Chapter Text
Charlie was circling around the kitchen. It was his sixth… seventh quiet lap of the house since everyone else fell asleep. Why had nothing changed? He was trying so hard to be okay. Why had nothing gotten easier? Why was he unable to sit down, or close his burning eyes, or go outside, or do anything
useful
. Why was his skin still vibrating with anxiety.
Why was he still here.
Around an hour earlier he tried playing some music, quietly, to be doing something. He chipped his nail varnish on guitar strings . T he floorboards creaked under his socks, cold through the thin spot on his heel. The clock ticked, sounding far louder than it did in daylight. It was 2am. Maybe it was time to call for help.
“What’s wrong?” Nick’s voice was deep and gravelly from sleep.
That afternoon it was too windy and loud and Charlie tried to cross the street with his hair in his face and a bus screeched out of nowhere and for a moment he froze and he thought he was going to die and he felt a little fear, yeah, but mostly relief and then a hand grabbed his hood and yanked him back onto the sidewalk and this stranger, she saved him and he should be grateful but she kept saying he was so thin a gust of wind could blow him over and he wished so hard for a gust of wind to blow him over in front of another bus so that she would stop talking to him and how ungrateful and awful do you have to be to nearly leave this earth and feel relief? To be saved by a stranger and wish that you weren’t? And none of those thoughts had stopped since then. None of these thoughts would leave him alone.
Charlie fidgeted with his sweater sleeve before answering. “My brain is too full to go to sleep.”
“I’ll come over,” Nick said, and Charlie could hear the rustle of his bedsheets through the phone.
“No, you really don’t have to! I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called, it’s way too late and you should go back to sleep and I’ll be fine and–”
“Char. Will me being there make it more likely that you stay calm and go to sleep?”
He hesitated, but he couldn’t lie. “Yes.”
“Then I don’t care about my sleeping routine. I’ll be there in five.”
Nick hung up. Charlie did another lap. The vibrations in his skin felt like bees, he decided. Like a swarm of bees with tiny wings flapping more rapidly than he could comprehend under every inch of his body and they would never let him sleep. He could hear his own heartbeat, and it was far too fast. His feet shushed over the carpets. His hands grazed the cool walls. There was still too much tension in his body. There were still too many jumbled, frantic syllables in his mind.
Then Nick and his lovely, stiff, comforting coat were there wrapped around Charlie, hugging him. His body was solid and safe. He could never be blown away.
“Have you eaten?” Nick whispered.
“No.” Charlie dug his fingers into Nick’s shoulders. “I won’t be able to. Please don’t make me.”
“Hey, hey, that’s okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” Nick swayed them back and forth. “That’s ok. But I’m hungry. So I’m going to make banana bread.” He pushed Charlie back to where he could see his face. “You’re gonna pick out a movie. I’m gonna get a box of bread mix and stick it in the oven.”
Charlie nodded and watched Nick take off his shoes. The top of his throat was tight. His head hurt. His eyes hurt. His feet hurt. Nick walked him to the kitchen table and pressed on his shoulder until he finally, finally sat down.
Nick turned on the warm light over the kitchen sink and clattered around quietly to find a breadpan and a mixing bowl. The soft tearing sound of Nick flattening the cardboard box the bread mix came in made it a little bit easier for Charlie to breathe, open his phone, and search for family movies.
Then there were too many.
“Char?”
Charlie tried to play it off as a chuckle, but he was sobbing because there were too many movies and they were all right there and it should be so easy to choose one and watch it and “I can’t even make one decision,” he said to Nick. “I am so pathetic. Look at this! I can’t– I just can’t do it.”
Nick knelt down beside him. He took the phone in one hand and Charlie’s hand in the other, and made his hand click on a movie at random. “Boop! You did it. Indiana Jones it is. Good job.”
Charlie actually chuckled now. How good, that he had another person to make his hands do things he couldn’t. How good, that he could do the same to Nick on the drums, and they could laugh at their incompetence and be a little bit more okay.
Still, the shame was there. He wiped his face. “I’m sorry that I cry too much.”
“You don’t cry too much,” Nick said. “ Go start the movie. I’ll listen from in here and then join you when this is done.”
Charlie hauled himself up and onto the couch in the living room. Through the doorway he could see Nick pour the bread mix into the pan, then set it in the oven and set a timer. Nick started the dishes. The smell of soap and humidity of the warm water wafted all the way to where Charlie sat. His breath slowed down. He stopped processing Indiana Jones on the TV and allowed his eyes to rest shut a little longer than they should on each blink.
Then Nick sat down beside him and the couch shifted under his weight, making Charlie slide into his side. He rested his head on Nick’s upper chest. His heart beat calmly at last. He slept.
The first thing he felt upon waking was Nick pulling away. “Stay,” he mumbled into Nick’s shirt.
“I can’t, love, I have to get the banana bread. I want to let you sleep, but it’s going to burn.”
Charlie groaned and rolled away from Nick. There was a clank of metal on metal in the kitchen. The movie had been paused, and the room was dark and warm. When Nick returned, he brought the still-steaming pan of bread, plates, forks, and a towel to keep the pan from burning the coffee table. He settled back into the hollow on the couch beside Charlie.
“Come back, dear. Go back to sleep,” Nick said.
“I don’t think I can now,” he grumbled.
“Well, then, will you have a slice of banana bread with me?”
Charlie stared down the bread on the coffee table. Nick tried to cut two thin slices, but the bread was crumbling and too hot to touch. Charlie considered telling him that you’re supposed to let bread cool before you slice it, but then he saw the flushed grin on Nick’s face as he took the first bite.
“I did an excellent job,” he said through a mouthful of crumbs.
“I’m sure you did,” Charlie said, and took the plate with his tiny slice in his lap. The bread had a firm crust, but was soft and moist in the center. He took a small pinch and let it rest in his mouth to cool before chewing and swallowing. “Proud of you, dear.”
“Why thank you.”
It took them an hour to eat their tiny slices of banana bread. Nick waited each time that Charlie slowed down. He matched his pace – a bite for a bite.
“I’m sorry that you got up in the middle of the night for me,” Charlie murmured.
“Don’t apologize. I got banana bread and cuddles out of this. I am absolutely getting the better end of the deal here.”
Charlie laughed a bit, then sobered. He and his anxiety were racing each other to see who could get words out of his mouth faster. His anxiety won. “Still. I mean it. I’m sorry that you don’t get a normal and happy person. I’m sorry that you have me instead.”
“Charlie.” Nick waited until his boyfriend looked him in the eye. “I do not want that, because I want you. I love you exactly the way you are.”
Somehow, hearing that was more painful than comforting. “You know I find that hard to understand,” said Charlie.
“Then don’t understand, just believe me. Let me feed you my bread that I’m proud of baking. And let me put you to bed.”
When they finished their bread, they were a little warmer and a little healthier than they were when they started. Nick stood and lifted Charlie to his feet, despite his protests that he could just sleep sitting up on the couch. “Let’s go brush our teeth. You can stand next to me.”
“I literally can’t!” Charlie whined. His long limbs had gone floppy, and Nick half-dragged him up the stairs. They brushed their teeth, making faces at each other in the bathroom mirror. They settled into bed in a now-familiar position, Charlie’s head on Nick’s chest. They breathed deeply.
“It’s 4 am,” Nick said into the darkness.
“God, this night has felt weeks long.” Charlie’s lips were beginning to feel heavy and slow with sleep. “It’s funny how slowly time goes when my thoughts have been racing all this time.”
“Tomorrow’s gonna be a shit day, isn’t it.”
“Yeah, little bit. But at least we’ll have banana bread. It put the bees to sleep.”
“...what bees?”
“The anxiety bees." Charlie realized that didn't explain much. "Don’t worry about it.”
There were no cars. There was no wind. It still wasn’t easy to keep existing, but the pain was dulled a little by the stillness and darkness and warmth. The night rocked them both to sleep.