto Nick’s lap, and Charlie wheels them both through the kitchen, making a mental note to get actual ingredients for actual meals and not just baking projects. Nick’s face remains blank as Charlie points out the cupboards and dishes. There’s not a flicker of recognition in the living room, either. Nick takes in the absurd flatscreen and the floor-to-ceiling glass windows and says not a word.

Charlie jams his hands into his pockets. “Anything?”

“No, not really.” He sighs and nods to the couch. “Could we—sorry, it’s just a lot to take in at once. Can we just sit for a while?”

He’s able to get out of the wheelchair on his own, taking a few steps toward the couch. Charlie sees it on his face, the worry with each step he takes that somehow his brain will fail him, that a clot will come loose or an aneurysm will strike if he’s not careful. But he gamely hides the anxiety and takes a seat, with Daisy curling up next to him. Charlie folds himself into the other corner of the couch.

“Do you still live in Ealing?” Nick asks.

“Yeah. Told my flatmates I’d be helping you out for the foreseeable, though. They know they won’t be seeing much of me.”

“Why don’t we live together yet?”

“Oh, erm…” Charlie is doing his best to base all his answers in truth. It’ll be easier to recall them later as he builds this story. “Well, this place is just a temporary lease, right? You were only here to get started on the international expansion of Groupe Fournier. And my lease wasn’t up yet, and we didn’t know what you were going to do when you finished up your work here. I think we were just waiting to see how things went before we made any more big decisions.”

“Were you going to move to Paris with me?”

Is that where this is going? “I—I dunno. We didn’t really talk about it.”

He can’t tell if Nick seems disappointed or confused. He stares out through the window at the fading twilight. “There’s just so much,” he says quietly. “So much I don’t—” Before he finishes his thought, he shakes his head and says, “Right, I’m starving. Why don’t we order takeaway?”

“I could make you something…” Charlie offers, knowing the best he can do are cheese toasties or instant noodles.

Instead, Nick pulls out his wallet and tosses it to Charlie. “You’ve done so much for me already. Let’s take it easy tonight, yeah? Order a pizza?”

He tries to hide his relief and pulls out his phone to place an order. Pizza is one of his safe foods, and he wouldn’t have wanted to explain the concept to Nick if he had wanted to order something else. As guilty as he feels inputting Nick’s credit card information into his Deliveroo app, he knows he couldn’t have afforded this himself. “Done,” he says, rising from the couch. “I’ll take Daisy out for her evening walk, and when I get back, the food should be here. Will you be all right on your own for twenty minutes?”

Nick settles into the couch. “I think I can manage.” Charlie awkwardly pats his knee and then herds Daisy off the couch, who’s torn between spending time with Nick and the walk she knows is imminent. “Oh, and Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

“When you get back,” he says, “I want to start learning.”

Daisy nips at his heel, but Charlie hardly feels it. “Learning what?”

“About you,” he says. “About us.”

__________________

A box of cheese pizza and a plate of garlic knots later—and two glasses of a deliriously good red wine, both drunk by Charlie even though Nick begged in vain to be allowed a sip and then magnanimously insisted that Charlie at least be allowed to drink tonight if he couldn’t—finds Charlie on the floor, marveling at the fluffy white rug. The sky outside isn’t true black, more like that light pollution blue-brown that could be any time of night. Charlie guesses it’s close to ten, maybe eleven. He can’t tell, and his phone’s somewhere inside the couch cushions, long abandoned. His brain is addled by Nick’s endless questions, or maybe it’s just the wine talking.

“Hogwarts house?”

“Ugh, who reads Harry Potter anymore?” Charlie drawls, and then with an embarrassed sip, he adds, “Slytherin, okay?”

“Favourite film?”

“Moonlight.”

“Favourite bands?”

“Muse, the Strokes, Best Coast. I used to want to be a drummer when I was a kid.” Charlie sets his wine glass on the coffee table before he spills any on the rug. “Played the drums all the way through secondary.”

“That’s so cool.” Nick hasn’t had a drop to drink per Charlie’s insistence, but his cheeks are still rosy, and his chin rests in his hands as he watches Charlie sprawled out on the floor. “Drummers are hot.”

For his part, Charlie buries his face in the rug.

“Where do we want to go for our honeymoon?”

“Athens,” he says around a mouthful of white shag.

“Mmm.” Nick picks up the copy of The Iliad Charlie planted and nods. “Not hard to guess whose idea that was, classics nerd.”

“Oi!”

“Not complaining!” he laughs. “There are beaches in Athens, right? As long as I get to watch you coming out of the sea all tanned and wet and in a little Speedo, I’ll call that a successful honeymoon.”

“Nick,” he groans, rolling off his belly and onto his back, “you can’t just say things like that.”

“I want to see where on Dr. Farouk’s paperwork it says that former coma patients can’t fantasise about their hot fiancés. Find that sentence for me, and I’ll shut the fuck up.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Charlie asks.

“By all means.”

“Why weren’t you more surprised to find out that you were engaged to a man?” He’s just tipsy enough to ask this question, but not drunk enough that he won’t remember the answer. “I mean, your parents didn’t know that you were…into men. David was caught totally off guard. Your mum and aunt seemed to have an inkling, but they never said you confirmed it.”

Nick bites his bottom lip as he considers what to say. “I—it’s not that I’ve always known. It took years for me to figure it out, that—that I’m bi. When things ended with Imogène, I do remember deciding that I was going to…explore that part of myself. I know that was the plan even before I came to London. So when I woke up, and there you were…” His eyes crinkle up as he looks at Charlie so fondly he fears he might combust. “I guess I just thought my plan had gone really fucking well.”

Charlie rolls over again and buries his head in his hands. “Sap.”

“As for why I didn’t tell my parents or David yet,” he says, “I don’t know. I can’t remember that much.”

It’s some strange kind of relief to know that he hasn’t backed Nick into some queer corner. Nick liked men before he met Charlie. Nick planned to date men before he met Charlie. He might’ve even succeeded. “I guess it’s not as simple as worrying what they would think,” Charlie muses. “You didn’t tell them about Daisy, either. David didn’t believe you’d adopted a dog until I showed him a picture.”

“I don’t know why,” he says again. “I…I have my guesses, but nothing’s certain.” When Charlie looks up at him expectantly, Nick blushes and wipes a bit of grease off the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “There were a lot of things about my life that I wanted to change, those last weeks I can remember in Paris before I came here. But I was terrified they wouldn’t stick. Thought I was just having a momentary crisis. Maybe I just wanted to be sure about things before I told anyone about them.”

Charlie frowns, unsure of how that would work. If he ended up not being sure about Daisy, what would Nick have done—sent her back to where she came from? And even though this has nothing to do with him, the wine has made him maudlin enough to say, “Me. You wanted to be sure about me.”

Nick shakes his head. “No, that’s not true. I know I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me if I didn’t mean it. But my father and brother, they…they have a way of turning everything into the family business. The schools my father sent us to, they were to make sure David and I grew up around the ‘right sort of people.’ The rugby team I play with sometimes in France, even just for fun on weekends—three of my teammates are the kids of my dad’s business partners.The clothes we wear, the restaurants we’re seen in, they all…contribute to Groupe Fournier’s success. I think…” He starts to tear the napkin into tiny strips in his lap. “I think I wanted you and Daisy to be separate from that. I must have wanted you both for myself. And until I could think of a way to keep you out of all that, I didn’t want to get you involved with my family.”

Charlie’s heart catches in his throat, and he wants to say something—anything—to reassure Nick, to wipe that somber look off his face. But before he can think of something, Nick bunches up the strips in his lap into a ball and tosses them onto the coffee table, saying, “Anyway, I’m the amnesiac of the two of us, so I’m the one asking the questions around here. And if I had to bet, I’d say your family doesn’t know about me, either.”

“No. They don’t.”

“You said you’re not in touch with them,” Nick says. “Did they—did they not accept you when you came out or something?”

“No,” says Charlie. He sits up straight and crosses his legs. “No, nothing like that. My parents, my sister Victoria, they’re—they were all right with me being gay. I mean, my mum never did much to keep my grandparents from being homophobic when they visited for Christmas, but that’s the worst I can say about them. And they supported me when…” He hesitates. So far, Nick only knows him as the fiancé who saved his life. Someone capable and trustworthy and dependable and—though Charlie can scarcely believe it—attractive. Going down this road will let Nick know exactly how true those things aren’t. How Charlie has an ugliness to him, inside and out.

He doesn’t want Nick to see that part of him yet. But he’s trying so hard to tell Nick the truth, mostly the truth. He doesn’t want to edit himself about this. “So,” he says, “I was outed at school when I was thirteen, and I was bullied pretty badly for it. Badly enough that I started trying to find unhealthy outlets, or—or maybe I was always going to have this, to have these mental illnesses. It’s hard to say. But I have, erm, anxiety and OCD, and I’m in recovery for—for anorexia.” Charlie keeps his focus down, picking at the skin of his fingernails so he doesn’t have to see Nick’s reaction. “I spent some time in inpatient care back in school, when things got really bad. But my family stood by me through everything. And things got better. I saw my therapist regularly, I was doing the worksheets and following the meal plans, and my parents agreed that I was well enough to go to uni. I moved to London, I started going to UCL to study English literature. I wanted—I want to be a writer. To tell about my experiences one day, when I’m brave enough, when I have all the right words. But…”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Nick let himself down from the couch and onto the floor. He’s only an arm’s length away.

“I met someone my first year,” he says dully. “His name was Ben. He was my first boyfriend, and I—I fell really hard. I wanted to be wanted so badly, and finally here was someone who seemed to want me. I—I lost focus at school. I stopped going to classes just to hang out with him and his friends. My family, my friends, they started to notice, they raised concerns, but I… I shut them out. Told them they didn’t understand how good it felt, that I’d been waiting to feel this way about someone, that I was finally happy and if they didn’t support me, they could fuck off. They were… They tried to help me longer than I deserved. But it got to a point where I wouldn’t let them try anymore.”

The next breath he takes is more shuddery than he would like. It’s been years, and it’s a bed of his own making. It shouldn’t affect him like this anymore. “I dropped out of uni by nineteen and moved in with Ben. Things were fine for a few months…until they weren’t. And then I had nowhere to go, no one to help me. It was…pretty bleak for a while there. I didn’t know if I was going to survive it.” 

He dares to look up at Nick, trying for a smile. The absolutely shattered look on Nick’s face is enough to stop him mid-attempt. “It’s okay,” he reassures him. “It’s in the past. Years ago now. I got a job that pays the bills, I signed back up for online classes to make progress on my degree. I even reconnected with my old friends. I’m fine, Nick.”

Nick just stares at him, mouth agape. “Did…did I know this? Before?” Charlie doesn’t know how to answer, which Nick interprets for himself. “Oh, God, did I just make you relive this entire trauma for me a second time—”

“Nick, no. That was…the first time I told you any of that.” He starts picking at the skin around his thumbnail. “Probably should have said something before. Wouldn’t want you to marry a headcase without any prior warning.”

“Don’t say that about yourself,” Nick says with a fierceness that shocks Charlie. “You’re not a headcase. You’re brave to have survived this long, to have made it this far. And God, Charlie, without any fucking help? I don’t—” He reaches out to touch him, to take him by the shoulder, but then he stops. “And you haven’t spoken to your family since?”

“I burned that bridge pretty thoroughly.”

“I don’t believe that,” he swears. “I can’t believe that. My own mother, she—I’ve barely been a son to her at all since I moved to France, and she came running to my side the second you called her. You don’t think your family would do the same?”

Charlie shrugs. “I’ve never had to find out.”

“Do you miss them?”

“Every day. Especially Tori.”

“Then why don’t you—”

“Because they were right.” Charlie might be drunker than he thought. “Because they warned me not to get involved with Ben and they were right. Because I’m ashamed. Because I fucked up my life. Because I’m—I’m a uni dropout who cleans fucking Tube stations for a living—” He stops himself with a gasp and scans Nick’s face immediately, wondering if he’s given it all away by admitting his job. Would it be enough to jog his memory?

This time, Nick does touch him. He reaches for Charlie’s hands and clasps them in his own. “There’s no shame in that,” he says softly. “No shame in honest work while you’re trying to pursue your education. I’m sure they’d be happy to know you’re alive. That you’re doing your best. I’m sure they still love you, Charlie.”

Until he says it, Charlie doesn’t realise that he was secretly worried they didn’t anymore. A little sob, like a hiccup, escapes him, and he withdraws his hands out of Nick’s gasp to clutch them to his throat. “Sorry,” he squeaks.

“No,” says Nick. “No s-word.” But he backs up and gives Charlie a little space. “Do you like being a station cleaner?”

“Who in their right mind would like being a station cleaner, Nick?”

“Just asking.” He starts to collect the empty pizza box and paper plates and napkins that litter the coffee table. “You know, if you wanted… I mean, I have more than enough money for both of us—”

“Absolutely not.” Charlie is already taking far too much advantage of Nick just by being here. He won’t do what David accused him of and actually use Nick for his money.

Nick smirks. “Knew you’d say that. So bloody independent.”

“But you don’t mind?” Charlie checks. “I mean, someone like you, engaged to someone like me…”

“Don’t worry about that,” says Nick. He finishes tossing all the rubbish together in a pile, and Charlie gets up and takes it over to the kitchen for him. “It doesn’t matter to me what you do as long as you’re happy. I won’t deny, I’d get a certain satisfaction out of being your sugar daddy, though.”

“Is that right?” Charlie calls out from the kitchen, folding the pizza box in half with some difficulty before he can stuff it in the rubbish bin that looks like a robot.

“Having you live with here with me, or in Paris, buying you designer clothes and first edition books and whatever your heart desires, knowing you never had to work another day in your life unless you wanted to, paying your uni tuition so you could study whatever you wanted without having to worry about it and then spend your days writing…” Nick doesn’t dangle the possibilities in front of him; he just lists them with a dreamy wistfulness, like Charlie is withholding a dream from Nick instead of the other way around. “Yeah, I want that. But I already know enough about you, Charlie Spring, to know you’d kill me if I tried. You want to do things your way. So no, I don’t mind. I just hope you’ll let me know how I can help you have what you want.”

Charlie returns to the living room and helps Nick off the floor. There’s a moment where neither of them know where to go, if Charlie should place Nick back on the couch or lead him to bed. They sway together, and Charlie looks up at Nick through his lashes and says, “I already have that.”

Nick grins. “Now who’s the sap?”

“All right, bedtime for you.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” says Nick, and his hands, which had previously steadied themselves on Charlie’s shoulders, start to curve around and tug Charlie closer.

“Not—not like that!” Charlie splutters, wiggling out of his embrace. “Time to sleep, Nick, for Christ’s sake!”

“Can’t we do both?”

“You’re—I’m not having this conversation with you.” He grabs the wheelchair and forces it between them, not trusting himself to hold out against Nick, especially when he’s on the razor’s edge of drunk. Nick acquiesces, but there’s a buzzy energy to him that Charlie doesn’t trust. He helps Nick into the bedroom and pulls some pyjamas out of the drawers. “Give me a shout if you need anything,” he says, making sure to be out of sight as Nick stands up from the wheelchair and leans against the bed for support. Nick should be able to change just fine sitting on the bed. Charlie doesn’t need to witness it.

He starts locking up, turning off the lights, filling a cup with water and grabbing Nick’s nighttime pills. Daisy follows him around faithfully and deposits herself on her dog bed by the window as he leaves the living room, though he has a feeling she’ll weasel her way into bed with them before long.

God. Bed. Tonight he’s going to sleep in the same bed as Nick Fournier. He didn’t think this far ahead. He didn’t even remember to bring pyjamas the last time he was here.

Nick’s changed by the time he gets back, and Charlie hands over his pills and water without a word. Nick takes them, sticking out his tongue to prove he’s swallowed them, and Charlie asks, “Do you need a hand in the loo? Help. I mean, do you need help in the loo?”

“I think I’ve got it.” Nick takes a few wobbly steps off the bed and toward the en-suite, and when he picks up his toothbrush, he winks at Charlie.

Charlie pretends not to have seen the wink, demands that his brain not interpret it, and roots around in Nick’s pyjama drawers. Fiancés borrow each others clothes, he tells himself, and he finds a pair with a drawstring that he can at least pull tight around his waist and a baggy t-shirt. The opposite of sexy, an outfit that screams we are going to sleep and not touch each other’s body parts. Charlie dives under the covers and pulls them up to his chin, cursing Nick for being able to afford to softest fucking mattress and blankets known to man. He listens as Nick finishes brushing his teeth and and then cringes and turns away when Nick moves away from the sink toward the toilet.

“It’s so nice not to have the fucking catheter anymore,” Nick calls out. “It was weirdly emasculating—wait, do we do this?”

“Do what?”

“Do we pee in front of each other?”

Charlie pauses. “I guess we do now.” He knows he should go in and check on Nick, offer to help him walk back to bed and get under the blankets, but he reasons with himself that Nick will appreciate a few more seconds of feeling like he can do things on his own. 

Nick leaves the en-suite and switches the light off, leaving the warm glow of the bedside lamps as the only source of light in the room. He lifts up the blankets and slides into bed next to Charlie, close enough that he can feel Nick’s body heat, but not touching. “So,” he says, his voice a tad lower than it was before. “Fancy meeting you here.”

In spite of himself, Charlie laughs, grabbing one of his books from the bedside table and chucking it at Nick. “Don’t you dare! Dr. Farouk said not to exert yourself!”

Nick dodges the book and pretends to pout. “I wouldn’t necessarily have to exert myself,” he points out. “I could be very, very still. Very relaxed. Could just lie here, really.”

“And what?” Charlie asks in (mostly) mock outrage. “Make me do all the work?”

Nick props his head up on his elbow, intrigued. “Are you saying I usually do all the work?”

“No, I—we—” Charlie feels himself going crimson. “Nick, please—”

“I bet I do,” he jokes. “I bet I’m on my knees for you all the time. You’re proper bossy when you want to be. Bet it makes me melt and do whatever you say. It already has so far.”

He feels his entire body warm up at the thought of Nick not only on his knees, but enjoying being at Charlie’s beck and call. “Patients with traumatic brain injuries don’t get to make these kinds of requests. I’m supposed to be taking care of you, Nick!”

“You would be taking very good care of me,” Nick wheedles, but then he flops his head—to Charlie’s dismay, since it might jostle his brain—down on his pillow in defeat. “Sorry. Don’t mean to push. I’ll stop.”

Charlie just harrumphs and leans over to the bedside table to turn off his lamp. “It’s not that I don’t—Nick, you know I think you’re very—very—”

“I don’t, actually,” says Nick, turning off his own lamp, “but I’d love to hear it some time.”

“I’m just—I’m trying to take care of you. I don’t want to do anything to—to make you unwell. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Just…just be patient, okay?” Charlie hates himself for adding that last bit. Giving Nick hope that they can have a sexual relationship in the future isn’t helping. Charlie means what he promised his friends; he will tell Nick everything before this reaches the point of no return. He has no idea when that will be or what will tip him off, but he can’t have sex with Nick. That’s crossing a line.

They lie next to each other in silence as the seconds tick by. Charlie worries that he’s offended Nick with his refusal. But in fairness, even if they were truly engaged, the sort of movement required—Charlie begs himself not to linger too long on thoughts of bouncing, manhandling, and humping, not when he’s this close to Nick Fournier in bed—would be taboo for a post-op neurosurgery patient. They would have had to wait until Nick mended a little more, regardless.

“Can we—is it okay to cuddle, though?” Nick’s voice is small and discouraged in the dark. “Nothing more than that, I promise, just… It was frightening, back in the hospital. Especially at night. Sometimes, I—I worried if I fell asleep, I wouldn’t wake up again.”

How on earth can I fucking say yes to this?

How on earth can I say no?

“Budge over,” says Charlie, and Nick rolls to his side. As predicted, the door creaks open and Daisy comes bounding into bed with them, her warmth radiating near their feet as she settles down with a snuffle. Charlie is careful to keep his pelvis angled away from Nick’s arse, though he wraps his arms around Nick’s chest and even allows himself to press his nose into the back of Nick’s neck and leave a kiss there. 

Nick smells like hospital soap, something industrial grade and antibacterial. Charlie determines that they’ll try a shower tomorrow, or maybe a bath is safer, though he doesn’t know how he’ll manage it. “You’re safe, Nick,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you, and Daisy’s got you. You’re going to wake up tomorrow."

Chapter Text

Charlie Spring had long given up on sleeping and waking in any kind of comfort during the winter months. True enough, he’s always cold—recovering ED patients and their poor circulation—but the kinds of places he’s been able to afford since living with Ben haven’t exactly had their heating sorted. In his Ealing flat, he stuffs towels around the window, which always lets in a draft, and stacks his bed with thrifted quilts from a charity shop. It’s never enough.

He can’t remember waking up ever feeling this good, and he doesn’t want to question it or prod his awareness too much. The mattress beneath him is plusher than plush, the pillows whisper-soft, and the blankets do a better job retaining warmth than his stack of quilts ever do. He hears little puppy snores from the bottom of the bed and smiles without opening his eyes, remembering where he is and how he got there. He stretches a bit and then leans back into the heat pressed against his spine.

Then freezes.

Nick is pressed against his spine. Nick is…more than pressed against his spine. Nick’s arms are wrapped around Charlie with suffocating closeness, one of his hands spanning Charlie’s stomach across his bare skin where the baggy shirt has ridden up in Charlie’s sleep. The heat of his palm sends sparks of arousal straight to his groin, which, to his terror, has already gotten a head start on the day. Their legs are tangled up together, and oh God, oh God—Nick’s cock is flush against Charlie’s arse. Hard. 

Oh God oh sweet baby Jesus oh Christ on a bike—

It feels so fucking good. Charlie couldn’t have dreamed it better. Nick’s body is so warm, so big, so possessive, even in sleep. Charlie’s eyes fly open; there’s a sliver of pre-dawn light behind the shades, a few shadows of snowflakes tumbling past. His alarm will go off any minute, but damn it if this isn’t how he envisioned waking up a hundred times before, warm in Nick’s arms, exactly like this. The reality is so much better than anything he could have dreamed up.

Which is why it has to stop. Now, before Nick wakes up. Charlie inches himself away, trying to peel Nick’s fingers off his torso, but he feels Nick’s eyelashes flutter against his shoulder and stops in his tracks. “Sorry,” he peeps out. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Nick stiffens a little when he feels the position they’re in, and then, though it seems hardly possible, he melts into it even more than when he was asleep. “G’morning,” he mumbles into Charlie’s shoulder. “How’d you sleep?”

“Erm, fine.” Better than fine. Better than any night’s sleep in my life, actually, you posh wanker with the good sheets. “I should probably get up, though. I’ve got work today.”

He feels Nick shake his head against his back. “Call in sick, Char.”

His grip tightens on Charlie, pulling him against his chest, and Charlie swears he can feel everything, even through two sleep shirts. “I can’t call in sick,” he protests weakly. “I already took two days off, I’ll lose my job if I don’t come in today—oh, God…” He rapidly forgets where he was going with this, because he feels Nick’s lips brush his earlobe and then, sweet Christ on the cross, Nick starts to rub his cock against Charlie’s arse. “Nick, please, Dr. Farouk said—oh, fuck—”

The hand splayed against Charlie’s stomach starts to lower, hovering over the tented front of Charlie’s borrowed pyjama bottoms. “I could take care of this for you,” Nick says, his voice rough with sleep. 

Is the universe dead set on torturing him to death to make him pay for his lie? “Nick, we can’t—”

“I know you have to be careful with me,” he says, “but there’s no rule about what I can do with you.” He nips Charlie’s earlobe, and Charlie fails to suppress a full body shiver that ends in the most pathetic whine. “Come on, Char, baby,” he whispers. “Please let me touch you. Let me make you feel good.”

He feels woozy with how badly he wants this, absolutely beyond the realm of rational thought. He tips his head back with a moan just as he pushes his hips forward into Nick’s waiting hand, and the growl of victory that comes out of Nick is enough to kill off any remaining ethical brain cells floating around in Charlie’s skull. Nick takes him with fucking zeal, wrapping his hand around Charlie’s clothed cock and kissing the column of Charlie’s throat. “I wanted this so badly,” Nick tells him, then sets about nibbling a bruise into the skin beneath his ear. “God, the hospital was torture. People always in and out of my room, day and night. Never had enough privacy to wank.”

“Y-You should have been re-resting!” Charlie stutters out. Nick’s not playing fair. Even as he starts a steady rhythm on Charlie’s cock, he pushes his own against his arse over and over, rutting into him until Charlie feels sure he could die of pleasure.

“I couldn’t,” Nick says simply, his breath hot against his skin. “Kept thinking about you. God, it was driving me fucking mad, you sitting there next to me in your jumpers, being so sweet to me. I need to fucking touch you, Char, I needed this.”

“F-Fuck—“

“Are we good together?” Nick groans into his ear as he picks up speed. “Fuck, I bet we are, baby.  Bet you drive me absolutely fucking wild—I can’t fucking wait—”

Charlie chokes off a little scream, feeling himself hurtling toward the edge far too soon, and doesn’t believe his luck—or lack of it—when what can only be a doorbell rings through the flat. Both men freeze in bed, bewildered by the sound, and then there it is again, unmistakable.

“Who the fuck could that be at this hour?” Nick grumbles into the pillow, and Charlie takes his chance to escape, pulling out of Nick’s embrace and reaching for his phone on the bedside table. 

Sure enough, there are a few texts confirming it. And Charlie’s alarm clock goes off just as the hour turns. He shuts it off and announces, “That’d be Sarah.”

“My mum?!” Nick sits up in bed, wincing at the stab of pain from the sudden movement and pressing a hand to his temple over the stitches. “You invited my mum here?”

“Of course. I texted her last night.” 

“When?”

“Somewhere between the first and second glass of wine.” He wills his raging erection to go down and obey the time-honoured tradition of cock blocking, but it’s patently uninterested in cooperating. Desperate, he dives into one of Nick’s drawers and pulls out an oversized jumper with a hemline that reaches below his hips, calls it good enough, and texts Sarah that he’ll be right out.

Nick just lies there, looking miserable with a pillow pulled over his morning wood. “The sun is barely even up yet,” he complains, and there’s nothing fake about his pout. Charlie resists the urge to kiss it off his face, text Sarah to come back in fifteen minutes, and jump back into bed with him.

“Look, I have to be at work in a half hour,” he says, “and there’s no way I’m leaving you home alone! Sarah will take care of you, she’ll walk Daisy, and she’ll keep me updated on how you’re doing while I’m out.” He puts his hands on his hips. “What kind of a fiancé would I be if I made you celebrate the holiday alone?”

Nick frowns. “The holiday?”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” he tells him. “Which, by the way, we haven’t decorated for at all, so I might’ve encouraged her to bring a few supplies from home. It’ll be fun, Nick! You two can bake together and make this place a bit festive. It’ll keep you occupied.”

“I totally forgot.” Nick seems more upset by this than anything. “Shit, do you think Terrence has your present downstairs? Do you know if I got you something already?”

He rolls his eyes. “Pretty sure you being alive is all I wanted for Christmas this year. Consider me checked off your list.” The last thing he needs is Nick dropping a huge amount of cash on something Charlie neither needs nor deserves. “I’m going to let her in, but I’ll stall so you can…take care of that.” He gestures to the pillow.

Nick narrows his eyes. “Oh, I’m getting you back for this, mark my words.”

“Oi, you don’t hear me whingeing, do you?” His boner is flagging and the jumper is long enough to offer him a bit of protection, so Charlie walks out of the bedroom and over to the front door to let Sarah in. Or at least it should be Sarah—it’s hard to see her over the boxes and bags stacked by the door, but he thinks he spies the top of her brown hair. “Happy Christmas, Sarah!”

“Oh, Charlie, there’s a dear! Help me with these, will you?” Grateful for a bit more coverage, Charlie helps Sarah to bring in three plastic bins that smell vaguely of attic and half a dozen grocery bags, and Sarah wastes no time acquainting herself with Nick’s kitchen so she can put the groceries into the refrigerator. Only when an entire turkey, two dozens eggs, and a trifle have been safely ensconced in the cold does she turns to Charlie, cheeks bright with exertion, and pull him into a (what can finally be deemed safe) hug. “So lovely to see you, darling,” she enthuses. “Thank you so much for inviting me over. I called David and asked him to join us, like you said, but he sends his regrets. He might pop over tomorrow, though.”

Nick shuffles into the kitchen very carefully, a worn out smile on his face, and Sarah nearly bowls him over with a hug before she chastises him. “Where’s your wheelchair, Nicky? You shouldn’t be pushing yourself to walk around too much. Dr. Farouk said you should work your way up to it.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him!” Charlie says over his shoulder. Among Sarah’s many supplies are some fresh baked biscuits. He steals two of them and starts brewing tea, reminding himself that he’ll have to stop by his flat after work to pick up more clothes so he has things to wear around Nick’s.

“There are some things I’d like to push myself to do,” says Nick innocently, “but Charlie is being very strict with me.”

“Too right he is,” says Sarah. “Oh, Charlie, are you sure you have to work, darling? It hardly seems right that you work on Christmas Eve.”

“It’s a rough job, but someone’s got to do it. Reckon there’s eggnog sick all over the station floors by now in need of cleaning.” Once the kettle’s on, he scoots past Sarah and Nick to the bedroom and puts on yesterday’s clothes. He runs his hands through his curls a few times and gives up on making himself look presentable. At least he has his knit cap to cover his hopeless hair.

Back in the kitchen, he gives Sarah a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for doing this, Sarah. Wish I could be home with you both.”

She pats him on the shoulder. “You’ll be back soon enough. I’ll look after our boy.”

He comes up to Nick, who stands by the wheelchair Sarah has undoubtedly brought to the kitchen for him, steeping a teabag in a mug. He hands it over to Charlie. “Sorry. Don’t know how you like it, just know you’re in a hurry.”

Affection burns through him, nearly sending Charlie to his knees. He forces himself to stay upright, accepts the mug with a smile, and kisses Nick on the cheek, too. “Be good,” he says.

“I’m always good.”

“No, you’re really not.” Charlie burns his tongue on the tea on his way out, slurping it in the lift. He pauses at the front desk, gulps the rest of the tea down, and then hands the mug over to the doorman and asks that he put it with Nick’s packages, knowing he and Sarah will come down later to sort Christmas gifts. Then he bites into the cookies he pilfered as he races toward the station.

The tea was too weak for his taste and needed a splash of milk, but the fact that Nick made it for him before he made anything for himself, that he knew Charlie had to get to work, warms him from within.

__________________

Chalk it up to the Christmas spirit. Charlie’s never had a better day on the job.

Sure, the stations aren’t any easier to clean than usual. If anything, like he predicted, they’re worse. The vomit in the toilets is distinctly candy-cane-coloured, there’s an infuriating amount of tinsel on the floor that gets caught in the bristles of his broom, and people shove Charlie without meaning to in their hurry. But Charlie can’t find it in himself to care. The day flies by.

He doesn’t have to imagine what it would be like to spend Christmas Eve with his Tube crush. He’s about to find out.

He finishes up, locks the cart away in the custodial closet, and is about to make a beeline for home before he realises he has nothing to give Nick either, and much less of an excuse. Most of the shops are already closed for the holiday, so he doesn’t stand a chance at getting him a personalised, meaningful Christmas gift, the kind that a fiancé would have pre-planned. With increasing dread, Charlie races past rows of shops by the station, despairing with each shuttered storefront or ‘closed’ sign. But a smile of relief breaks across his face when he sees a stationery store with fifteen minutes left until closing time, and he bursts in and makes a few harried purchases. Sarah’s texted him throughout the day to let him know Nick’s doing all right, so he knows they won’t mind how long he’s taking.

His flatmates have all gone to visit family for Christmas, so the lights are off at home, the flat eerily still. Charlie stuffs as many clothes as he can fit into a bag, throws in his laptop and some more books for good measure, some toiletries, an extra phone charger, and snacks he doesn’t think his flatmates will miss. As excited as he is to get back to Marylebone, he makes himself shower and put on a nice dress shirt with his jeans, even runs some gel through his curls so he looks nice.

The shine in Sarah’s eyes when she opens the door for him upon his arrival is almost enough to convince him that he hasn’t done anything all that wrong. That this lie was worth it, if it meant a mother could reunite with her son for Christmas. She must have brought a change of clothes herself, because she’s in a patterned jumper that screams to be hugged, and pearls the size of gumballs swing from her ears. “Welcome home, darling,” she says, pulling him in for a hug while Daisy dances around his shoes.

Charlie returns the hug gratefully and whistles when she pulls back. “Nice earrings,” he says, holding one of the pearls up with a fingertip.

She blushes. “A gift from Nicky.”

“A shit gift from Nicky!” his voice calls out from the living room.

“Don’t say such things! They’re absolutely exquisite!”

“They’re impersonal! My new year’s resolution will be to get you something next year that you’ll actually like and use.”

She shuts the door behind Charlie and ushers him inside, and though Charlie passes no comment, he’s secretly proud of Nick. The pearls are enormous, no doubt expensive—the exact kind of present a rich, distant son would order for his mother and send to her. Sarah doesn’t even seem like the pearl-wearing type. Charlie imagines a jewelry box full of similar pieces from Nick and David over the years, gathering dust. But he knows how much it would mean to Sarah—and how much it would change things for Nick—for him to know her well enough this time next year to get her something more her style.

“Come in,” she says, gesturing to the kitchen. “Nick and I have been waiting for you.”

His eyes widen at the feast. “You two certainly got busy today. Were you hoping I’d bring friends or something?”

“Oh, we’ll box up the leftovers and you two will have plenty to reheat over the next few days,” she explains away, and Charlie tries not to salivate. Christmas is always tricky for him. The meals his mother cooked for the holiday, shared with relatives they were expected to perform some semblance of normalcy for, often went untouched. But he feels good about tonight. The turkey glistens with fat, potatoes sizzle in the pan, mulled wine simmers on the back burner with cinnamon sticks floating on the surface, and a tray of puddings sits next to the magnificent trifle Charlie spotted earlier this morning.

“You’ve outdone yourself,” he says appreciatively, and she makes a dismissive hand gesture.

“Those puddings are all Nick’s handiwork. He used to love baking with me when he was little. I’m pleased to see he remembers a thing or two."

The evidence of Nick’s baking experiments makes more sense now. “And how’s the patient?”

“Merry as an elf. Go on, I’ll fix us up some plates and bring them out. No room at this bloody island to enjoy a proper meal, and the one thing this flat doesn’t have is a dining room.”

Charlie drops his bag of clothes in the vestibule but keeps his shopping bag with Nick’s present in hand. Fairy lights festoon the living room, but on the ground. The ceilings are too high to fix them to without a ladder, so the lights wind their way around the perimeter. A dusty fake tree sits in a corner, and the fireplace—how did Charlie not notice the fireplace earlier?—is aglow. It’s one of those sleek, oddly cold affairs, but with Christmas carols playing over the loudspeakers and the fairy lights giving off their own glow, the fireplace seems less stylish and more friendly.

Nick relaxes in the same spot he occupied on the couch last night, a blanket tucked around his knees. He’s in a ruby red jumper patterned much like his mum’s, his hands clutching a mug of hot chocolate Charlie hopes isn’t the least bit spiked, not even for Christmas’s sake. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he breathes out, collapsing onto the couch next to him. “How was your day?”

“It was good,” says Nick. “We had a good time, watching our old favourite films, getting into kitchen mischief together. Mum even helped me shower.” He bares his neck for a smell test. “See?”

Charlie leans in and pretends to smell, knowing if he actually does, he’ll get a whiff of Nick’s cologne and start drooling. “Sarah got to do the honours, eh?”

“Don’t be jealous.” At the very least, Nick does look better, pinker, less exhausted. There’s fresh gauze on his forehead, taped neatly over the stitches but obscured by Nick’s fringe. “It was a good day,” he reiterates. “I haven’t spent a Christmas like it in ages. Papa usually has us attending parties hosted by his friends, people he’s trying to make a deal with. We’ve been with the Hennes for the past two years, partying through the night. I end up face-first in a toilet spewing gingerbread vodka, like, every time.”

“Well,” says Charlie, “the night is still young.”

Sarah brings plates around and arranges them on the coffee table, and Nick puts on last year’s Doctor Who Christmas special on mute in the background. She pours mulled wine for her and Charlie and tops off Nick’s hot chocolate, and they pull Christmas crackers and don their paper crowns as they tuck in. Charlie finds himself not thinking too hard about the food, just listening to the back and forth between Sarah and Nick, how they bring up childhood memories and gossip about life in Paris. 

Once the puddings are served, he pulls out an unwrapped box from his shopping bag and hands it to Sarah. “These are for you,” he says, and Sarah opens the box to find rose-printed stationery inside, cards and envelopes. “Sorry they’re a bit last minute. I’m going to make the same resolution as Nick and get you something you can actually use next year, but since we only just met, and I wasn’t really prepared—”

“Oh, hush!” She pulls him in close. “They’re lovely, Charlie. So very thoughtful of you to think of me.”

“I’m glad you think so. I got David the same ones.”

She lets out a guilty little guffaw of laughter at that, then places a gift bag in Charlie’s lap. His mouth opens in surprise, but she just makes a little noise of self-effacement and says, “Just a little something I worked on in the waiting room this week. It’s not my best work, but I hope you like it.”

Charlie reaches into the bag past the tissue paper and knows what it is by touch alone. He pulls out a navy blue scarf. His cheeks feel suddenly, unexpectedly wet. “You made this for me?”

“It’s not as elaborate as Nick’s,” she demurs, “but it’ll keep you warm.”

“You didn’t—” He swallows hard. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”

“Of course I did. You’re going to be my son-in-law.”

Nick must see that Charlie is on the verge of an actual breakdown, because he cuts in and jokes, “Well done, Mum. My gift’s going to look like utter shit by comparison. Can you teach me how to knit or something so I can make Charlie react like this next year? That can be my other resolution.”

That jolts Charlie out of it. “You got me a gift?”

Nick nudges the bag at Charlie’s hip with his foot. “Like you didn’t get me one, too.”

“And that’s my cue to leave,” says Sarah, taking some dishes with her as she rises and goes to the kitchen. 

Charlie assumes that she’s just giving them a moment of privacy, but when she returns, she has her coat on and her purse over her shoulder. “Wait, you don’t have to go! It’s snowing out, we could make up the bed—”

“Don’t be silly,” she says. “It’s not a far drive, thank goodness, and I’d much rather sleep in my own bed tonight after all those days of sleeping in the waiting room at St Mary’s.” Some of the excitement leaves her eyes, and she takes a small step back from the couch like she’s forgotten herself. “I’ll—I’ll call you tomorrow, if that’s all right, Nicky.”

He shakes his head. “That won’t do, Mum. You should come over. Maybe we can coordinate with David so we’re all here at the same time. There’s enough food leftover for tomorrow, and I hate to think of him spending the holiday stewing over a drink at the hotel bar or something.”

Her smile is the fucking meaning of Christmas. “That sounds perfect.” She squeezes past Charlie to give Nick a gentle but firm hug, kissing the ungauzed part of his forehead. “Happy Christmas, my love.”

“Happy Christmas, Mum,” he says back. “Here’s to many more.”

She nods and leans over to wrap Charlie in yet another hug, and she whispers fiercely in his ear, “Thank you, Charlie. You gave me my family back this year. Thank you.” After dropping a kiss on Daisy’s nose, Sarah leaves the flat with a wave, and then there is only the soft, insulated sound of snow heaping by the window and wood crackling in the fireplace.

Charlie cannot do this.

He cannot be the person who deserves this blue scarf. He can’t be the one Sarah’s grateful to. She wouldn’t be if she knew the truth about him.

He picks up the rest of the plates and glasses and brings them to the sink. Then he starts to wrap the uneaten food in cling film and Tupperware and stack them in Nick’s fridge for tomorrow, praying that Nick will doze off on the couch by the time he gets back. He stands at the sink, debating whether or not to just start the dishes, when he hears Nick call out, “Charlie? Could you come back here?”

He wipes his hands on a spare dish towel and comes running. “Everything all right?”

“I’m fine,” Nick says. “I just—I wanted to give you your present.”

Charlie sighs. “You didn’t have to get me anything. You were in a literal coma.”

“It’s nothing to get excited over, so don’t get your hopes up.” He pats the spot on the couch next to him, which Daisy mistakenly thinks is her signal to join them. They both laugh, but Charlie doesn’t mind the buffer. Daisy between them means Nick can’t touch him as easily, and that’s a good thing for his focus right now.

“Me first,” he says, handing over the shopping bag.

“You didn’t have to—”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your hopes up, either. Pearl earrings weren’t in this year’s budget.” Nick pulls out a few books of crossword puzzles, Sudoku, and word searches. “They’re supposed to be good for your brain,” Charlie says. “Cognitive puzzles, things like that. They might help you get your memories back.”

Which is exactly what Charlie should hope doesn’t happen, but he’s screwed either way.

“Thank you,” Nick says, and what’s crazy is that it seems like he means it.

“There’s something else.” Charlie watches with bated breath as Nick unwraps a scrapbook. His brow furrows as he opens the cover to the first blank page, and Charlie tells him, “For new memories. Ones that…I hope we’ll make together.” It seems too sentimental, too selfish, and so Charlie throws out, “You know, for the next time you’re in a coma. We’ll have a record to show you of what you missed.”

Nick shakes his head and bites his lip in a way that tells Charlie he’s going to be in trouble later, good trouble, and a swarm of butterflies swoops through his belly. “It’s perfect,” he says. “Absolutely perfect. Thank you.”

Charlie has the distinct fear that Nick is going to scoot Daisy out of the way and kiss him, and what’s worse is that Charlie really, really wants him to. Instead, Nick produces his own flat, wrapped gift and gives it to Charlie. “I genuinely didn’t have time to go out and buy you something, so I’m sorry that it’s a bit handmade. Mum helped me print it and put it all together.”

Charlie unwraps the present, and a picture frame dotted with stickers falls onto his lap. There’s something so charming about it, the lack of artistry, the earnest excitement in the application of the stickers. And in the frame is the picture Sarah took of them the day after Nick woke up. The one where Charlie looks down at Nick with his hand over Nick’s heart, and Nick looks up at Charlie. The one where they look genuinely in love, in the kind of love that would make sense culminating in an engagement after scant weeks of dating.

“That was just…a really important day for me. Like, I know it sounds mad, but it was one of my favourite days ever.”

Charlie feels the panic rise again, and the guilt. Everything he knows he ought to feel. “Your favourite day was you confined to a hospital bed, being told your breath is rank, and having a tube spurting ooze from your brain?”

Nick doesn’t take the bait. “The day before, when I woke up, I was…I was really scared. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. But when I woke up the next day, my whole family was still there, and they all cared about me, and the doctors seemed hopeful that I was going to be okay. And then you showed up with my favourite ice cream—this gorgeous man everyone kept telling me was my fiancé—and you told me the story of how we’d fallen in love. And even though I was still afraid and confused, even though I didn’t remember how I’d gotten there…I realised that the shitty life I’d been living in France had totally changed. I’d fallen in love with someone amazing. And I was going to be okay. Any good thing in the world could happen to me.”

Charlie looks at Nick first, trying to determine what it is about him that makes him capable of transforming fear into hope, to see if he can teach him the secret of it. Failing that, he looks down at the picture frame and looks for the lie in it. But Charlie isn’t faking it in the photo. He looks down at Nick, tender and devoted, because that’s exactly what he is, God help him. And Nick mirrors that look because he doesn’t know there’s a reason why he shouldn’t.

“I think,” says Nick slowly, almost haltingly, “we both needed that. I think we both had shitty lives that needed changing. And then we met each other. I thought this picture could remind you of that.” The silence that follows is laden with meaning that Charlie is afraid to interpret, so he doesn’t say anything, and Nick laughs it off. “Next year, you’ll get a better present,” he promises. “Plane tickets to Athens sound good?”

Charlie shakes his head. “Too extravagant.” A picture frame is just about all he can handle, and even then, this feels too precious for him to deserve. He sets the frame on the coffee table and says, “C’mere.”

Nick leans over Daisy’s softly snoring body, and Charlie carefully cradles his chin as he presses a safe, soft kiss on his cheek. “Thank you,” he says. “I love it.”

“I love mine, too,” Nick replies, holding up the scrapbook, and then his smile turns impish. “Would’ve liked to finish the Christmas present I was getting this morning, if I’m being honest.”

“Which Christmas present were you…?” Charlie’s face heats up. “Oh.”

“It’s fine,” Nick says a little too quickly, and Charlie can tell he regrets referencing it at all. He gestures to the gauze on his forehead and says, “You were right. Frustrating as it is, it’s best for me to take it easy right now. You’re literally following doctor’s orders.”

“I am.” The fleeting memory of Nick’s teeth grazing his earlobe, his voice rough with desire, is enough to keep his cheeks a consistent shade of cherry red. “And you’re not making it easy on me. Bloody irresistible, you are.” Nick rolls his eyes at that and gives Daisy a pat on the head. 

He wants to give Nick what he wants. God, how could he ever not want that? If Nick had actually been his fiancé, sent home to convalesce after a coma, Charlie would have insisted he take to his bed and just let Charlie worship his body for hours and hours. He wouldn’t have had to lift a finger. Charlie’s mouth and tongue would have done all the work. He would’ve taken pride in making Nick feel really fucking good after his ordeal.

He just can’t.

The fire continues to crackle away, the snow keeps falling, and the glow from the fairy lights on the floor somehow makes this spacious living room feel smaller. Charlie can’t remember the last time he had such a wonderful Christmas Eve. They can’t end on this note. 

“All right, Daisy-girl, off you go,” he says, and the dog wakes at the sound of her name and leaps off the couch, trotting after a toy Sarah brought her. Nick watches, confused, as Charlie scoots closer to him on the couch and wraps his arms around Nick’s waist, letting gravity sink them into the couch cushions. He kisses the top knob of Nick’s spine. “Happy Christmas, Nick,” he says. “Thank you.”

Nick’s voice is a little hard to hear from Charlie’s position, sandwiched between Nick and the couch. Charlie cranes his neck to hear it. “For the picture frame? It didn’t take much, Char, honestly—”

“No,” says Charlie. “For…for coming back to me.”

Nick stills in his arms, then incrementally turns around so that he faces the ceiling and then faces Charlie, arms tight to his chest, nose brushing against his. “Always,” he whispers, and there’s a moment where Charlie wonders why this is the line he’s drawing when he’s crossed so many others. They both hesitate, their eyes slowly closing like they’re waiting to see which one will get there first, and when Charlie feels Nick’s lips, it’s almost like the echo of a kiss.

More follow just like it. Could be classified as pecks, mere brushes of lips, but they linger so long that Charlie starts to feel dizzy. He feels himself start to get hard, thinks he can feel the outline of Nick’s cock against his upper thigh, but there’s no rush to this. It’s been so long since Charlie’s just done this, just snogged on the couch with nowhere to be.

Nick’s hands unfold from his chest and land on Charlie’s, one hand curving around the back of his neck, one hand steady over his heart. For his part, Charlie keeps his own hands on Nick’s waist and doesn’t move them except to rub tiny, comforting circles into the waistband of his joggers. He pulls away only to tell Nick, “No more than this, okay? Dr. Farouk—”

“This is fine,” Nick says back, barely more than a breath. “This is great. Really, really great.”

For twenty unhurried minutes, Charlie lets himself forget how wrong this is. He just indulges in living the fantasy of spending Christmas Eve with Nick Fournier, trading slow kisses by firelight as snow falls outside.

Chapter Text

“Here.”

David has not bothered to wrap the iPhone box he hands over to Nick without preamble, nor does he bother to watch for Nick’s reaction or wait for his gratitude. He tucks back into his plate of leftovers that Charlie helpfully reheated for him—no word of thanks, either—while Nick and Charlie exchange glances, hiding smirks.

“Thanks, David,” Nick says as he unboxes the phone. It looks eye-wateringly expensive, the camera on the back weighing down the entire mechanism with its three enormous lenses. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

“Oh, but I did,” he contradicts him, mouth full of turkey, “seeing as your fiancé misplaced your last phone and I need to be able to contact you.”

Charlie’s anger flares at the accusation, but seeing as it’s absolutely accurate, he doesn’t say anything. Just stares at his hands in his present-less lap. David got him nothing for Christmas and hasn’t mentioned it, which suits him fine, seeing as he has nothing to give in return.

“Were you ever able to find it, Char?” Nick asks him, distracted enough by the bells and whistles on his new one that it seems he’ll do just fine without the old one.

Charlie shakes his head. “Lost it in the melee, I guess.” He starts to collect plates from the coffee table and wrapping paper from the floor, not that there was much to unwrap tonight. Sarah’s sporting a sleek, silver bracelet on her wrist from her eldest that will be worn once and only once, and there’s a Scotch Charlie supposes is posh enough for David on the coffee table from Nick and mittens from Sarah. From his customary corner of the couch, Nick opens his arms up for an embrace, which momentarily throws David until it clicks that his brother is signaling a desire for physical contact. Charlie takes the stack of plates back to the kitchen to avoid laughing at David’s attempt at a hug.

Stacking them in the dishwasher—such luxury!—Charlie takes a break and hisses in pain at the cracks on the backs of his hands. He did a deep clean of the station loos today; Christmas Day is a surprisingly good day to catch up on cleaning, since most of the stations are deserted with everyone at home celebrating. The chemicals are particularly rough on the skin. Even when he wears gloves, there are always spills. He’s about to slink off to Nick’s bedroom to raid his en-suite for a bottle of lotion when David steps into the kitchen, blocking his way.

“Oh! Excuse me,” he says, but David doesn’t move. He just straightens his posture and crosses his arms. Charlie peeks over into the living room to see if they’re being watched, or if he needs to call for back-up. Sarah and Nick are enthralled by Daisy gnawing on a crumpled up gift bag. So he inhales deeply through his nose and then says, “Something I can do for you, David?”

“As a matter of fact, there is,” David replies, his voice quiet but menacing. But he doesn’t say anything more, and Charlie guesses that this is some kind of negotiation tactic Stéphane must have taught him. Something something, whomever speaks less has the upper hand, something something…

He looks over to the living room again. One shout and they’ll swoop in and save Charlie from whatever intimidation David has planned. But maybe it’s better to let him get this out of his system. “I’m listening.”

“First,” says David, “you can stop lying about your engagement to my brother. Second, you can take your shit—just your shit, mind you, nothing of Nick’s and nothing he’s given you—and leave the premises before I officially lose my temper and call the authorities. Third, you can give back anything you’ve stolen from Nick, including but not limited to his phone.”

“You just got him a new phone.”

“There are important things on his last phone,” David says, unfazed. “He used it for work. All kinds of account details from Groupe Fournier, confidential client information. Information a thief and a grifter like you shouldn’t have access to. And fourth—well, I wouldn’t mind an apology.”

It sucks that David is such a dickhead. None of the four things he’s requested are the least bit unreasonable. Charlie doesn’t have any idea how to talk him down or tell if he’s bluffing, so he just mirrors his crossed arms and stands up a little straighter. “Nick wants me to be here,” he says, which is true. “He asked me to move in with him and help him as he recovers. If he wants me to leave, he can tell me himself. But I don’t take orders from you.”

“You should consider yourself lucky that I’m giving you this opportunity to leave painlessly, of your own free will,” David warns him. “You can tell Nick whatever you want to cover your arse on the way out. But if you don’t take this chance, it will happen whether you like it or not.”

He dares to lift an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

David grunts. “I’ve hired someone to look into your…relationship. It won’t be long before they tell me exactly what you and I both already know. Listen, it’s not that I can’t respect the con. God, there was never an easier mark than my creampuff of a brother. But we Fourniers, we made our money honestly. You might want to give that a try sometime.”

The hairs on the back of his neck rise. What does he mean, someone to look into their relationship? A private investigator? What will they tell David when they don’t find anything on him, on them?

How much time does he have left to fix this?

“I don’t want your money,” he says through clenched teeth. “I’m not interested in anything to do with Groupe Fournier. And if you haven’t noticed, it’s not like I’m running around with Nick’s credit card, buying myself designer shoes. I went to clean toilets on Christmas fucking Day. Don’t you think if I wanted Nick for his money, I’d’ve been faffing about the penthouse all day with you lot?”

His forehead puckers in confusion. “Why else would you want him?”

Jesus Christ. “Because,” he says, “Nick is a wonderful person, and I would be lucky to be married to someone like him. And that’s all that whomever you hired to catch me out is going to tell you.”

It surprises David enough that he doesn’t push back as Charlie shoulders past him and heads to the bedroom. He opens every drawer in the bathroom until he finds a bottle of lotion and squeezes out a dollop to work into the cracked, red skin of his hands. Each circle he makes with his thumbs to spread the lotion, he tries to tame his climbing pulse.

It’s going to fall apart. 

Charlie doesn’t know why he fooled himself into thinking this could work, why he kept putting off the inevitable. What did he expect? What are the odds that Nick would keep all of his memories except the last three months of his life and never recover them? Maybe Charlie hoped Nick would be the one to put an end to his. One day he would wake up with his memories and stare at Charlie in his bed in horror, and he wouldn’t stop screaming until Charlie grabbed his clothes off the floor and ran, never to return.

And if he didn’t remember, if by some miracle Nick never recollected his time in London, how far was Charlie willing to take this, really? Would he actually move into the absurd Marylebone penthouse? Have a new ID tag with his number printed for Daisy’s collar? Go to cake tastings and venue tours with Nick, arm in arm?

What happens when Charlie no longer has the excuse of Nick’s condition to put off having sex with him? Would he really let Nick give himself to him like that without all the information he needs to make that choice?

Charlie thought he was a better person than this. Maybe not a great person. Maybe a fucked up and fucked over person, a person with bad judgment, a person who makes shitty choices like dropping out of uni and trusting fuckwads like Ben Hope and cutting off his family. But not the kind of person who would lie like this, who would trick innocent people. 

And for what? In some sick way, wouldn’t it make sense if he was doing this for the money? But no, Charlie is doing it because he’s lonely. Because he’s in love. Because he had a feeling Tube Crush could be his soulmate, and so far, the reality is way better than the fantasy.

There’s a soft knock at the door, and Charlie jumps at the sound. “Er—come in!”

The door opens, and there Nick is, wheelchair bound and panting a little from the exertion of getting himself from the living room to the bedroom. His smile is bright until he takes Charlie in, and Charlie’s gaze flits over to the mirror to see what Nick sees. He’s pale, breathing shakily, working circles into his skin even though the lotion has already dried. “You okay, Char?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He wipes his nose on his sleeve. “Just getting lotion for my hands. Winter’s murder on them.”

Nick frowns, not believing him. “David being a dickhead?”

He lets out a little laugh. “How did you know?”

“He’s my brother, isn’t he? I should know.” 

It takes him a few tries, but he wheels the chair into the en-suite, and Charlie backs up and sits on the edge of the sink. “I don’t know how you put up with him,” he says, which is a bit unfair, but his anxiety is high and he can’t quite manage tact right now.

Nick shrugs. “He’s never exactly made it easy. God, you should have seen us when we were kids, constantly competing to be our dad’s favourite son. Papa kind of encouraged it, looking back. I think he thought it would sharpen our killer instincts, make us more ruthless in business. But at the end of the day, no one else on earth knows what it was like to grow up the way I did but David. And he—he does love me, in his way. He’s incredibly protective of me, even when I fuck up and he gets to say ‘I told you so.’ He was the one person who supported me when I ended the engagement with Imogène.”

Charlie supposes he owes David for that one. “I didn’t know that.”

“Listen, I know he’s the worst, and I know you’re already working hard to be polite,” Nick says. “Just…it would mean a lot to me if you kept it up for a little longer. We’re going to be in each other’s lives for—well, forever, really. And he’ll come around to liking you, I promise.”

He snorts. “He hates me. Doesn’t trust me.”

“He doesn’t know you.”

“Neither do you,” he spits out. “Not—not really, Nick.”

Nick’s face goes blank. He just sits there in his wheelchair while Charlie drums his fingers on the underside of the sink, refusing to look at him. “Is…” He clears his throat. “Is there something you want to tell me, Char?”

No, there is nothing I want to tell you. But there’s a difference between wanting and needing.

“You shouldn’t marry me,” he says. “You shouldn’t—shouldn’t want to marry me, Nick. I’m messed up. I’m not a good person. I—I’m not—we don’t—” He winces when he feels a tear slip down his cheek, and one starts the cascade. It’s like he can’t wipe them away fast enough. “Everyone would understand if you just broke up with me,” he says, hating himself for being too much of a coward to admit it now, when Nick has point blank asked him. “No one—no one thinks we should be together, Nick. Everyone was s-surprised to—to hear we—and I don’t fit into your life, I don’t want to move to Paris, and—and—and you shouldn’t feel like you need to keep any promise to me, not when you’ve lost your memory—”

Nick lifts his hands to still Charlie’s, an imploring look on his face. “Charlie,” he asks slowly, “do you not want to marry me?”

His laugh is bitter, half-crazed. “I’ve wanted to marry you from the moment I saw you, Nick.”

“Good,” says Nick, sounding relieved. “So have I.”

Charlie shakes his head again. “You don’t have to say that—”

“Char, whatever my brother said to you, please don’t let it bother you, okay? And for the record,  it’s not true that no one thinks we should be together. Mum’s chuffed to bits that we’re engaged, and if we asked her to plan the wedding tonight, she’d have matching suits ready by dawn.”

Nick pulls Charlie’s battered and raw hands into his, and he takes over rubbing gentle circles, this time into the palms. “More importantly,” he continues, “I think we should be together. And the life I want to lead is the one you fit into, all right? So—so if you don’t want to move to Paris, we won’t move to Paris.”

His jaw drops. “You can’t change your life for me, it’s not fair—”

“I already have,” he says. “Same way you’ve changed yours for me. That’s what happens when you love someone, Char. You can’t help but change.”

Charlie looks down at him through his tear-flecked lashes, unbelieving. “Y-you—did you just—?” He means it generally, right? Charlie should drop it, but his traitorous heart is desperate for validation, so he swallows hard and asks, “Did you just…say that you love me?”

Nick lets out a little puff of air through his nose, his smile all as-if-you-couldn’t-guess. “I fell in love with you before, didn’t I? Pretty quickly, it seems. This time around seems like a record, but…it didn’t take me long to realise I’d been right to choose you, Char.”

He can’t mean it. No one in their right mind would ever choose Charlie Spring, least of all someone of Nick Fournier’s calibre. But Nick doesn’t cease the circles he draws on Charlie’s palms, even as the tears stop and his pulse slows to manageable speed, and he looks up at him with shy determination. “Now, believe it or not, I didn’t come into this bathroom to talk shit about my brother and convince you not to break our engagement,” he jokes, then pulls out his new phone and hands it to Charlie. “I came here to get a cute guy’s number.”

Charlie giggles through the ache his tears left behind and types his number into the phone. Hopping off the sink and kissing Nick gently on the crown of his head, he’s about to wheel Nick out of the en-suite when his own phone dings in his back pocket.

020 5782 9134: Hey, gorgeous. When do you have a day off?

“You know, you could just ask me to my face,” he faux-grumbles as he opens the door and wheels Nick into the bedroom.

“Where’s the fun in that?” he asks. “We skipped the whole flirting by text bit. Indulge me? It is Christmas.”

Charlie doesn’t dignify his request with a response, but while Nick wishes his mother and brother a good night, he types a quick reply.

Charlie: i have new year’s day free

__________________

Charlie: on lunch break—how’s the patient? x

Nick: Kicking major sudoku arse. Moving into crossword puzzle territory now.

Nick: Nine letter word for ‘shining bright,’ starts with E?

Charlie: effulgent

Nick: HOW??

Nick: How are you literally good at everything?

Charlie: i’m really not

Nick: You are

Nick: You’re a proper little nerd 🤓🤓

Charlie: RUDE

Charlie: just for that, i’m not going easy on you when i get home from work

Charlie: i’m unleashing my full mario kart skills on you 

Nick: Noooooooo have mercy 😩

Nick: I’m brain damaged

Nick: Besides I’m into nerds 😏 x 

Charlie: oh yeah?

Charlie: you like it when i talk nerdy to you? 😝😝

Nick: Yes darling, PLEASE tell me all about your thousand page books you’re always reading at home, it really revs my engine

Charlie: ew i’m not really a ‘darling’ type

Charlie: char’s just fine, thanks

Charlie: if you’re really, really good and wait to do your exercises until i get home, i’ll tell you the plot synopsis of brideshead revisited

Nick: Too hot to handle, you are 🥵

Nick: Can I come with you to walk Daisy tonight? I could use some fresh air, and I feel like a bad dog dad making you take her all the time

Charlie: okay, but we’ll do a short loop around the block

Charlie: i can’t carry you back if you collapse

Nick: Would so love to see you try, though.

__________________

@elle_universerocks: i’m almost afraid to ask but…

@elle_universerocks: how is it going with coma crush? 🥸

@isaac_paperback: COMA CRUSH 🤣🤣🤣 my days…

@charlie_spr1: nick is fine. he’s been awake for a week now and so far he’s been doing really well

@the.xu.tao: fucks sake i can’t believe u managed to last over a week

@charlie_spr1: no one is more surprised than me!! 😰😰😰

@charlie_spr1: if it means anything, i’m genuinely trying to help out, like i’m taking care of the dog, i’m making sure his mum and brother visit him during the day, i’m cooking his meals, keeping track of his meds

@elle_universerocks: cooking his meals? 🙏🏾 poor lad

@charlie_spr1: i’m just

@charlie_spr1: i know i suck but i’m not the most horrible person in the world

@the.xu.tao: well as long as ur just helping him around the house i guess it’s fine

@the.xu.tao: if ur not pretending to really be a couple

@charlie_spr1: 😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️

@the.xu.tao: sweet jesus

@charlie_spr1: HE KEEPS INITIATING, SWEAR TO GOD

@charlie_spr1: he’s always making these flirty comments and then giving me these fucking puppy dog eyes, and when i tell him no, it’s like it’s a personal offense

@charlie_spr1: yesterday he asked me if i don’t find him attractive anymore because of the accident

@charlie_spr1: i had to pull up articles about the risks of sex after brain surgery just to make him simmer down! it’s fucking TORTURE

@isaac_paperback: Let it be acknowledged that I predicted this.

@elle_universerocks: shit he seems proper gone on u

@elle_universerocks: Isaac, i stand corrected 

@charlie_spr1: guys

@charlie_spr1: he kind of

@charlie_spr1: maybe

@charlie_spr1: told me he loves me

@the.xu.tao: gonna be fucking sick

@elle_universerocks: HOMOPHOBIA

@the.xu.tao: charlie i’m sry 2 burst ur fucking bubble but he doesn’t love u, he can’t

@the.xu.tao: he doesn’t even know u

@isaac_paperback: He knows plenty. And what he’s learned, he already likes.

@isaac_paperback: Guys, it’s a little unorthodox, I’ll admit, but isn’t it possible that maybe things were meant to happen this way? That they could be a good couple together? Charlie’s taking good care of him, and Nick seems to really appreciate Charlie.

@elle_universerocks: in all sorts of ways 😝

@elle_universerocks: i dunno i’m still torn

@elle_universerocks: charlie, r u still planning on telling him?

@charlie_spr1: i will

@charlie_spr1: soon

__________________

He doesn’t hear Nick wake up, but he feels it—a sudden surge forward in bed, the sheets tugging in his wake as he lurches upright, breathing hard. The first time it happened, it scared Charlie so much that he fell off his side of the bed, and it took long minutes for his pulse to settle. Now he doesn’t even need to open his eyes; his arms fall open drowsily as Nick orients himself to his surroundings and then leans back into Charlie’s embrace, shoulders still tense.

“The accident?” he whispers into the dark.

Minutely, Nick shakes his head against Charlie’s sternum. “Dreamed I couldn’t get out of the coma. Couldn’t move. I was just—just screaming, trying to lift even just a finger, but I kept going further and further under until—until I couldn’t even hear Mum, or David, or you…”

Charlie shushes him, rubbing between his shoulderblades until the tension subsides into sleep again. When Nick wakes up from his nightmares and Charlie soothes him by kissing his hair, it doesn’t even register with Charlie that this is all fake.

__________________

Charlie: mostly short stories, i like the challenge to tell a complete story with limited word count

Charlie: but i do have the broad strokes of a plan for a novel

Nick: Can’t believe I’m engaged to a genius

Charlie: more like engaged to a man with too many notebooks full of nonsense

Nick: What’s the novel going to be about?

Charlie: it’s a little autobiographical, i just don’t know how personal i want it to be

Nick: If it’s based on your life, am I in it at all?

Charlie: lol no

Charlie: it’s based on my time in secondary, we didn’t know each other then

Nick: But we would have if my mother won custody

Nick: Did you know that?

Charlie: what, really?

Nick: You said you went to Truham, yeah?

Nick: My mum lives like five minutes away

Nick: We would have gone to school together

Charlie: oh god what a disaster that would have been

Nick: 😥😥 Why?

Nick: I think it would’ve been nice

Nick: I wish I’d met you when I was younger

Charlie: you don’t

Charlie: i was such a mess

Charlie: still am if i’m being honest

Nick: I like your mess 😍

Nick: Any chance I could read your short stories sometime?

Charlie: 🙃 i’ll bring some home

Charlie: but you’ll have to be gentle with me, i haven’t even shown my friends

Nick: When do I get to meet them?

Nick: Or re-meet them, I guess

Charlie: i’m not putting you in the same room as tao until you have your full strength back

__________________

Sarah: I left him sleeping on the couch. Brought some biscuits from home, but I put them in the pantry where Daisy can’t get them.

Charlie: you’re a lifesaver, sarah

Charlie: thank you

Sarah: Oh pish posh, happy to do it.

Sarah: It’s so nice to spend some time with him. I get to see the man he’s grown up to be.

Sarah: But there is something I wanted to talk to you about.

Charlie: oh?

Charlie: go ahead

Sarah: Has Nick seemed different to you since the accident?

Sarah: I don’t mean to pry, and this is probably going to sound terrible, but the Nick I’ve known since he turned about twenty years old, he’s been a very quiet young man. Never rude, but closed off, sort of withdrawn, very serious. But since he woke up, he’s been excited, open, and warm. He was like that as a child, but I assumed that part of him was gone.

Sarah: I know that people sometimes undergo personality changes after brain injuries, and I was wondering if you noticed anything like that.

Charlie: i’m not sure i’m the best person to ask, i haven’t known him that long by comparison

Sarah: Maybe we’ll just count our blessings, eh?

Sarah: I really did get my son back. For that I’m grateful.

__________________

They don’t say much when they reach the hospital, though Nick babbles nervously in the Uber they take to get there. He’s walking for long stretches now, up to a half hour before he needs to rest, and he asked that they forgo the wheelchair today. Charlie suspects that he regrets it now, but he doesn’t bring it up. 

So they take their time. Charlie signs him in while Nick takes a breather in a waiting room chair, and then they’re cleared to go to the neuro wing. Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. Nick walks down the hall and into the lift, his grip on Charlie’s hand tightening when he feels a wave of dizziness catch him, and Charlie moves his body in subtle ways to give Nick some stability—angling a shoulder toward him so he can lean on it, bending his elbow to give him somewhere to grab and steady himself.

Nick has a reprieve when he goes in for his scans and gets to lie down, but when he comes back, he’s just as gaunt and silent as before. Charlie assumed he was just tired. Now he realises Nick’s afraid.

They lace their hands together in Dr. Farouk’s office, leaving Charlie’s left hand free to take notes. But Dr. Farouk paints a positive picture. Nick’s scans are exactly on target for over a week post-op. Charlie suggests they celebrate, but all Nick asks for is to go home, put on some crap telly, and fall asleep together on the couch with Daisy at their feet and a pint of bubblegum ice cream if Nick gets peckish.

He doesn’t know what it means, that Nick’s idea of comfort and celebration is spending a night like this with him. Is the power of suggestion that effective? If Charlie hadn’t seen the brain scans to prove that Nick is healthy and recovering, he would assume Nick sustained more brain damage than he thought, because how could anyone trust him like this?

How could anyone want his company this much?

__________________

“I have a surprise for you.”

Charlie groans into his pillow. “Unless the surprise is an uninterrupted lie-in, I can’t say I’m all that interested.” Nick nudges him under the blankets with his foot, and Charlie rolls over and swats him on the chest. “Stop that! It’s New Year’s Day, Nick! More than that, it’s my day off!”

“It is,” Nick agrees, “so we haven’t a moment to lose. Car’s coming in an hour.”

“Car?” He opens one eye to peek at Nick. “Where are you taking me?”

“Do you fundamentally not understand what a surprise is?”

“Fine, fine. But I’m sleeping in the car.”

He makes himself useful first, putting the kettle on before he grabs his shoes and coat to take Daisy out for a wee. When he comes back, he serves up breakfast for Nick and changes into joggers and a t-shirt, which Nick immediately forces him to change out of. “Something nice,” Nick admonishes him, and with a grumble Charlie puts on one of his better pairs of jeans and a jumper, which meets with his approval. Nick doesn’t let Charlie get away with skipping breakfast, either—too observant for his own good, this Mr. Fournier—and by the time Nick’s changed and Charlie has his meds in a bag for later, the car has arrived.

He nearly chokes when he sees it through the glass of the lobby door. “Jesus, Nick, where on earth are you taking me? Buckingham fucking Palace?”

Nick just smirks and slings an arm over Charlie’s shoulders. “Come on, in you go.”

They slide into the backseat of a magnificent towncar, sleek and black with a partition dividing them from the driver up front. Charlie strokes the cool leather seat in awe. “If you’re taking me to some posh New Year’s party with your work colleagues,” he warns, “I’m going to make an utter fool of myself.”

“You won’t,” Nick reassures him, which just confirms that Charlie’s guess wasn’t too far off. His eyebrows fly up in panic at the prospect, but Nick settles an arm around his waist and says, “Go to sleep, Char. It’ll take us over an hour to get there, and you did deserve a lie-in.”

Charlie obliges, leaning into his embrace and resting his head in the crook of Nick’s neck. He’s oddly grateful for the partition, unsure of how comfortable he would be with witnesses to how they curl up around each other. “You just want me in a better mood for when we roll up to your party, Mr. Fournier.”

Nick makes a little dissatisfied sound in the back of his throat. “Did we…have we talked about surnames?”

“What, in general?”

“For when we get married, you numpty.”

“Oh.” You’d think after over a week of this, he’d be better at the pretense by now. “No, it never really came up. Why? Did you…were you hoping I would take yours?”

Charlie’s never thought of his name being anything other than Charlie Spring, even when he was with Ben. He’s not sure he likes the way Charlie Fournier sounds—not that this would ever be his name, since Charlie’s going to tell Nick the truth soon, very soon.

“God, no. I don’t want a single trace of Groupe Fournier on you. If anything, I thought I’d take yours,” he says.

Charlie wrinkles his nose. “Nick Spring? I dunno, it doesn’t really sound like you. We could just keep our names the way they are. Plenty of couples in our generation do.”

Nick hums, a vague acquiescence, and says no more about it. Even with the frequent starts and stops of London traffic, Charlie’s tired enough to begin to drift off, and he almost doesn’t hear when some minutes later, Nick says, “I think I want to change mine anyway.”

He’s too exhausted to raise the point that Nick is one of the three faces of Groupe Fournier, so a surname change sounds like the kind of thing Stéphane would find abhorrent. He just mumbles, “To what?”

“Nelson sounds nice.”

Charlie snorts into Nick’s collar. “You want to be Nelson Fournier?”

Nick scoffs fondly. “Idiot. Nelson as in my mum’s surname. I thought…Nick Nelson, maybe?”

Changing his surname to match his husband’s would certainly not meet with Stéphane’s approval. Changing his surname to his mother’s is tantamount to a declaration of war, Charlie reckons. But all he says, “It does sound nice,” and then they hit the motorway, and Charlie lets the smooth glide of the car lull him to sleep.

He doesn’t wake up until Nick jostles his shoulder lightly, and after a few blinks he recognises the streets he sees out of the car window, old stomping grounds from his childhood. They pass Truham Grammar, Norfolk Park Stores where he would buy snacks with Tao, Isaac, and Elle, rows and rows of brown houses. It’s so familiar that nothing registers as unusual with Charlie at first. This is just home.

Then he sits up and rubs his eyes. “Doesn’t Sarah live around here?” he asks. “Are we spending New Year’s with your mum?”

Nick hesitates, and then the car pulls onto an all-too-familiar street, and Charlie’s breathing begins to pick up the pace. “So, Mum does live here, actually. A few minutes away. And she remembered that there’s a Spring family not too far from her, so she gave them a call and—Char, please, hear me out—”

But Charlie’s already reaching in vain for the door on his side of the car, a fruitless endeavour since there’s only the door on Nick’s side, with a minibar taking up the space where a door should be on Charlie’s. “I can’t,” he says through clenched teeth. “Nick, I’m serious, I fucking can’t. Tell the driver to turn this car around.”

“I know this is a lot!” Nick lifts his hands in a placating gesture, almost a surrender. “I know you haven’t talked to them in a really long time, but I remember what you said that night I came home. You miss them, Charlie. You said you miss them every day, especially your sister. And the only reason you haven’t gotten back in touch with them is because you’re afraid they’ll be ashamed of you for what happened with Ben, but—”

“I said no.” The car slows to a stop in front of his house. The white door is still the same, with its panels of stained glass. There’s the bay window out front; Charlie wonders if his parents still have that ugly brown couch pushed into it. If his neon MUSIC sign still hangs over his bed. If he even has a bed.

When the car parks, neither one gets out. Charlie considers making a break for it—he knows which bus he can take to get to the train station to head back to London—but he doesn’t want to risk anyone spotting him through the window. He just stares ahead, arms crossed and fuming.

“Char,” Nick tries again, “I know I—I shouldn’t have sprung this on you without talking about it first. I’m sorry. But you brought my family back together for me and made them rally behind me when I needed them, even though you didn’t know them. What kind of fiancé would I be if I didn’t try to do the same?” Carefully, he places a hand on Charlie’s shoulder, who struggles not to shrug it off out of spite. “We’re going to be married, and I’ve never met your family. And they’re going to be my family, too. If you want to go, we can. But I think you need to do this. And I want to be there for you when you do.”

It’s the closest Charlie has come to admitting this has all been a lie. That the people who live in this house are never going to be Nick’s family. That Nick never should have dared to presume this would be okay without talking to him first.

Then again, Nick is doing this for Charlie’s own good, which has been Charlie’s line for almost two weeks now. Turnabout’s fair play.

“They’re not going to want to see me,” he whispers. “When we last spoke, I was—God, I was so cruel, I said so many things I didn’t mean—”

“They want to see you,” Nick swears. “Do you think I would have brought you here if I thought for one second you would be hurt in any way? I already spoke with them, Charlie. They’re so happy you’re okay, they literally cannot wait to see you. Your mum and dad, your sister Tori…”

Tori’s name weakens his resolve. Nick probably guessed it would. “You spoke to Tori?”

Nick unclips his seatbelt and offers his hand. “Why don’t we talk to her together?”

Charlie looks at his house and thinks of all the imagined scenarios he’s come up with for this exact moment over the years—taunts and jeers and disappointments, not being able to look him the eye, screaming at him for throwing away his education, a constant refrain of ‘I told you so.’ He hates admitting that some of those scenarios, on his worst nights, were ones of forgiveness, of his parents promising never to bring up Ben Hope again and praising Charlie for his courage, of Tori begging him never to lose contact again.

Then Charlie looks at Nick, and he can safely say he’s never been angrier at him. His golden retriever face is totally guileless, blithely unaware of how much he’s asking of Charlie. If this had been a real relationship, Charlie might have broken things off here and now. But it’s not. So Charlie doesn’t.

He ignores the hand but nods sharply, and Nick opens the car door. Each step feels like a walk to the gallows. Charlie shoves his hands into his coat pockets and keeps his eyes trained on his Converse, kicking ice as he goes. Nick uses the golden knocker in the center of the door, and in seconds, it’s flung open. Charlie braces for impact.

“Hi,” says Nick. “You must be—”

He wasn’t expecting physical impact, more the shouting variety, so he’s caught by surprise when someone barrels into him, wrapping arms around his waist with a fierceness that steals his breath. Charlie chokes a little in shock until he recognises the dark hair his face is buried in, smells familiar shampoo, and then manages to get out, “Victoria?”

His sister doesn’t answer, doesn’t say a word, in fact. She just holds him like he might vanish at any moment, and though Charlie hears footsteps follow her, he doesn’t look away. Instead, he screws his eyes shut, nuzzles into Tori’s hair, and begins to cry.

The crying doesn’t stop for another twenty minutes. Not when Tori finally releases him and does an inventory of his features, like her primary concern all these years was if Charlie lost an eye or his nose, and keeps a hand on him as Nick encourages them to step inside the house and into the waiting arms of Charlie’s parents. Charlie forgot how comforting it is to be held by his father Julio, how grounding it is to feel his mother Jane’s fingers patting his curls. 

Thankfully, Nick does most of the talking. To whichever family member isn’t currently holding Charlie, weeping apologies into his shirt and assurances that they’re ecstatic to see him, Nick pays court. He introduces himself as Charlie’s fiancé with pride and expresses his joy at being able to meet Charlie’s family.

Tori doesn’t let go of Charlie for a moment. Jane escorts them into the living room while Nick chatters away and helps her carry in tea, and Tori all but shoves Charlie onto her lap and holds him tight in what must be a truly comical sight given that she’s so much shorter than him.

“I’m s-s-so s-s-sorry” are the first words he’s able to string together, and even then, only after a fortifying sip of the tea he holds in his shaking hands. “Y-You were right about—”

Jane shushes him, not unkindly. “It’s all right, dear. We don’t have to talk about him. Nick made sure to tell us before you arrived—”

“B-But you were right,” he wails. “Y-You said Ben was b-bad for me, and—and—and I—”

“You were barely nineteen,” Julio says. “As your parents, we should have fought harder to protect you. We can’t even begin to tell you how sorry we are, Charlie.”

He shakes his head. The last time he was in this house, he said things of such calculated cruelty that it was never any wonder that his parents never reached back out. Not that they could have even if they wanted to. The first thing Ben did once they made it back to London was to buy Charlie a new phone. Charlie’s long wondered if his parents ever made the attempt to reestablish contact or find him, but he’s been too afraid of the answer, and he’s never dared to set foot back in Kent to find out.

“He—He was bad, like you said,” he says between sips. “It took—it took everything I had to leave him. But I didn’t have anything to—I’d dropped out of uni, Mum, I’m so sorry—”

She shushes him again, the same way she used to when he was small and struggling to breathe through his tears. “It’s all right, Charlie. We’re just happy you’re okay.”

“But I’m trying,” he says. “I’m really trying. I—I’m back in school, taking online classes. And I have a job, and…” He looks over to Nick, unsure of how to phrase it.

Tori supplies an answer. “A fiancé.” 

Nick beams, and Charlie hides his face in his mug. The tears eventually slow, though they’re punctuated by bursts of reopening floodgates as Charlie realises how many years of love and support he’s denied himself based on the assumption that his family had no patience left for him. 

And it’s not exactly perfect. Jane brings out a prepared New Year’s spread, but it’s been so long since she had access to a list of Charlie’s safe foods—and this reunion is stressful enough that Charlie’s willingness to eat in front of others is at a new low—that Charlie doesn’t touch a morsel. Jane and Nick’s pursed lips when they notice are identical. But Charlie grips Nick’s wrist in a way that he hopes conveys that he’s tightly wound, that he can only manage so much today, and that he’ll eat when they get home.

Julio brings out old board games. Nick moves from Charlie’s side on the couch to the floor, seated on a pillow and setting up the game pieces. Tori interrogates Charlie within an inch of his life to make sure Ben is out of the picture, never relinquishing her hold on him, while Jane asks questions about his online courses and plans for his future. And then the conversation goes somewhere he never could have anticipated.

“So when were you two planning on getting married?” asks Jane, totally innocuous, but it’s enough that if Charlie had been drinking any kind of beverage, he would have spit it right out.

Nick just shuffles a deck of cards. “Oh, that’s Charlie’s department. I’ve been in hospital, so I’m exempt from wedding planning for the moment.”

His family’s eager eyes turn to him, and Charlie genuinely doesn’t know what to do. Today is the first day in years he’s spent any amount of time with his parents and sister, and by some miracle, they don’t hate him. They’re legitimately happy he’s here. To admit that there’s not going to be a wedding would destroy the little credibility he’s gained today. If he tells them what he’s done to Nick, it’ll be all the proof they need that he’s a failure, someone rotten to the core.

On the other hand, expanding this lie to include his family feels like it will officially be too big to control. How can he loop multiple family units into the ruse?

“I think we’ll take our time,” he says. “It’s—Nick and I, we got together pretty quickly, really quite swept up in it. A long engagement means we can—erm, test out our relationship. See if it works.”

Jane seems relieved, and Charlie can tell part of her was worried that Nick is just a replacement Ben. Having heard what she was hoping for, she slides into magnanimity. “Sweetheart,” she says to Julio, “don’t your parents have a villa in Spain? Maybe we could contact them and ask them to lend it out to Charlie and Nick for the honeymoon, once they pick a date.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Nick cuts in as he cuts the deck, “but Charlie and I are planning to honeymoon in Athens.”

Though Tori’s expression hardly changes, Charlie knows her well enough to interpret the twitch of her lips as impressed. “Charlie’s always wanted to go to Athens.”

“I know,” says Nick. “That’s why I’m taking him.” Then he looks over at his shoulder and winks. “The wedding’s just an excuse to honeymoon, really. Since I doubt Charlie would let me take him there on any old trip.”

Tori nods sagely. “He’s a stubborn man, my brother.”

“Don’t I know it.”

There’s that twitch again, and Charlie hates that Nick and Tori are forming a confederacy so soon. It confirms everything he knew would be true but just makes his work all the harder. Nick does fit in with his family, with his life. If Charlie had gone about this the proper way—asked Nick out, perhaps when Nick gave him his cap so he never would have been pushed onto the Tube tracks—they could have had this the entire time. Nick could have been his actual, better-than-daydreams boyfriend.

And he would never have to give him up.

In the late afternoon, after rounds of board games and Mario Kart, Charlie notices when Nick’s energy starts to flag, and he quietly suggests that he summon the car back to take them to London. His parents get his new number and promise to call and visit as soon as they can, and they beg Charlie and Nick to come back to see them. Proposals of a joint dinner with Sarah and Aunt Diane are bandied about, hugs are exchanged, leftovers are wrapped, and soon enough, the pair is back in the towncar.

Charlie watches the sun set over the familiar rooftops, not knowing how to categorise what he feels. Anger is still part of it; Nick should have asked before they ever got in the car. Shame and guilt seem only to get worse with each passing day. But there’s relief, too. Hints of grace, traces of hope, threatening to be crushed by dread.

More than that, there’s something else. He looks over at Nick, slumped over and dozing against the window, and he can’t believe that someone cared enough about him to do this for him. To hear Charlie’s sob story and not think of him as weak, pathetic, and unforgivable—to try, for his sake, to bring more love and support into his life. 

Nick doesn’t know everything about the messes Charlie’s made. But his most significant to date—current ruse excepted—didn’t scare him away. He doesn’t care that Charlie’s a loser, a uni dropout, a station cleaner. He sees Charlie as someone worth fighting for. He sees Charlie’s family as something worth joining.

Like he can sense that Charlie’s looking at him, Nick cracks open one eye. “What are you doing?”

“Thinking.”

“What about?”

It’s too soon. He hasn’t earned the right to say it. How can he say it if he can’t mean it? Love requires honesty, communication, and trust. He can’t give any of those things to Nick in their entirety, much as he wants to.

“I’m thinking,” he says slowly, “that I love you.”

Nick straightens up a bit at that, rubbing his eyes to return to full alertness. “You know you haven’t said that since I woke up, right?”

“I haven’t?” Nick shakes his head, and Charlie runs through his options. There’s blatant gaslighting—of course I love you, I’m your fiancé, I must have told you a dozen times, you just weren’t listening—or more of the same spiel he delivers to Nick daily—it’s not fair to put that kind of pressure on an amnesiac, I don’t want you to feel guilty or uncomfortable.

He’s so tired of lying, of hedging. He doesn’t know how much longer he can do this. “Nick, I—I fell in love with you pretty much at first sight, but…whatever I felt for you before, even the really good parts, it…it kind of pales in comparison to what you did for me today.” Nick just looks at him, puzzled, as he keeps going. “Like, I’m still upset that you surprised me like this, but the fact that you did this for me, for us… I don’t think I knew until today that you understand me. Like, in an annoying way, like enough to look past my stubbornness to see that—that I missed my family so much. That I need them. And that you helped me get out of my own way so I could have them back in my life. And so, when I—when I say I love you, even though it’s—it’s still probably too soon, Christ—” He coughs at that, trying to smooth over his mistake. “I mean, we’ve still only known each other since October. But when I say I love you, it’s because today was the first time I realised that you—you really see me. The whole mess of me. And it doesn’t seem to scare you away.”

The smile that spreads, unfurling like a victory banner across Nick’s face, is one Charlie’s never seen before. It might be the most genuine thing he’s ever witnessed in his life. “I’m really a mess, too. But you’re still here.”

Goddamnit. Yes, he is.