Falling (a Heartstopper fanfiction)

Jumper

Tao and Charlie were leaving school for the afternoon, finalising plans for the party on Saturday, when a ball came sailing through the air at their heads. Being unfortunately used to such things, both of them managed to dodge it, and it bounced behind them and disappeared.

To Charlie's disappointment, he recognised all Nick's rugby friends laughing, and, of course, Harry Greene standing there looking pleased with himself.

He was surprised to see Tao march up to Harry, shoving him with his shoulder. "Watch out, dicknozzle."

"You all right, mate?" Harry demanded.

Nick got to his feet behind them. "Harry, don't start."

"What? Are you best friends with these weird little year 10s now?"

Charlie cast Nick an agonised glance. He didn't want Nick jeopardising his friendships for him.

"Just stop picking on people for no reason," Nick said.

Harry looked from Nick to Tao and Charlie and back. "Aw. Are you gay for them?"

All the boys laughed, and Nick hung his head in embarrassment while Charlie froze, terrified to do anything that might cause Nick to be outed when he wasn't ready.

"Classic Harry," Tao snapped. "Resorting to homophobia when you can't think of a good comeback."

Charlie's eyes met Nick's, and then Nick looked away. His shoulders were hunched and he was nervously fixing his hair. Charlie was worried that if Tao kept on at Harry, Nick would feel like he needed to step in, and then all his friends would turn on him.

"Mate, are you in a mood today?" Harry was asking.

"Are you?" Tao countered. "Serious question. Life must be really hard when your only personality trait is rich bell-end."

The other boys all laughed again. Harry was left at a loss for words, and Nick looked like he wished he could sink into the ground.

Tao grabbed Charlie's arm and they walked away. "You shouldn't have done that," Charlie said to him.

"What do you mean?"

"I know you're trying to help but you're making things worse."

"I'm literally just sticking up for you. We have to show Harry that he can't just walk all over us."

"It's more complicated than that," Charlie said. He wished he could tell Tao what was really going on, what was at stake, but he couldn't. Tao had made it clear he wouldn't understand, not where Nick was concerned. "It's not them versus us."

"Because of Nick?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sure he can look after himself."

"I really don't want him to be dragged into this."

Tao frowned. "Oh, well, we can't possibly hurt your new best friend Nick Nelson."

Charlie looked over his shoulder to find Nick's eyes on him. He wanted to apologise for Tao, but that fell into the category of things he knew Nick would say weren't his fault.

"Nick."

"Hm?" Nick looked up from his book.

"About Tao." Even knowing what Nick would say, Charlie still wanted to apologise.

"Oh." Nick sighed. "I'm sorry about Harry."

"You aren't responsible for Harry."

"I kind of am."