Gay Panic - Heartstopper AU

16. Daydreams

The locals of Menorca swore by the healing properties of its crystal blue waters, and Nick was tempted to believe them. While their faces were wrinkled and pocked with age spots, there was still a glowing youthfulness about them. It was typical for Menorcans to live through their nineties, all while swimming, sailing, partying, and getting drunk on lemon gin.

Week one of the trip was torture, but not from any actual ankle pain. It was because Nick wasn't able to do much during the day but sit in the plaza, watch the fiestas from the side, and reapply his sunscreen constantly.

He was comfortable without crutches by the second week, though. For the rest of the trip, he'd start his morning with a mile hike from the village to one of the last coves on the island that hadn't been developed for tourism. The little bay was surrounded by steep cliffs, which further concealed the oasis with a forest of olive trees. His secluded cove was much smaller than the beaches that tourists typically flocked to, so aside from the occasional hiker looking down from the cliffs or sailboat passing by the coastline, Nick didn't have to share the cove with anyone in the early morning.

And anyway, if someone did want to share the cove with him, they would have to find a woman named Abuela Julieta in the village to charm into revealing its location, like Nick managed to do last year. But the only way to access it besides swimming in through the rocky entrance was climbing down the steep cliff face, which would've been impossible if Abuela Julieta hadn't pointed out a safe path down through shrubs and low-hanging olive branches.

Last year, he used the cove to swim laps, but following recent events, Nick decided to take it easy at first and just swim out far enough that he could float on his back. Not only did the water ease the pain in his ankle, it also performed another miracle: for as long as he drifted, the anxiety vanished.

He could feel his brain trying to throw pessimistic thoughts about his personal life at him and look for issues that weren't there. Yet the thoughts broke down before they could travel far, like some electrical wire had been severed in his head, and the only thing that the electricity could do was crackle annoyedly on one end, but never complete the circuit.

The tranquil waters tickled his sides, enveloped him, dissolved his worries, and promised him that his Rochester problems couldn't sail all the way here.

How did he choose to exploit this new mental clarity? Daydream, of course, about the only two things that ever seemed to occupy his mind these days: rugby and Charlie.

Some of those daydreams were more believable than others.

One second he was assuring himself the rugby team was salvageable this year, perhaps the biggest stretch of them all.

Then he was planning how he'd convince Sara to let Charlie come with them to Menorca next year, and his argument actually showed some promise.

Then he was fantasizing about his ascent to the Rugby Hall of Fame, from humble beginnings as grammar school team captain, to uni team captain, to the top premiership captain in the country, and someday, all the way to the World Cup.

What? It could happen...

Then it was back to Charlie. Nick started wondering if he had woken up yet, if his first thought in the morning was of Nick, if the image made Charlie whimper and stick his face in his pillow and grind against his mattress for a bit of relief.

Well, that was what Nick did when Charlie was on his mind in the morning, anyway.

He'd get distracted thinking back to the lucky few days he got to wake up next to Charlie, how their sticky legs intertwined under the steamy comforter, how he held his sweaty chest to Charlie's sweaty back, how his sleepy eyes found Charlie's lips, dewy and soft and pink like rose petals.