Fireflies

by aprms

Summary:

March 2024: Nick and Charlie, platonic soulmates and partners in crime, are on the road trip of a lifetime around the beautiful and magical east coast of Australia. Charlie has barely seen his best friend since he left for uni over two years ago, and he's looking forward to catching up over three sun-soaked weeks packed full of breathtaking scenery, local wildlife, moonlit parties and seriously hot surfers.

September 2015: 13-year-old Nick Nelson has no idea who he is or where he fits in. Then 11-year-old Charlie Spring, anxious overthinker and raging introvert, crashes rather messily into his life and changes it forever.

A story about friendship, love and growing up, with a generous sprinkling of true travel stories, savage British banter and horny sparkles.

Notes:

HELLO 👋 welcome to my new multichapter! A lot of it is already written and beta-ed, so hopefully there won't be any long gaps between posting.

I spent a year in Australia and then a further 3 years in New Zealand and this is my love letter to that side of the world. Obviously some of it is fabricated for the sake of telling a good story (please do not explore waterfalls at night time, you will drown) but I hope the overall vibe of being there, meeting new people and experiencing things outside your comfort zone comes across.

Huge, HUGE thank you to my betas, Erin - erinthelibrarian and Tashy - Tee_85. You've both done a cracking job of making this all sparkly and keeping me right when it comes to the Aussie-isms. And the flailing absolutely kept me going and made it so I might actually finish this thing I've had in my brain for about 2 years.

NOTE: I'll try to post twice a week to start with, and will see how I go. The first chapter is just the poster I created, then the story will be posted as chapter 2 :)

OBVIOUSLY, there is a soundtrack. It's here.

Fasten your seatbelt and slather some Factor 50 on - let's go!

Chapter 1: Fic poster