Falling (a Heartstopper fanfiction)

Timeline

The group of them passed an ice cream vendor, and immediately Darcy wanted some. She turned to Tara. "Get you one?"

"Yes, please?"

Nick glanced at Charlie. "You want some?"

"No, that's all right. I don't need anything." Charlie and Tara went to sit on the steps. It had been a long morning of walking nearly constantly, and Charlie's legs were tired. He took some pictures of Paris while they waited for the rest of the group.

"How are things with you and Nick?" Tara asked him.

"Really good." They were. When it was just the two of them, they were so happy, just hanging out and doing nothing together. "Why? Does it look like we're not okay?" Had he missed something? Had the coming out thing put so much strain on Nick that he'd been complaining about it to Tara?

"It looks like Nick is so in love with you. It's a bit unbearable to watch sometimes."

Charlie smiled. That was nice to hear. He wondered if other people could see that, too. He hesitated for a moment, wanting to talk to someone but not sure if he should. "I suppose I'm sort of ... jealous of you and Darcy. You're out, and you can hold hands and kiss and ... I really want that." Tara nodded, understanding. "But I don't want Nick to get bullied like I was."

Tara shrugged. "It takes time. It took ages for me to even feel comfortable calling myself a lesbian, and ... and we were so scared of what people might say at school, so we didn't tell anyone about us for months." She smiled. "But eventually, we stopped caring about all those people. We just realised ... me and her were all that mattered. You and Nick will get to that point. I know you will." She hesitated, too, then said, "I'm jealous of you and Nick in some ways, too."

"What? Why?"

"You both talk about your feelings. But Darcy just makes everything into a joke. It's hard to get her to open up. I said 'I love you' to her last week, and ... she didn't say it back. I feel like ... maybe she didn't even want to."

"I'm sure she does want to." Anyone could see Darcy was head over heels for Tara. Except ... maybe Tara couldn't, because she couldn't see the way Darcy looked at her. "And Paris is the perfect place to have that conversation," Charlie added, looking around them. City of Love, after all.

Tara smiled, but before she could say anything else, Darcy ran up to sit by her. "Jonesy. They were out of mint choc chip, so I had to get us strawberry."

Nick sat down on Charlie's other side. As he did so, James and Isaac went past, farther down the steps, and Tara and Darcy moved to join them. Nick was carrying two chocolate ice creams, and he handed one to Charlie. "Oh. Uh ... I'm still full from breakfast."

"Charlie, you didn't eat that much breakfast."

"Yeah, I did." One disadvantage of an attentive boyfriend—Nick noticed things like when Charlie didn't eat very much.

They looked at one another, and then Nick held out the ice cream cone.

After a moment, Charlie decided it would be okay to take it. Nick had bought it for him, and here they were in Paris, sharing an ice cream. It would be a good memory. "Chocolate? Not bubblegum?"

"Well, you're a good influence on me."

He took a lick of the ice cream. It was very good, and he was a little hungry. "It's not bad."

Nick turned to him and laughed. "You've got some on your nose." He used his thumb to wipe it off. "Let me get that. A little bit more. There we go."

Charlie looked at his boyfriend and then out at Paris. It was worth remembering that only a few months ago, Nick had thought of himself as straight. And now here they were, boyfriends, in Paris, together. Nick had come a long way in a short period of time. Charlie owed it to him to let him take further steps on his own timeline, not on Charlie's.

When Elle and Tao joined them later, Charlie was relieved to see that his two friends were friends with each other again. Whatever else might happen between them, that was the most important.

Elle went off with the girls. Charlie asked Tao how it went.

"Fine. We're totally back to normal."

"And?" Isaac asked.

"And that's it."

Before they could continue asking him questions, Imogen came up to them. "Hey, guys. Um ... do you guys mind if I hang with you for a bit? Ben's being so boring."

Nick smiled at her. "Of course not."

"Feel free," Charlie added. "You been to the Sacre Coeur yet?"

"No, I haven't."

"Let's go together, then. Come on."

"Yay! Thanks, guys." She giggled nervously. "You guys are more fun."

They walked across a bridge, Nick and Elle with Imogen and Charlie with Tao and Isaac and James. Tao started walking like a duck, for reasons known only to himself. While all of them kept asking him what he thought he was doing, he started twerking. This was one of the things Charlie prized so much about Tao—that he was who he was, and he didn't care what anyone thought. The whole transformation, with the hair cut and the roses ... that hadn't been Tao. If that had been what he was like on their date, maybe that was the whole problem.

Well, Charlie wasn't going to be able to fix his friends' love life. He had enough on his hands with his own. Tao and Elle would find their way to one another eventually, he was sure of it.