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“Sooooo ooooo…”
At this, Charlie lifted his head from Nick’s chest to look at his boyfriend’s face, finding himself pleasantly discomforted by Nick’s apparent flusteredness.
“Sooooo oooo?” Charlie prompted.
Nick was blushing, now, and he actually stuttered a little when he tried to continue. Charlie sat up at this point, torn between being charmed by Nick’s evident embarrassment and tilting into panic about what could make him so nervous. When Nick finally uttered
“No, nothing, it’s ok”, it was all Charlie could do not to scream.
“Nick, you CANNOT do that. Seriously, what’s wrong?”
Seeing Charlie’s anxiety sparking, Nick hurried to extinguish it before it spread.
“No. Charlie… It’s not that anything’s wrong, it’s just I’ve been thinking about something and don’t know how to say it. It was a mistake to bring it up, maybe-”
“NICK!”
Sheepishness crept into Nick’s expression alongside the blushing concern.
“I… Can’t *not* tell you now, can I?”
Charlie tried to keep the panic from his face. Nick was trying to tell him something and he needed to keep calm to make it ok for him to do so, but his mind always tended towards fearing the worst. He took a deep breath and gentled his voice, but Nick could hear the tremor in it.
“Whatever it is, you can tell me. Ok? Please tell me.”
Internally, Nick was panicking now as well. This was NOT how he had wanted this to go, he’d totally ruined the mood and now Charlie was closing off, bracing for something bad. Why were they like this?
“Ok, I’m totally messing this up. And I probably shouldn’t have brought it up anyway, it’s just a silly thing, and now I’ve made it a whole thing…” He took a deep breath and tried to meet Charlie’s eyes, but embarrassment made him fix his gaze on dark curls, instead. “It’s just… I… I have a… A kissing-related fantasy. And for some insane reason I keep wanting to tell you about it.” He sneaked a peek at his boyfriend’s face.
Charlie was… Confused, mostly, at first. Whatever he’d been expecting, this was not it. His grin spread slowly, eyes wide with wonder, and he laughed with disbelief as he replied:
“...What?”
Nick’s face was scarlet, which did not help matters. For a while, they just looked at each other, neither one having the slightest idea of what to say. Every time their eyes met, they’d glance away quickly. Eventually, Charlie broke the silence.
“Well, come on! Tell me y… Tell me your fantasy.” He’d started out at normal volume but got quieter as he spoke, and the last word was barely more than a whisper.
Nick swallowed audibly.
“I feel like it might be a bit… Weird. And I don’t want you to think that I expect it to happen in real life, because I don’t, honestly, I just…” Charlie was watching Nick so intently, Nick had to fight the urge to hide his face in his hands.
“Uh Nick. I want to hear it. You HAVE to tell me or I’ll descend into actual insanity.”
“Just… Promise me you won’t feel pressured to do anything.” Now Nick was the one watching intently. Charlie nodded.
“I promise, just…” He finished his sentence with an eager, impatient gesture. Come on!
“I mean, it’s stupid really.” Was Nick blushing even brighter, somehow? He’d thought a thousand times about the words he might use to describe this, but still found himself stumbling as he spoke. “I… I imagine that we’re lying in bed… Kinda like this… And you just… Gently take my hands and put them above my head. And you… Rest one arm over them. Just casually, just to let me know that you’d like me to keep them there. And then you go as if to kiss me, but you don’t, quite. You stop with your lips almost on mine. To... To tease me.” Charlie was just staring, open-mouthed, and Nick was so overwhelmed by his own vulnerability that he had to look away. “You… Do that for a while, as long as you want, and eventually I… I ask you nicely. Really nicely. To please kiss me.” He closed his eyes, determined to say the last little bit. “If you… Feel like it, you… You make me ask more than once.” He took a deep breath, slightly horrified by his revelation but relieved to have finished. Relieved to have successfully avoided the words beg and plead which seemed altogether too loaded. He peeked at Charlie out of the corner of his eye. “And that’s it. That’s my fantasy.”
Charlie’s brain had shut down. All the way down. What Nick was describing was… Was… He couldn’t even…
Now it was Nick’s turn for an anxiety spiral.
“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have said anything, I don’t know what possessed me to tell you, I honestly don’t expect it to ever happen, you know that right? I didn’t mean to make things awkward. I’m sorry.”
Charlie’s brain rebooted fast, urged by the need to reassure, to smooth away Nick’s worry.
“I thought we banned the S word?”
Nick huffed an awkward laugh.
“I mean, Nick, it sounds… Amazing. Like, so amazing that I literally cannot stop thinking about it. Even if you don’t want it to happen in real life, to know that you think about it, I mean, it’s the actual best. God, I'm so glad that you told me.” This brought out one of Nick’s heartbreakingly warm asymmetrical smiles and, the tension broken, Charlie tumbled onto him and hugged him, hard.
They stayed that way for a while, holding each other fiercely. Then Charlie raised his head again, looking at Nick with mischief in his eyes before asking seriously:
“Do you, though?”
“Do I, what?” Nick tensed again, looking stricken. “Think about it?”
“Want it to happen? In real life?”
Oh god.
“I… Do if you do.”
Very slowly, Charlie took one of Nick’s hands and rested it on the bed above his head. Nick gasped.
“Charlie…”
Charlie took Nick’s other hand, laying it gently beside the first, never taking his eyes off Nick’s face.
“Charlie, you don’t have to-”
“Shhhhhhhhhhh.”
Charlie put his weight on his left elbow, laying his forearm over Nick’s hands. Nick’s expression was utterly helpless, now. He found himself unable to slow his breathing, unable to do anything but let the moment drown him, and he closed his fingers over Charlie’s arm as if it were a life float. Charlie was intent, mesmerised by the power he wielded. By the power that Nick had fantasised about giving to him. As lightly as he could, he cupped Nick's jaw with his right hand, stroking along his cheekbone with his thumb before leaning down to brush their lips together.
Nick whimpered, actually whimpered, and Charlie was lost. He wanted so badly to press hard against Nick, to kiss with reckless abandon. But even more, he wanted to hear that sound again.
So he teased. He brushed Nick’s lips with his own, licked them with the tip of his tongue, even nibbled at them ever-so-lightly while Nick panted, and whimpered, and made desperate, broken sounds deep in his throat. Nick’s chest was arching off the bed, straining toward Charlie, when he finally broke completely.
“Charlie. Please… Please kiss me.”
Charlie’s brain simply short-circuited. Could this be real? Could this even be happening? Could-
“Please, Char, I’m going insane. Please. Please kiss me.”
Charlie didn’t have to wait for his brain to reboot, because his body reacted of its own accord. His arm moved from Nick’s hands so his fingers could curl into silky hair as his other hand slipped to the back of Nick’s neck. Nick’s arms went around him, gripping the back of his jumper as they kissed in earnest, hard and fast and passionate. Nick made a sharp, stuttering sound of pleasure and relief and Charlie tasted the sound, relishing every utterance, every movement of the body beneath his, the sheer intensity of the moment. Eventually they had to break apart, panting for air, staring at each other in shock.
“Ch… Charlie, that was… Oh, my god.”
Charlie, not yet having regained the capacity to speak, could only nod his complete agreement while still panting, and it took a long time for their breathing to slow.
Alongside the, frankly, unbelievable memory of what had just happened, one thought haunted Charlie’s mind in the most delectable way:
Nick has a thing for being teased.