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

10. Together

Nick supposed he must have fallen asleep at some point, although he didn't remember doing it. He had spent most of the night scrolling through his photos, focusing on the ones from Paris and the lake. When that stopped working, he couldn't stop clicking his phone on and off, constantly checking for new notifications, heart sinking every time one popped up that wasn't, of course, from Charlie.

Despite Julio letting them know Charlie had gotten home safely yesterday, he hadn't given any further information about how he was doing.

Nick had almost entirely forgotten to worry about Sahar until he saw the Facebook post at breakfast time the next morning. It mirrored the one about Ben from yesterday but this time, Nick actually cared.

Sarah looked up from her tablet and Nick knew she had seen the same post. "This is getting ridiculous," she said. "What is happening to this town? I thought all the horrible stuff would be over now Kane's gone, but I suppose there will always be terrible people in the world."

"I didn't think it was serious," said Nick, abandoning his cereal. "I didn't want to think it was."

"Well, it's in the police's hands now, baby. You can't do anything to help Sahar now except be there for your friends. I'd better give her parents a ring... although they might have their fill of sympathy right now."

A thump of movement from upstairs alerted them that David and Portia were up and about. Nick got up at once and quickly cleared the table. It was with a certain tunnel vision that he put everything away and went out into the hall to put his shoes on.

He was out the door before he could realise, he hadn't even said goodbye to his mum. And as he walked the familiar route to Charlie's house, he realised it might be a little early to be knocking on the Springs' door.

It didn't matter, he told himself. At this point, he was desperate.

~~

Charlie woke up to the sound of distant knocking. His sleep-addled brain couldn't make sense of it at first. He scrunched up his eyes in confusion. The noise was persistent though, and he eventually sat up.

He had still been curled up on the floor, the hoodie wrapped around him, a poor excuse for a blanket. He got to his feet steadily, stretching, limbs clicking painfully.

Through his pounding headache, Charlie squinted across the room at the clock by the bed and saw it was almost seven.

"Shit," he groaned. He felt like utter shit.

The knocking came again.

Once he'd figured no one else was going to answer the door, Charlie stumbled his way down the stairs. He was just reassuring himself that the postman wouldn't care what he looked like when he opened the front door and --

"Nick!"

For a long moment, Charlie stood there, as if struck by Nick's appearance. Nick could only stand there too, relieved to see his boyfriend but also a little baffled at his reaction. Charlie was looking at him as if his arrival on the doorstep was some huge miracle, something he couldn't have predicted in a million years.

Nick laughed nervously. "Morning."

A flicker of something warm flickered across Charlie's otherwise chilly exterior.

"Nick..." he breathed and fell forward into him.

"Hi, my love," Nick murmured as he hugged him back. He could feel the coolness of his skin through his thin t-shirt and realised with a jolt that Charlie was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday.