Chapter Text
What should he do? Charlie wonders in a panic, heart jumping in his chest and throbbing in his ears and neck. His whole body pounds with the blood and adrenaline pushing through him by the overworked organ.
What should he say ? His mind answers with a complete blank other than an internal scream. He lays there tense and frozen as Nick begins to make sense of their positions.
“Fuck,” Nick says, as realisation dawns, yanking away first his hands from Charlie’s body, and then pulling out his cock, cum spilling out with its removal. “Oh shit.”
Hot shame floods Charlie, closing his throat, and if the bed developed a gaping maw filled with teeth that chewed and swallowed him painfully he would pay the price gladly to disappear from this situation.
Instead, he curls in on himself, unable to face Nick, tears flooding his eyes. He has fucked this up. He has fucked up the best friendship he’s ever had.
“Oh my god, Char. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” The panic in Nick’s voice reflects the panic fuzzing Charlie’s mind, making it hard to think or respond. Nick’s hand lands on his shoulder briefly before he draws it away as if he’s burned himself.
“Oh my god, Char, what did I do? How can I help you? Do you want me to get…to wake up Tao?” Nick’s voice trembles, and Tao’s name is enough to shock Charlie back to his senses.
“No!” he replies sharply.
But Nick is freaking out, really freaking out, and Charlie has to properly find his voice, though blood is roaring in his ears and he can hardly breathe from the fear that he has lost Nick by not stopping this.
“It’s not—not your fault,” Charlie says, eyes squeezed tight, still unable to uncurl from the fetal position. He needs to get up and clean himself off, put on more clothes. He’s exposed like this, but the idea of standing, walking, functioning, seems well beyond him right now.
The rasp of the sheet slides against skin as Nick pulls it over him, and though it’s a warm night, Charlie welcomes this layer of protection and hiding.
“Should I call Elle?” Nick asks. “Or—or T-Tori?”
Nick sounds genuinely terrified at the thought, and it’s enough to cause Charlie to unclench. With the sheet up to his neck, he’s able to rotate so he’s facing Nick, who has moved to the opposite side of the bed, sitting on it like the whole mattress might explode at any moment, a pillow over his lap. His face is a rictus of horror.
Exactly what Charlie had tried and failed so miserably to avoid.
“Nick, this isn’t on you.”
“Char, you’re crying,” Nick says, looking like he wants so badly to reach out and comfort him, but holding himself instead ramrod straight, hands twisting together on the pillow top. “I made you cry. W-what happened?” Tears are beginning to fill Nick’s own haunted eyes.
Though no real part of him wants to move or sit up, he recognises that this will go over better if they’re on the same level, and so with a slow sigh he pushes himself into a sitting position, feeling more of Nick’s cum leak between his thighs. He keeps the sheet raised to his chin, his arms held tight to his newly flat chest, his top surgery only six weeks behind him. Small mercies, that he can face Nick, and feel at home in his body while doing it.
Charlie takes a deep breath to steady himself. “We were sleeping, and we ended up spooning and I guess grinding together in our sleep. Then I woke up, and…I was awake. And you were still sleeping.”
Charlie falters here, uncertain of how he can possibly relay the rest of the story, though Nick already knows the ending.
“What did I do to you, Char?” Nick asks quietly.
“You were sleeping,” Charlie repeats.
Nick just stares back at him, and Charlie can tell he’s bracing himself, the same way he does anytime he expects bad news.
“I, uh, realised what was happening so I tried to wake you up, but you didn’t hear me,” Charlie starts, and winces at his own inability to express this better. “I tried to move away but you kept pulling me closer. And your hand, I couldn’t um…and you were touching me, and you still didn’t hear me, and I, um, it felt really good but I didn’t want to take advantage but I couldn’t uh, um,” Charlie bites his lip. “So you uh, I guess you were dreaming and so you uh…” He trails off helplessly. Fucking Christ.
“I raped you.” Nick finishes flatly for him, when it’s clear Charlie cannot stumble through any more words. Nick’s eyes are flat and dead.
“N-no, Nick no. It felt so good.” Tears slip from Charlie’s eyes as he releases the sheet with one hand to wipe furiously at them. “I could have worked harder to get free. Been louder. Struggled more. But I didn’t want to hurt you or for you to be upset. L-like this, I knew you’d feel guilty, and I was afraid of waking Tao and w-what he might think if he saw...”
“Me raping you?” Nick supplies again, with the same dead eyed expression.
“S-stop saying that, Nick,” Charlie says, crying harder.
“Did you consent to it, Char?” Nick asks dully.
“Did you, Nick? You were sleeping. I could have tried harder to stop you. S-should have.”
“So I held you and wouldn’t let you get away and then fucked you even after you asked me to stop and you still think it’s your fault? Of course you would try to blame yourself for me doing this to you.”
“This is why I didn’t want you to find out,” Charlie says plaintively. He wants to reach out to Nick but his arms are once again both clutching the sheet to him, muscles aching with the force he’s pushing them against his chest, as if it’s the only thing keeping him together, from unravelling completely.
“You’d just let me assault you instead of waking me up because you didn’t want me to feel bad?” Nick’s voice, full of disbelief and continued horror, has risen in volume.
“Shhhh! I do not want Tao to hear this conversation.”
“Maybe he should hear it!"
“Tao? You think he’d help this situation?”
“Could anyone possibly make it worse?” Nick asks incredulously.
“Most definitely!” Charlie hisses.
"Well maybe you need to talk to someone after being raped by your best friend!”
"Please stop using the ‘r’ word! You weren’t even aware of what you were doing!”
Nick runs his hands over his face, dragging them down it.
“I don’t understand, Char,” Nick says, in a voice so broken and miserable, Charlie doesn’t ever think he’s heard it from Nick before, not when he’d watched as Nick’s dad or brother repeatedly disappointed him, not when he got the news that Nellie had died, not when he learned he had to sit out the last six weeks of his final season of rugby because he’d injured his leg.
Charlie aches to cross the chasm between them, to comfort him, but he doesn’t think Nick would accept any attempt at contact, even if he could convince his muscles to unfreeze.
Nick looks at him with the same soul-broken gaze, tears leaking down his face. “I don’t understand w-why you didn’t yell or fucking kick me in the nuts or—or elbow me in the fucking teeth or—fuck, it sounds like I’m victim blaming you and I’m not, I just don’t…how you could let someone do that just so they don’t feel embarrassed—"
“Not someone!” Charlie retorts angrily. “Not anyone. Just you,” he finishes, voice hushing again. “I would do anything for you. I didn’t want you…to feel like this.” Charlie finally breaks a hand free from his death grip on the sheet to wave it in Nick’s general direction. His best friend carries the air of someone who has just learned that they’re responsible for the loss of someone very close to them. Which, maybe, is not so far from the truth, considering how well this conversation is going.
“Fuck my feelings!” Nick chokes out vehemently, the picture of self-loathing. “You’re worth more than my fucking feelings!”
“I did it because I fucking love you!” Charlie practically screams, and if Tao hadn’t woken up before, he surely has with that declaration. Nick looks stunned, tears staining his face, his mouth gaping in astonishment. It’s all already fucked, so what does it matter if Charlie confesses the secret he’s held closest to his chest for so long? “You’re my favourite fucking person in the whole world and I would do it all over again if only it meant you didn’t have to know and feel like this.”
He lowers his voice, hoping to god Tao can’t hear him. Now that he’s started, he feels compelled to confess everything, if that can help absolve Nick of one iota of his intent to self-flagellate. “You were asleep and I knew you couldn’t hear me. I knew you would never do that if you were awake. I don’t blame you, Nick. I—I liked it. I knew it was wrong and I should try harder to stop you and I fucking liked it anyway. More than liked it, Nick. It was four fucking years of pining and wanting you and never being able to have you. It was everything I’ve ever dreamed about if you’d only been awake, and even while you were sleeping, it was the best fucking orgasm I’ve ever had.”
Nick is stunned speechless, continuing to just gape at Charlie.
“It felt so good. I tried not to cum so it wouldn’t be like I was using you while you were sleeping but the way you touched me and fucked me…I just couldn’t stop it. Especially not…once you said my name. Was it me you were dreaming about, Nick?” He holds his breath, certain for a moment that he’d heard wrong, or his name meant nothing on Nick’s lips in that crucial moment, just a misfiring of his sleeping brain.
Until Nick nods, wiping tears with his palm from his own eyes. “I’ve been dreaming about you for four years too, Charlie. You’re the reason Cheryl and I broke up, because after I met you, it just wasn’t the same. You’re the reason no relationship after her has ever stuck. I—I love you too. So much, Char.”
Charlie releases the sheet all at once, allowing it to settle around his waist, laying his palms flat on his thighs. He hangs his head with the overwhelm of emotions cresting in him, of hearing words he’d imagined hearing in a hundred different scenarios—though never this one. Tears fall to the sheet, as he tries to gather his wits.
There’s a knock on the door. “You two all right?” It’s Tao’s grumbly voice, rough with sleep.
“Fine, Tao,” Charlie calls. “Sorry we woke you.”
“Did I dream it or did you two finally just scream I love yous at each other?”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, Tao,” Charlie says, having, in fact, no intention of telling Tao about 99% of this night.
“Alright, well, I’m glad if you’ve both finally got your shit together, but it’s a lot of yelling for 3am so can you like, whisper it to each other like normal people at this time of night?”
Charlie laughs silently at the idea of any part of this night ever being normal.
“We promise to be more quiet,” Charlie reassures his cantankerous roommate.
“Good. And get some sleep, so you’re not falling asleep at Elle’s tomorrow.”
“That would be a true tragedy.” They’re supposed to have a movie night there.
“I’m going to pretend you meant that,” comes Tao’s muffled voice, before they hear him shuffling away from the door.
Charlie turns to Nick, who hasn’t spoken a word, freckled skin paler than usual in the moonlight. “You still look like I might electrocute you if you come any closer.”
“It still doesn’t feel right, what I did to you,” Nick says, rubbing a hand along his thigh.
Charlie sighs. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that our first time had to be so fucked up, when you were asleep and I couldn’t be present with all three parts of me.”
“Three?” Nick asks, confused.
“My heart and body were there, but my mind was stuck on ethics.”
“Char, you deserve to be wholly present, to feel safe and loved and listened to, not ignored and held against your will and left feeling…conflicted, or however that made you feel.”
“And you deserve to be awake, so I guess we both have things that we could improve on in our sex life together.”
“Our sex life? As in, you would actually want to have sex with me again?” Nick asks, dumbfounded.
Charlie tsks, annoyed. “Did you miss the ‘I love you’ and ‘I’ve been pining after you for four years part’? Or the part where you fucked me better in your sleep than I’ve ever been fucked by any guy when they were awake? Do you think you can improve upon that when you’re actually awake?” Charlie puts a challenge into his voice, knowing how competitive Nick is.
“Um,” Nick says, opening and then closing his mouth.
“Unless you don’t want that,” Charlie says softly, hating the uncertainty in his voice.
“No, god, no, I mean yes, yes of course I want that. I want to make you feel so good, and safe and loved, and I want to erase this whole fucked up experience from your mind and replace it with something intentional and mutual. I just, I really want to make sure you’re ok.”
“I’m ok, Nick,” Charlie reassures him.
“Is there anything you need?” Nick asks, hopefully, clearly wanting to do something for Charlie.
“I do have a favour to ask you. Can you get me a wet flannel? And find my sleep shorts? You took them off of me.”
“Oh my god,” Nick moans.
“I was asleep during that part if that helps,” Charlie offers.
“It does not,” Nick retorts, sighing. He makes to stand but then clutches at the pillow that’s covering his lap.
“Um, this is going to sound really stupid after everything that’s happened, but can you close your eyes?” Nick asks. “If—if you feel comfortable doing that around me.”
Charlie huffs out an exasperated sound and rolls his eyes before shutting them. “I still trust you, Nick. I don’t think you’ve suddenly turned into a monster.”
Nick mutters something unintelligible, the mattress creaking as he stands. A minute later he says: “You can open your eyes now.”
Charlie does, to see Nick standing in his boxers, Charlie’s sleep shorts in hand. He looks as much as ever like a tousle-haired god from a myth, all strength and muscle and reddish golden body hair with just the slightest edge of biteable softness on his lower abs. Charlie can already feel himself aching again, new wetness forming.
Nick tosses the shorts to Charlie who catches them. “I’ll be back with a flannel in a minute,” he says, before turning to go. Charlie holds onto the shorts, not wanting to put them on when he’s got sticky, drying cum all over his legs. Nick returns minutes later, with a warm, wet flannel and a glass of water that he sets on the table. Charlie just holds the flannel while Nick then nervously shifts from foot to foot, squeezing the back of his neck.
“I should…go?” Nick asks, turning the sentence into a question.
“Turn around,” Charlie orders, and Nick does so obediently, so that he can clean himself up without fear of exposing himself.
“Do you want to go?” Charlie asks, as he wipes himself down.
“I want to make sure you’re ok,” Nick hedges. “And it feels wrong to leave you and wrong to stay.”
Charlie finishes with the flannel and folds it before leaning over to set it on the rim of the nearby rubbish bin just so it doesn’t leave a wet spot on the floor. Unlike the giant one in the bed right now. Then he wriggles the sleep shorts back on, moving over so that he’s safely away from the cum zone, this time sitting cross-legged on top of the sheet.
“You can turn around now.”
Nick does, slowly, eyes scanning over Charlie much in the way Charlie’s had previously scanned over Nick. With something tender and hungry in his gaze.
“Setting aside right and wrong, what do you want to do, Nick?” Charlie asks.
“Whatever makes you feel ok,” Nick replies promptly, and Charlie knows he won’t answer the question any further than that.
“Well then. I’d like you to stay. Though we’ll have to cuddle up as there’s a huge wet spot on the bed.”
Nick blanches at the reminder, but nods.
Charlie pats the space on the bed next to him. Nick sits gingerly, still not touching him.
“Char,” Nick starts, his shoulders hunching a little. “I care for you so much. I’d do anything to make this right for you. Give you anything you needed or wanted that might help.”
“I don’t really want anything…except a date, perhaps? Though I would prefer you chose it freely and not as some kind of twisted repayment.”
“A date? You want to date me? After…?”
“Before, during and after,” Charlie reassures him. “Unless you don’t want that.”
“Of course I want to date you, Char. If you asked, I would m—never mind,” Nick says abruptly, cutting himself off. “Yes I want to date you. Want to be your boyfriend.”
“And not out of guilt?” Charlie double checks.
“I’ve wanted that long before this night, Char. I just always thought that ship had sailed for us.”
“That ship is still very much here,” Charlie replies. “Eternally, pathetically waiting.”
“Nothing is pathetic about you,” Nick rebuffs gently.
“Boyfriends then?” Char tries out, and it sends a thrill down his spine. He looks at Nick whose uncertainty is evidenced in his caved in posture.
“Boyfriends,” Nick echoes, though doubt bleeds into his voice.
“That’s hardly a ringing endorsement, Nicholas.”
“It just doesn’t seem fair that somehow I get to have a relationship with you …after I did… that.” Nick waves his hand first and Charlie and then the wet spot, then clutches at his elbows and looks away.
“I’d say that’s the silver lining of this whole, surreal night.”
Nick glances back at him. “You’re being so flippant about it, but I can’t believe it didn’t impact you at all, the fact that you couldn’t get away.”
Charlie chews on his thumb as he thinks about it. “To be honest, I’ve been so worried about your reaction, I haven’t really thought about it. And it’s not something I want to particularly dwell on right now. Sounds like a great subject for my therapist though. Not, however, my new boyfriend of approximately one minute, who’s been traumatised himself tonight.”
Nick looks at him, so many emotions flickering through his gorgeous, soulful amber eyes. “I love you,” he says, finally, voice rough with emotion. “I think I’ve loved you since the day we met.”
“Now that is the kind of conversation I want to be having with my boyfriend,” Charlie encourages. He knows though, that no matter how much Charlie reassures Nick, it’s going to take time for him to come to terms with the night.
Nick hesitantly slides his hand along the cover, his pinkie extended. Charlie slides his hand across to meet Nick’s, wrapping his own pinkie around the extended one. They twine together and the contact is a soothing balm on a wound that will need time to heal.
Then Charlie turns more fully towards Nick, and leans in, Nick following suit, and they crash together, grasping at each other’s backs, then Charlie burying his head in Nick’s shoulder and Nick’s in his neck. Nick lets out a shuddering sob as Charlie shushes him, feeling calmer than he has all night. They fall to the bed, Charlie still gathered in Nick’s trembling arms, consciously cuddling for the first time. They embrace each other, Nick on his back, Charlie nestled into his side, with his head rested on his boyfriend’s chest. He throws a leg over Nick’s to feel even closer.
They cling together, Nick’s shudders slowing as they sync their breaths, and revel in the relief that somehow, somehow they have not lost each other, but have instead seemed to gain each other more deeply.
“Can I have a kiss?” Charlie asks. “You never gave me one when you were sleeping.”
Nick looks deep into Charlie's eyes as if assessing that he really means it. Whatever he's looking for, he finds, for he shifts, eyes drifting closed as his lips meet Charlie’s for the first time. The warm, tender press of them is simple, and yet a revelation. The sparks that light his insides are a euphoria of discovery, and the certainty that he's found a home for the first time in another person.
They establish a rhythm right away, a push and pull, lips sliding and catching and nipping. Within this give and take is an awakening to the promise of something beautiful. It contains the affirmation of being wanted, chosen, longed for. It is an offering of selves, and a welcoming of each other, an exchange of their deep and abiding love too long denied, so that it bled from dreams into the waking world.
It toes the line of passion, but never tips over, too filled with this uncovering of each other, along with a warm and enduring affection and a more gentle reassurance that all is forgiven (and really, that there was nothing ever to forgive in the first place).
Nick breaks away first, so that he can press kisses to Charlie’s eyelids, forehead, cheeks and chin.
“I love you,” he says with each kiss. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
“I love you too, Nick. Thank you for that kiss.”
“You never have to thank me for that, Char. I’m the one who should be thanking you.”
“Well,” Charlie says, a yawn taking him by surprise so that he needs to briefly pause, “it felt life-changing, so gratitude seemed appropriate.”
Nick crushes him closer. “God, Char. How did I ever go so long without doing this?”
Charlie nestles in deeper. “I dunno. I guess your dream self got tired of your waking self ever making a move.”
“I’ll thank him to keep his hands to his fucking self next time,” Nick says, shifting slightly.
Charlie feels the magnetic pull of Nick’s body all over again, now that he’s sprawled across him. Especially after the best kiss of his life, even though they never even used tongue (and oh, does Charlie wonder what Nick can do with his tongue). But he’s also hit with a bone-deep weariness from the long hours and emotional exhaustion of the night.
“Could we…should we…wait until tomorrow?” Charlie asks hesitantly. “For the…awake sex.” His tired brain can’t figure out any other way to describe it.
“God Char, I never want to ever push you to do anything you don’t want to do ever again , ok? This is totally on your timeline. Never be afraid to tell me no or ask me anything.”
Charlie yawns again, and Nick pulls him close, kissing the top of his head.
“Tao will surely stay at Elle’s tomorrow so if we can get back here not too late, maybe bow out after the first movie, we’d have the place to ourselves,” Charlie muses.
“I don’t need to have sex with you again,” Nick says.
“You’re gonna offend me if you keep on like that,” Charlie gripes.
“Of course I want you. Obviously I do. I just care more about your wellbeing than I do about sex.”
“Probably 50/50 for me,” Charlie snarks sleepily.
“I just want you to feel safe. To be safe,” Nick stresses.
“You do make me feel safe, Nick,” Charlie says, the pull of sleep already dragging him under.
“Will you promise me one thing, Char?”
“What’s that?” he asks, trying not to slur.
“Will you promise me if I ever do that again, and we haven’t discussed it in advance and you haven’t consented or want that, that you do everything in your power to wake me up. Scream, kick, hit, I don’t care. I’d rather lose an eye or a testicle than ever do that again.”
“I’d miss your testicle. And your eye too. They’re so pretty. Your eyes, I mean. Your balls are a little hairy.” It’s a lie. Or at least it might be a lie. Charlie hasn’t seen Nick’s balls, which is a situation he needs to change ASAP.
“Char,” Nick complains. “I’m serious. I need to know you’re gonna be ok around me at night.”
“I am and I will be, but fine. If I’m not in the mood, I’ll kick you in the balls and yell loud enough to have Tao come running to see us inflagrante,” Charlie promises, cracking another large yawn. “Though Nick? Now that we’re boyfriends and I know it’s me you’re dreaming about? I don’t think I’d ever want to stop you. Would you want me to?”
“I don’t mind it if you’re truly ok with it,” Nick says. “But I’m really looking forward to making love to you when we’re both awake. I want to show you what I can do for you when I have my wits about me. How good it can feel for you when you’re not worried about anything but feeling good, and knowing that the person you’re with is going to listen to you, and make sure you’re cared for. How many times I want to make you come apart, until you're so blissed out you can't even remember your own name.”
Charlie rouses briefly, at Nick’s earnest words and the fiery promise of the next evening. “That sounds absolutely delicious. I've never had more than one orgasm at a time so you've got your work cut out for you. Your challenge is accepted,” he manages to reply intelligibly.
“It won't be work, baby. It will be my pleasure," Nick says huskily, stroking along Charlie’s shoulder.
"Tomorrow night, then," Charlie murmurs.
Tomorrow night,” Nick agrees.
Then they fall asleep as boyfriends, wrapped in each other’s arms.