Falling (a Heartstopper fanfiction)

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Tao and Isaac and Elle got to Charlie's house in the middle of the afternoon. They started off watching a movie that Tao had picked as very important for them all to see, but Charlie missed most of it texting with Nick.

The movie ended and they moved to the kitchen to have pizza, Charlie with an eye on his phone the whole time.

"So what are you doing now?" Nick texted.

"eating pizza"

"Pizza sounds good. What toppings?"

"seriously how bored are you?"

"Soo bored. Also I really miss you."

Charlie blushed and smiled. The long string of heart emojis was a little over the top, but that was Nick. "me too," he texted. Also string of heart emojis. "i thought you and your mum were having movie night"

"She's finishing up a work thing."

"mamma mia again?"

"That's not the only movie we watch!"

Elle said, sharply, "Charlie."

He looked up to see them all staring at him. "Sorry. I'll, um, put my phone away. Let me just text to say I'm not going to text."

"Sure. Makes perfect sense." Elle rolled her eyes.

Charlie typed out a quick "got to go, getting glared at, good-night" text, got a "good-night" and some more hearts in return, and shut off the phone. "Sorry," he said again.

"You know this is not healthy, don't you?" Tao asked. "You two spend way too much time together."

"We're friends!"

"So are we, and we don't even spend that much time together. Anymore," Tao added.

"I'm sorry. I'll do better," Charlie promised.

"It's not like Charlie can't have other friends," Elle protested, frowning at Tao. "You don't hassle me at all for the time I spend with Darcy and Tara, or the time Isaac spends with his books."

Tao glared at her, but he didn't respond.

Charlie pushed his plate away. "You want to go play Monopoly or something?"

Everyone did, so they went upstairs and laid out the board. Isaac went out first. Charlie was pretty sure he'd thrown the game so he could read a little and nap on the mattress next to Charlie's bed. Then Elle went broke, and only Charlie and Tao were left.

Elle looked at her watch. "It's nearly midnight. Can we please call it a draw?"

"No, because I'm clearly winning," Tao protested. "I just have unlucky rolls."

"No, I'm winning because I have more money!" Charlie pointed at his piles of fake cash.

"No, the winner is the superior businessperson, and that's me."

"No, I'm the superior businessperson seeing as I have more money, which is the goal of Monopoly!"

"You only have more money because you know all the Monopoly cheats."

"You can't cheat at Monopoly!" Charlie said.

Suddenly, Isaac's foot moved, and the whole board fell into Tao's lap.

"Aw, whoops." Isaac smiled sleepily.

Charlie and Tao smiled at each other. "Draw?" "Draw."

"Thank God," Elle said.

Charlie got to his feet. "Who wants hot chocolate?"

Everyone did. Isaac volunteered to come help make it with Charlie while the other two put the game away.

As they were fixing the cups, Isaac said softly, "So how is Nick?"

Charlie couldn't help smiling. "Good."

"You going to tell Tao what's up?"

"Eventually." He looked sternly at Isaac. "No one's supposed to know."

Isaac gave him a wide-eyed innocent look. "Know what?"

Charlie laughed. It was nice to have even a brief conversation with someone who knew he and Nick were more than just friends.

When they got back to Charlie's room, Tao and Elle were having some kind of weird pillow fight.

"Do I even want to know?" Charlie asked. He handed out the cups as Tao and Elle put the pillows back. "So ... I was thinking of inviting Nick to my birthday thing on Saturday. I really want him to come, but I don't want it to be awkward or weird for any of you since you don't really know him." He had been thinking about this for a while. He wanted Nick to know his friends, and his friends to know Nick. Eventually Nick was going to be ready to tell people, or so Charlie hoped, and it would go better if Nick was already friendly with Tao and Elle when that happened.

"No, it wouldn't be awkward," Elle said.

Isaac smiled. "I assumed he was coming anyway."

Of course he had. "Okay." Charlie looked up at Tao, who was drinking his cocoa and pointedly not answering. Well, Tao would just have to get used to it. "Good."

Now it only remained to ask Nick. Who probably wouldn't want to come, so it didn't matter.

Monday morning in form Charlie kept trying to work up the nerve to ask, but he couldn't quite seem to manage. He kept imagining Nick saying no. But he really wanted Nick to be there—if he wasn't, Charlie would spend the whole afternoon of his party wishing he had asked.

Their hands were laid out on the table, side by side, as Mr. Lange read off the roll call. Charlie tapped the side of Nick's hand with his pinkie.

When Nick looked up at him, he said softly, "So, it's kind of my birthday on Saturday."

"Is it?"

"Yeah. Me and my friends are going bowling, and I was going to ask if you wanted to come, but I know you don't really know them, so you don't have to."

Nick was smiling by the time he got halfway through the sentence, and he said "Yes!" almost before Charlie had finished speaking, like he was really glad Charlie had asked him.

"Nick and Charlie, keep it down, please," Mr. Lange said sternly.

As he continued the roll, Nick tapped Charlie's hand with his little finger, letting it rest there. Charlie turned to look at him, and he whispered, "Thanks for giving me barely any time to get you a present."

"You don't have to get me a present."

"No, I am going to."

"I'm serious!"

Nick shshed him, with that half-smile and the warmth in his brown eyes that never failed to set Charlie's heart pounding.

He wasn't able to stop smiling until well into his third class.