Chapter Text
Saying that meeting Charlie had caused many changes in Nick's life would be a severe understatement.
He helped Nick realize he wasn't as straight as he thought. He then helped the older boy come to terms with that fact.
Charlie made him realize just how shitty his "friends" and the people he surrounded himself with really were.
Overall Charlie had massively improved his life and mental state, and Nick genuinely believed that Charlie could never be the cause of anything negative that happened to Nick.
But now, as he stares at his reflection with disdain, he's starting to question that notion.
He knew that Charlie's eating disorder and mental health struggles would have an effect on him to a certain extent. Of course it would. He was so deeply in love with the other teen. So it was understandable that seeing him in so much mental struggle would have an effect on him.
He just didn't expect it to affect him this way.
It had started with little things.
Feeling a little embarrassed when he would notice how much he had eaten in comparison to his partner.
Subconsciously going through the same motions he always saw Charlie do when he looked in the mirror. (Body checking, he would learn later.)
Stepping on the scale and getting upset, to the point of near tears, when the number is a few pounds higher than he wished it was.
Eventually it reached this point. He's standing in front of his mirror, shirtless, scrutinizing every problem he sees.
Don’t get him wrong, he’s in pretty good shape. But there are still flaws. He has a bit of extra fat on his stomach that shouldn’t be there. He can’t fit his fingers around his wrist. He was just generally bigger than Charlie. A fact that he used to be ok with, hell he even enjoyed it sometimes, but recently he can’t help but wonder if Charlie would prefer to be with someone thinner, prettier.
‘If Charlie thinks *he’s* too fat, what must he think of me?’ Was a thought that had settled itself in the back of his mind.
He felt his eyes well up with tears as he stared at himself. He couldn’t believe he had allowed Charlie to date him when he looked like *this*. He continued to stare at his reflection before letting out a humorless laugh.
‘God, look at you. Crying over not being perfect instead of trying to fix it. Fucking pathetic.’ A voice in the back o f his head whispered. It was laced with venom and yet was somehow still sickly sweet. It was so tempting to listen to it.
So he did.
He pushed himself harder during practices. He found himself going on runs more often and generally doing more exercising.
A small voice in the back of his head told him that this was a bad idea, that it would lead to something bigger.; Something worse. But the sweet, venom coated voice was louder.; Telling him that he was just getting healthier and that Charlie would appreciate it when he saw just how much work he had put into making himself perfect.
That same voice sounded so much less pleasant when it called him a failure(a pig, a disgusting waste of space) when the number on the scale barely drops.
‘You’re still eating too much. What’s the point of working out if you’re just going to continue to stuff your face like a damn cow.’
So he decided to eat less. Unfortunately for him, for the voice, his mom noticed. Because of course she did. Ever since she found out about Charlie’s eating disorder, she had been paying more attention to Nick’s eating habits. She wanted to make sure he didn’t fall into the same cycle of self hatred and illness.
So when she noticed him skipping meals, she sat him down to ask if there was anything going on, if he needed any sort of help. He was quick to reassure her that he was fine, that he was just feeling a bit ill and didn’t have much of an appetite because of it.
He lied through his fucking teeth.
And now he was back at square one. He couldn’t just skip meals because it would worry his mom. After a few days of thinking, the voice came up with a solution.
‘What if you just ate like normal, but then erased it.’ He didn’t understand what it meant at first but he was quick to figure it out.
It was a few days before he was able to gather the courage to go through with it.
Dinner went relatively normal. His mom questioned him on why he was so quiet and he lied to her-he’d been doing that a lot recently-. He told her that he had just had a hard day at school and was tired. In reality, he was hyping himself up to go to the upstairs bathroom and empty his stomach of the food he had just consumed. But she believed him. And that’s all that mattered to him.
Eventually he managed to excuse himself from the table, saying he had a headache and wanted to go to sleep early. He walked up the stairs and into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
By the time he finished his eyes were full of tears. His stomach was cramping. His throat burned from the combination of acidic vomit and being jabbed at until he gagged. He was dizzy and gasping for breath. His head was throbbing.
But god, it was exhilarating.
He was broken from his thoughts by a knock on the door.
“Nicky? Are you alright in there?” “Yea, mom!” He lied, again, as he stood and flushed the toilet.
He listened for when her steps faded before quickly walking into his room.
.o0o.
It had been a few weeks since he had started and he was happy with the results.
Sure he had nearly passed out several times during practice. And maybe his skin had taken to be a sickly pale white. And his hair had begun to shed much quicker than it had before. And just about everyone he knew had started asking if he was alright, if something was going on.
But he was losing weight. And that's what mattered to him. Everytime he stepped on the scale and watched the number drop again he was filled with a sick feeling of joy. The voice would whisper that he was doing good and would just have to lose a little bit more and he could stop. A few more pounds and he’d be perfect.
It was a lie. It was never going to end. He was going to be stuck in the endless cycle until someone noticed, he realized just how sick he actually is, or it killed him.
But he didn’t care about any of that as he picked up the phone to answer Charlie’s call.
Instead he thought about how proud of him the younger was going to be when he saw just how much effort he was putting into being perfect.