Falling (a Heartstopper fanfiction)

Bothered

All of Charlie's hopeful thoughts went out the window in the locker room before rugby practise on Monday.

They were all talking about Harry Greene's upcoming birthday party. He'd invited what sounded like a massive number of people, none of whom were going to be Charlie. He didn't mind at all not being invited; the less time he spent in the presence of Harry Greene, who liked to poke people until he got a rise out of them, the happier he'd be.

Busy trying to keep his eyes off Nick while he changed his shirt, Charlie wasn't paying a lot of attention to the conversation until Harry brought up Tara Jones. He glanced quickly at Nick to see what his reaction was, but Nick didn't appear to be paying attention. He'd been unusually quiet all day—no chat in form this morning, the briefest of "hi"s in the corridor.

"Mate, she is fit," one of the other lads said. Christian was nice enough on his own, but spent too much time hanging on Harry's every word, in Charlie's opinion.

"Nick is going to have his pick of two girls," Harry said.

Two girls? He glanced up at Nick, who was looking at him, as if to see what he thought, and they quickly turned away from each other. So who was the second girl?

Charlie was glad when another of the lads, Sai, asked that very question.

"Imogen, obviously," Harry answered. "Everyone knows she fancies him."

Nick had been silent through all this talk, even though it was about him, but now he spoke up. "Yeah, what?" His voice was as hard as Charlie had ever heard it.

Sai looked uncomfortable. "Oh, um, nothing. We're talking about Tara Jones. Apparently she's going to be at Harry's party."

"What about her?" Nick asked, still in that tone that said he was unhappy with the whole conversation.

"Just thought you might be interested, mate." Typical Harry, completely unaware of anyone else's feelings.

"Didn't you have some childhood romance thing with her?" Christian asked.

In the general laugh that followed, Nick's quiet voice was almost drowned out. "We don't have a thing. We just kissed at a party one time."

"Yeah, that was like three years ago," Sai pointed out. "Nick's got a thing with Imogen now, anyway."

"No! No, I don't," Nick said vehemently.

Charlie looked over at him. He didn't sound like someone who had a crush on either of the girls, although maybe he just didn't like the way the boys were talking.

Christian stood up and pointed a hand at Nick. "He has two proper fit girls trying to get with him, and he's not even bothered."

"If you're not into Imogen, then Saturday night's your chance with Tara. That's all I'm saying." All the others made encouraging sounds, and Harry grinned.

Nick was quiet, pulling his shoes on, and Charlie hoped he would shut the whole conversation down. But, "Yeah," he said at last. "Maybe."

Charlie looked at Nick again. Was he serious, or was he just trying to get them all to shut up? When Nick met his eyes a moment later, he couldn't tell.

Nick was distant and distracted the rest of the week, until Friday morning. When Charlie arrived in form, Nick was just sitting there. Usually he had homework to finish, or he was doodling something, but this morning nothing. He looked up when Charlie took his seat, but he didn't reply to the morning "hi".

He started to say something and thought better of it, while Charlie waited to see what was wrong.

Suddenly, Nick said, "Do you want to go to Harry's party?"

It was the last thing Charlie expected to hear.

Then Nick added, "With me."

Okay, that was the last thing Charlie expected to hear.

"Oh," he said, flummoxed. If it were anywhere other than Harry's party, the answer would have been yes, immediately, but ... especially after the locker room ... He hated to say no to Nick, but in this circumstance, it seemed like the right answer. "I don't know. It doesn't really sound like my sort of thing."

"Please come. I want you to be there."

It really was impossible to resist those brown eyes. They took Charlie's breath away. Charlie could feel the smile spreading irrepressibly across his face. "Okay."

Nick smiled back, still looking into Charlie's eyes. Charlie managed to tear his gaze away, telling himself that hadn't meant what it sounded like it meant, telling himself not to get his hopes up ... but he couldn't help it. The whole conversation had sounded an awful lot like Nick asking him out.

As soon as he got home, Charlie threw himself on his bed and pulled out his phone. "NICK INVITED ME TO HARRY'S PARTY" "IM SCREAMING AJDBSJSBSISBFC", he texted the group chat.

"omg you're going to a popular people party," Elle replied.

"wait isn't that tomorrow?" Tao asked.

"yeah? why?"

"I thought we were having a film night round my house tomorrow"

Charlie felt bad. He knew Tao had been looking forward to an old-fashioned film night, the four of them. "I'm so sorry I totally forgot :(" "I told Nick I would go with him to the party"

"you said you'd hang out with us!!"

Charlie thought of the look in Nick's eyes when he asked him to go to the party. He couldn't not go, not if there was any chance he might get to see Nick look like that again. "can we just do that another time?"

Tao texted back "it's our film night!! It's sacred!! Isaac and Elle, back me up on this!!"

Nothing came from either of them.

"i know, i'm sorry. i'll make it up to you!" Charlie promised.

"it's okay, it can just be us three tomorrow and we'll do something us four soon! :)" Elle replied.

That ended the discussion, and Charlie felt badly ... but he was also excited.

He took his time with his hair the next night, wanting it to be perfect. His dad was ready to go before Charlie was satisfied he looked right.

"Charlie, you sure about this?" his dad asked on the way there.

"Yeah. It'll be fine." He hoped it would be better than fine. All his attempts to not get his hopes up had completely failed. He couldn't wait to see Nick.

They pulled up in front of the hotel, which had balloons attached to it everywhere, and a line of people outside the door. They could hear the music pounding from inside the car.

"Pick up at ten, okay?"

"Can't it be eleven?"

His dad shook his head. "No. Ten is late enough."

"Fine."

As he was reaching for the door handle, his dad said, "Charlie."

"Yeah?"

"Call me if you need me, okay?"

Charlie smiled. His dad had been really bothered by the bullying last year. Neither of his parents were exactly warm, but his dad had tried hard to change and be more supportive, and Charlie appreciated that. "I will," he promised. "Thanks, Dad."

He got out of the car and joined the line to get inside.