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One.
The first time it happens, Charlie doesn’t expect it, because… well, why would he? He and Nick have been dating for a little over three months, and haven’t done much more than kiss. Sure most of those times involved Nick sprawling on top of him (or vice versa) while they kissed each other senseless, but it never once crossed Charlie’s mind to take anything further.
Last night changed things, though. They were being their normal silly, ridiculous selves; Nick literally rolled him up in the duvet like a burrito to trap him, and then suddenly Nick was talking about them sleeping in the same bed, Charlie leaned in to kiss him, and… whew. Thank God there was the looming threat of Tao’s disapproval to stop them from doing anything they weren’t ready for.
That was the first time Charlie had ever thought about more with Nick, at least in any kind of “oh fuck, this is a thing that could actually happen some day” kind of way.
(Look, Charlie is 15, and Nick is fucking fit. Charlie’s had fantasies, is all he’s saying.)
Now, though, they’re at breakfast on their second full day in Paris (Charlie isn’t counting the first day, given that most of it was taken up by an endless, Nick-less bus ride), and everyone is gossiping about the hickey on Charlie’s neck. Tao blames Nick - out loud, for fuck’s sake - and then Nick has the absolute balls on him (Charlie tries not to think too hard about Nick’s balls) to say “that’s fair,” as if it’s no big deal that Tao just nearly outed him to everyone in earshot.
And then… then Nick swallows.
Which, of course Nick swallows, he’s in the middle of eating breakfast, for fuck’s sake, everyone is swallowing (except Charlie, but that’s… a different story. Not this story.), but somehow, Charlie sees the movement of Nick’s throat, the way his adam’s apple slides down and back up, and he’s catapulted back to the night before, and the way it felt to have Nick’s soft lips on the tender skin of his throat, and the way his pulse had rabbited under the pressure of Nick’s mouth sucking on his skin, the sharp pressure of Nick’s teeth–
Charlie’s belly had swooped last night, okay, and just after the swoop had been a restless stirring between his legs, along with the urge to buck his hips up into Nick’s. Now, less than 12 hours later, he’s sitting in the overcrowded breakfast room of a Paris hotel watching Nick swallow his breakfast, and Charlie wants nothing more than to lean over and lick Nick’s neck. The swoop is back, along with the stirring, and the shivery breath, and Charlie wonders what his boyfriend would look like swallowing–
And suddenly, maybe Charlie isn’t hungry, but he is absolutely starving.
This is a super fucking awkward way to find out he has a thing for necks.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Two.
Charlie did not think this through. Why didn’t Charlie think this through?? He finds himself simultaneously in despair and trembling with glee.
They’re at the beach with their friends in early August, and Nick is… shirtless.
Which is bad enough, because Charlie had a vague understanding that Nick was fucking fit (as in, Charlie has eyeballs and Nick wears really tight shirts to school), but holy fucking shit, Nick is stunning. Pale skin, a smattering of freckles across his shoulders and chest, a little bit of a croissant roll of a tummy…
Charlie is so lucky.
He uses the excuse of watching Nick’s vest top fall to the ground to let his eyes drift upwards from Nick’s belly, over his chest, to his collarbone, his shoulders, over those adorable freckles, right up to…
Jesus God, that neck.
It was pretty enough in Paris, when it was framed by the collar of Nick’s t-shirts, but now it’s like… like the crowning glory on the top of Nick’s body, and that isn’t right, because that sounds fucking creepy, like Charlie doesn’t care if Nick’s head is missing as long as his gorgeous, strong, smooth, pink-ivory neck is there. And, look, Charlie loves Nick’s face. Adores it. Loves his crooked grin, his honey-brown eyes, the rounded apples of his cheeks when he smiles, really really loves his pouty lips and the way they feel against his own… hnnnnnngh.
But there’s something about Nick’s neck. Charlie wants to bury his face in it and mark it purple and blue (and pink, go for the bi trifecta, right? Wait, bi trifecta?? Right. Neck.), wants to trace his tongue along the skin and taste the salt on his boyfriend’s skin, wants to feel Nick shiver against him–
And dammit, there’s the swoop and the stirring again, and Charlie spares a moment of thanks for loose swim trunks.
Nick needs Charlie’s help to put suncream on his back, and Charlie applies it with trembling hands. It’s sticky, though, and kind of gross, so that helps distract him from the desire to tackle Nick back against the blankets they’d laid out on the sand.
But then Charlie is finished and Nick turns and tries to convince him to put some suncream on himself, and when Charlie protests, Nick nuzzles into Charlie’s neck and murmurs into his skin about skin cancer (incredibly romantic, Nicholas, thanks for that), and Charlie has to fight back the urge to groan and tilt his head back and beg Nick to mark him.
Luckily, Nick’s Golden Retriever side kicks in, and Charlie’s face is coated in sticky suncream. But then Nick leans in close and they’re kissing, and Charlie is dizzy with it and back to battling the need to have Nick suck blood bruises into his skin so that everyone knows…
Jesus, this is a fucking problem. (Or possibly a lack-of-fucking problem, but Charlie knows they’re not ready for that.)
He wrenches himself back to say something witty and break the spell, but then their friends yell at Nick to stop making out with Charlie (Charlie is going to have words with the girls) and get in the sea. Charlie watches Nick go, admiring the view but mourning the loss of Nick’s lips against his skin, and his taste on Charlie’s tongue.
They’re in the sea together later in the day, holding each other tight as they stand on a sandbar, and Nick kisses him. It’s like that night in Paris, when Nick accidentally gave him the hickey. Their arms are around each other and Charlie knows he looks like a soggy sheepdog with his curls in his face, but then Nick smiles that smile, and they’re kissing, and Charlie’s belly swoops, and if the English Channel wasn’t freezing fucking cold, there is no way he’d be able to hide the stirring that his body is valiantly trying to make happen.
Charlie is so close to telling Nick the truth, that he loves him rather desperately, but then Nick says the words “eating disorder,” and Charlie’s world tilts on its axis.
Suddenly Nick’s neck is safety, too, a place where he can hide, wrapped in his boyfriend’s arms, when the world is too much.
(He says it anyway, later that night, and when Nick chases him down on the pavement, wearing not much at all, Charlie notices that Nick buries his face in Charlie’s neck, and maybe, just maybe, Charlie means safety for Nick, too.)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Three.
After that, it’s a while before it happens again. They love each other, of course, deeply, wildly, endlessly, but Charlie’s mental health is fragile, and when he comes back from inpatient, there’s a ton of new information for them to process and they have to relearn how to be NickandCharlie while keeping themselves, and each other, safe.
It’s more about care than lust for a while, and honestly, that’s okay with both of them.
Charlie’s 16th birthday, though, is different.
He’s tipsy, thanks to Darcy’s vodka and an ill-conceived combination of mixers, and it’s well past midnight. Everyone else is asleep, but he and Nick are in the kitchen. Charlie’s sitting on the counter, and Nick has a glass of water in his hand when Charlie beckons him over. Nick smiles, and he’s sleepy and beautiful, his hair ruffled and messy, as he comes to stand between Charlie’s legs.
He reaches up and curls his fingers in the collar of Nick’s t-shirt as Nick rests his hands on Charlie’s hips. Charlie traces along Nick’s collarbone gently, staring at the line of bone under his skin and wondering faintly about how easy it would be to bite and bruise. He takes a soft, shuddery breath, squishes Nick’s cheeks (not the cheeks he wants to squish, but they’ll do) and then buries his face against Nick’s neck for a long moment.
There’s a brief conversation about uni, and then Charlie says he wants to be close to Nick, and suddenly they both know they’re not talking about university anymore.
Things have been shifting between them for a while now, although neither of them has actually acknowledged it. Kissing suddenly turns intense, like it used to before Charlie fell apart, they have to be… careful about tackling during rugby practice these days, and right now?
Right now, Charlie wants to nibble his way up the column of Nick’s neck, wants to leave sticky vodka kisses on his boyfriend’s skin, wants to get drunk off the taste of Nick against his mouth. The swoop is back, and Charlie wants to lean into it, wants the stirring between his legs, wants to know if Nick feels it, too.
They both know this isn’t the right time, though, and Nick scoops him off the counter and carries him to their air mattress in the living room, where the rest of their friends are scattered around.
At some point, Charlie is still awake, his mind whirring, and Nick rolls over to snuggle against him. Charlie drops a gentle kiss to the crown of Nick’s head, even as he refuses to take off his jumper. Nick doesn’t question it further, just dozes back off in Charlie’s arms.
Charlie aches with how much he loves Nick Nelson.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Four.
It’s almost a disaster.
Nick comes round to Charlie’s after a rugby practice in the pouring rain, and they sneak past Jane up to Charlie’s room. When Charlie leans up against his closed door, Nick is smirking at him from across the room, his tie loose, the top few buttons of his shirt unbuttoned and his collarbone and the base of his neck are peeking out, and Charlie wants to throw himself at Nick’s feet and let the other boy ravish him.
Instead, he babbles something incoherent about that dumb text Nick sent about cucumbers (...the text wasn’t actually about cucumbers, Charlie isn’t stupid, okay? He knows it was about dicks.), and then they’re kissing frantically in the middle of Charlie’s bedroom, and Charlie leans into it, and jumps, because he knows Nick will catch him.
They collapse onto Charlie’s bed, and Nick’s eyes are heavy-lidded and dark with want as Charlie tilts down for a kiss. The swoop is there, and when Nick tilts his head to kiss his way down Charlie’s neck, there’s that stirring, and Charlie is briefly back in that hotel room in Paris, when he felt it for the first time with Nick, and he gasps into the space between them as he starts to press down–
But Nick tugs at his jumper, and he gasps again, this time with uncertainty, and Nick, perfect Nick, pauses to check in.
Charlie doesn’t want to stop. He tries to keep going, presses desperate kisses to the column of Nick’s throat, resists the urge to suck a wild purple bruise into his boyfriend’s skin as he tries to lose himself in the feeling of Nick under him, starting to strain against Charlie the way Charlie is starting to strain against Nick, tries to grasp that feeling of safety that he always feels with Nick’s arms around him.
But Nick tugs on his jumper and shirt again, whispers hoarsely about taking it off, and Charlie–
Charlie freezes.
He has nightmares that night, about Nick seeing him topless and calling him disgusting. Charlie knows it’s not true, knows that Nick would never, ever say that. Nick loves him. Charlie might be an anxious disaster about a lot of things, but he’s confident about that.
He snuggles against Nick in form the next morning, resting his head on Nick’s shoulder. Nick holds him tight, safe from the gremlins in his mind, and Charlie thinks that this might be his favorite place in the whole world.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Five.
Charlie can only hope that, when it comes time to carve his tombstone tomorrow, they manage to find an elegant way to say, “Here lies Charlie Spring, dead from the sight of his boyfriend’s exposed neck.”
Isaac can probably figure out how to phrase that for him.
Charlie stares helplessly at the vast expanse of skin on display, because finally, finally, Nick is shirtless, Sarah (and the cock-blocking dogs) aren’t home, and some of Charlie’s wildest dreams are about to actually come true. (Well. Maybe not the wildest dreams. Charlie suspects they’ll need to work their way up to those.)
But first he has to survive the sight of Nick and his stupid perfect neck, of course.
Nick had already kissed him senseless, while Charlie was in his lap, and Charlie had groaned and let his head fall back when he realized that he and Nick were both getting hard. Nick swooped in and kissed a path down Charlie’s neck, and it felt just as fucking amazing as it had the very first time, only tonight he doesn’t have to worry about Tao and Isaac walking in on them, and Nick is ready to go further and Charlie sure as hell is ready, and then Nick presses his teeth down just the tiniest bit, and sweet Jesus, that’s not a swoop or a stir, that’s a goddamn tsunami in his belly and he is rock-fucking-hard, thank you very much.
And then Nick flips them over so Charlie is on his back with Nick’s hips pressing into his, and frankly, Charlie will be lucky to get through this without having to wear Nick’s pants home.
But then Nick asks if Charlie wants him to take off his shirt, and fucking duh, of course he does.
Sweet, innocent, perfect Nick strips off his jumper, and that’s when Charlie realizes his demise is imminent. He traces shaky hands down Nick’s torso, and Nick is staring down at him, wild-eyed and needy. Charlie slides his hands down to Nick’s hips and runs his thumbs lightly under the waistband of Nick’s shorts. Nick shudders and his eyes flutter closed, and Charlie rolls his hips up.
Nick gasps, his mouth parting as he sucks in air, and then he swallows, and goddamn Charlie is once again transfixed by the way his throat works.
He rolls his hips again, and Nick presses down, and it’s Charlie’s turn to gasp, and he arches his back. His head presses into the pillow under him, his chin tilts up, and Nick groans. Suddenly his lips are on Charlie’s neck, and Charlie’s hands are squeezing Nick’s biceps as Nick trails damp, hot, open-mouthed kisses down Charlie’s neck.
Charlie kind of loses track after that, honestly. He knows at some point, Nick’s hand is in his hair, tugging, and he gets his chance to bite down on the perfect skin where Nick’s pulse is running wild, but then… beyond that? Trousers and pants are off and Nick is on him and he’s on Nick and they’re finally, finally touching each other and kissing kissing kissing, and Nick buries his face against Charlie’s neck. Charlie holds his hand tight and squeezes. He feels the broken cry from Nick’s throat vibrate against his skin, and oh God, he’s suddenly falling and flying simultaneously.
He must yell or cry out or something, too, because when it’s over and they’re trembling against each other, wide-eyed and stunned, Nick lowers his head and gently kisses his way up Charlie’s throat, like he’s trying to soothe the sting. Charlie returns the favor, because really, if it weren’t for Nick’s neck and the way he’d had the audacity to swallow his breakfast in Paris that morning nearly a year ago, they might not have shared the best orgasms of their lives just now.
Or something. Charlie’s not exactly thinking clearly at the moment.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
+1
They’re naked in Nick’s bed after the fȇte, and they both know damn well where this is going, eventually. They also know they’re both really fucking pent up after a week apart, and they know they have literally all night to get there, so they’re not going to just… dive in to the main event, so to speak.
Charlie manages to get Nick on his back, and he grins down at his boyfriend, then gets to work. He works Nick’s neck over, kissing and biting and tasting every bit of it he wants, until Nick is whimpering under him and rutting his hips.
Charlie groans at the feel of Nick’s cock against his; it’s still new and exciting and Charlie cannot believe he’s finally naked (completely naked, holy shit) in bed with Nick Nelson and they’re going to have time for more than just rushed hand jobs.
He presses a bite to the base of Nick’s neck, just above his collarbone, then works his way down, kissing over his chest, trailing his tongue down Nick’s sternum, biting bruises into his ribs, and making his way down his abs.
He makes it to Nick’s hips and scrapes his teeth over the bone and Nick gasps out his name. Charlie presses a soft, apologetic kiss to the slight red mark he left behind, and then smirks up at Nick.
“Char… please,” Nick gasps softly.
Charlie smiles sweetly, then wraps his lips around the tip of Nick’s cock. Nick’s gorgeous, strong, smooth, pink-ivory… cock. Nick groans and squirms and Charlie takes him deeper. He traces the shaft with his tongue, laps up the salty-sweet taste of the liquid leaking from the slit, presses sticky kisses along the skin.
And at some point, probably right as Nick is arching and shuddering and shouting his name and Charlie is sucking and swallowing and groaning around him, Charlie realizes something.
He might have a desperate thing for more than just Nick’s neck.