Multiships

AO3 - Nick and Charlie

When I walk in the kitchen, my heart hits the floor. Cause it's you that I'm missing.

Charlie doesn't remember the last time he relapsed like this.
He'd broken up with Nick only a few days earlier, and all of the feelings from that were finally hitting him. It was a stupid mistake that he'd made when he was drunk, he would admit that much. But he wasn't able to do anything about it now. Nick blocked his number almost immediately, and Charlie could feel his heart shatter when he saw his blue message bubbles turn into green ones.
There was a Nick sized hole inside of his soul now.
The one person who ever truly loved Charlie for who he is has now disappeared from his life completely, leaving him cold and empty inside.
There was this sense of grief that plagued his mind now, materializing itself as a physical pain in Charlie's chest that just wouldn't leave him alone. No matter what he did, it just hurt in a way that he couldn't explain.
Charlie wanted nothing more than to be able to be held by Nick again, falling apart in his arms as he cried uncontrollably into his boyfriend's chest. But Nick was gone and Charlie was just the shell of a man that he once was.
He felt hollow; it was like if you dropped a penny into his brain you could hear it echo throughout. His mind was an empty cave, and his body just bore the weight of it all.

I still see a vision of us cooking dinner and you holding me from behind.

Everything that Charlie had created with Nick was gone now. But it didn't really matter, did it? Nothing that involved Nick felt like a good memory to him anymore.
He felt plagued by what had happened. He felt angry that he didn't chase after Nick and apologize. He felt miserable about how he'd treated Nick that evening, and how he wishes he could go back in time and fix everything.
Nobody else cared about Charlie's hospital stay as deeply as Nick did. Nick was the one who came and visited every week, sometimes multiple times a week, until Charlie was deemed healthy enough to go home. Nick was the one who held his hands as he tried a new food. Nick always cradled him like a baby after therapy appointments where everything just felt like way too much for him to handle on his own.
It was all just a little bit too much.

And you say "please be careful, the knife is so big. And we can't afford another ER trip."

This relapse was bad.
So much so that it almost permitted a second stay in the mental hospital, but Charlie got out of that one. He did have to go to the hospital and get his wrists stitched up though, which he wasn't too pleased about. He hated any sort of attention, but he especially hated it when it came from doctors. He knew that there was so much wrong with him that couldn't just be magically fixed with medication, and he hated himself for it.
Charlie hated himself for a lot of reasons, but his mental illnesses were about ninety nine percent of them. Self hatred is real. Everyone always applauds Charlie for how put together he looks on a daily basis, but he always falls apart at night.
He knows that the sun is always going to rise in the morning and that he's going to get the opportunity to try again, but right now it feels like Charlie Spring is trapped in some sort of eternal darkness. Daylight simply just does not exist in Charlie's world. He is trapped under a starless sky, staring up into the inky black night with no hope of a future. How ironic and tragic– the boy who radiates positivity, sunshine in human form, and the most loveliest person on earth is the one facing the worst.
And nobody knows it. Nobody can tell that Charlie's close to hitting rock bottom until he fucking hits it. That must be a very pathetic detail about Charlie Spring's life, and it is one worth sharing nonetheless.
Charlie always feels like he's drowning. He feels like his body is weightless, submerged underneath the waters and waiting for him to hit the bottom of the ocean. He's sinking, and he has been for a while.

We're too young, too dumb, too in love to afford it.

Charlie finally hitting rock bottom happened at a party. He was so devastated about the idea of losing Nick to uni that he drank himself to the point that he broke up with Nick before he could leave him. Nick was fucking off to university in September anyways, it wasn't like their relationship was going to work out. No matter how hard Charlie tried to stay positive, he knew deep down that there was going to be no positive outcome for he and Nick's relationship. Nick was going to go to some fancy university and meet some gorgeous girl who's
much prettier and much more talented than Charlie. And then he's going to leave. He's going to realize that he doesn't want to be with a boy, and he's going to leave Charlie behind in this shitty fucking town to live by himself until he's brave enough to fuck off ot his own university.
Because all anybody ever does is leave. Elle's leaving for university. Isaac moved to London. Tao doesn't know if he's going to move off with Elle and do his sixth form studies online. Everyone is fucking leaving, and Charlie is scared to be alone.
He knows it's bullshit to be so scared, but he just can't help it.
Nick is the person who was there for him when his eating disorder got really bad, and now he didn't even have Nick to fall back on when he relapsed again. It's because he fucked it up. He made it seem like Nick would be better off without him. It was a mistake that he made when he was drunk, yet Nick believed it. He truly believed that he was going to be better off without Charlie. Because nobody really sticks around, do they? They get what they want and then they completely fuck off to a brand new life. It feels like they aren't even friends anymore. They went from strangers to lovers to enemies within the span of three years, and that fucking sucked.
Charlie was now alone in his bed, bandages wrapped around both of his arms from his selfish attempt to hurt himself again.