I Can Hear Your Silence (A Heartstopper FanFic -- BOOK 2)

1. Home

Charlie had been lying awake for a good two hours before he realised anything was wrong.

Over the last week and three days, since he had been out of hospital, Charlie had gotten into the habit of falling asleep quickly after getting into bed, but then waking up in the middle of the night, not necessarily wide awake but unable to go back to sleep.

He had not been plagued with the same horrible nightmares as his boyfriend -- he would of course, gladly trade places in an instant -- but ever since the cabin, ever since Ryan Kane had dragged them both through hell and back, Charlie definitely found the darkness and the quiet much more unsettling than before.

At some point earlier in the night, he and Nick had ended up sprawled on opposite sides of the bed, the sweltering heat of Paris in the summer forcing them apart, the duvet kicked off them.

It had been a long week.

Exciting and fun and freeing -- and exactly what they had both needed.

But long and tiring.

Everything was more tiring for Charlie nowadays, and it hadn't taken long for him and Nick to realise that maybe they'd been a bit hasty when they'd fought so hard to still go on this trip.

After Charlie's long stretch in hospital, he had had three days at home.

Three.

In some ways it felt as if Charlie had gone straight from sitting around, bored out of his mind in hospital, to spending everyday walking around Paris in the sun and the heat.

The teachers in chaperoning the trip had both been informed of Charlie's new situation and therefore he was allowed certain privileges that others weren't -- like taking the lift instead of climbing the stairs when they'd visited the Eiffel Tower. That had been all very well but Charlie would have climbed a thousand stairs if it meant he could go back to feeling normal -- go back to feeling only slightly damaged and a bit different.

But tomorrow, they would be going back to their own homes and their own beds. Going back to sleeping alone. Back to not being together every second of every day.

The first cry was muffled in the pillow beneath his boyfriend's sleeping face.

Charlie turned to peer through the dim light filtering through the thin curtains. He could just about make out the shadowed shape of his favourite person in the whole world -- and his favourite person in the whole world was currently curled around his pillow, crying openly in his sleep, every inch of him tense and trembling.

"Nick," Charlie whispered. He extended a hand to gently rub Nick's bare shoulder. "Nick, hey... Shhh, darling."

Charlie rolled to close the gap between them and stroke a hand through the tangled, sweaty mess of Nick's hair. At the feel of his touch, Nick shifted slightly in his sleep, and in doing so, moved his face so that Charlie could now see just how deeply his brow was furrowed, how tightly his eyes were screwed shut against whatever distressing memories his subconsciousness was forcing him to relive.

Nick let out another, much louder cry this time, and several tears chased each other sideways down his cheeks.

"Oh, Nick..."

Charlie leaned in further still and rested his forehead against Nick's. All the while, he never ceased his tender caresses over Nick's face and hair.

He planted several soft kisses over Nick's forehead, over his brow, the bridge of his nose... but still, Nick slept on, trapped somewhere Charlie could not follow.

Several of Charlie's own tears joined Nick's on the pillow beneath their heads.

"Shhh..." Charlie murmured softly, fighting to keep his own voice steady. "Shhh... You're okay, darling. You're okay..."