Chapter Text
Charlie shivered as he stepped off the train and into the sheeting rain, cursing himself for not having packed a thicker coat in his haste to escape after the row he’d had with his mum. He hiked his backpack higher on his shoulders and began to walk into the town, eyes searching for some kind of shelter.
He stepped off to the side of the pavement, patting his soaking, limp curls self consciously. He leaned against the side of a building, pulling out his phone under the small, overhanging roof in the hopes that his phone would stay mostly dry. He’d intended just to Google a place to stay, but his thumb slipped - a product of the unrelenting downpour of the day - and he accidentally opened his messages to see a barrage of texts from his mum.
Once he’d started reading, he couldn’t stop, eyes filling with tears as he took in each and every venom-soaked word. A sob punched out of him, and before he knew it, he’d lost control entirely, awful sobs wracking through him as he leaned against the wall for support. Just as he was about to be grateful for the empty street, a woman stepped out of the building he leaned against, a look of pity in her eyes.
“You’d better come on inside, love,” she said quietly, “You’ll catch your death out here. I’ll get you a cuppa.”
Eyes flicking to the sign on the door, he saw that his temporary refuge from the torrential downpour was a tea shop. With a shy nod, he stepped inside, the woman behind him. She flipped the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed’, and ushered him further into the small shop.
“You can sit,” she said, gesturing to a row of stools at the counter as she got to work, preparing two cups of tea, “What’s your name, love?”
He sniffled, “I’m Charlie. Sorry about all of this - I’m just… lost, I guess.”
“Hmm,” she said, “Where are you headed? I’ve lived here forever, I can help you find what you’re looking for.”
“Well… not that kind of lost, exactly. I… shouldn’t have come here, I just needed to get away, and now I have nowhere to stay, and I can’t go back home, and I don’t have any friends and I –” he cut himself off, knowing if he said another word that the tears would come back.
“Oh, darling,” she said, pushing the cup of tea towards him and then walking around the counter to sit on the stool beside him, “Why can’t you go home? I’m sure your mum is worried sick about you – a young boy like yourself all alone… My stomach is in knots just imagining my boy getting off a train in a random town by himself like this, nowhere to go. He’s 20, of course, he wouldn’t appreciate me saying that but, mums worry about their babies, even when they’re grown up.”
That brought back the tears with a force Charlie hadn’t expected, causing him to scrub at his eyes with the wet sleeves of his jumper embarrassedly, “Not my mum. That’s… when you found me, actually. I accidentally read the texts she’d sent me. She said that she didn’t ever want me to come back, that if I’m like this it’s better that my brother never see me again.”
“Oh fuck that,” she said, standing up and going back behind the counter, “That’s horrid. I’m so sorry, darling. This conversation calls for a biscuit or two, I reckon.”
Charlie smiled sadly, eyes landing on a tiny pride flag behind the counter with relief, “I don’t really think it even has to do with me being gay, it’s just like… a combination of things. My mental health isn’t the best and I guess loving me is just… too much work.”
The woman set a plate of biscuits down in front of him, and he accepted one out of politeness, taking a small bite out of it. She came back around the counter and stood beside him for a second, “Can I hug you, Charlie? You look like you need it.”
After a second of hesitation, Charlie nodded and then melted into her embrace. She pulled away after a few moments and then reclaimed her seat beside him, “If you need somewhere to stay for a bit, I’ve got a spare bedroom in the house - my older son moved to Manchester a while back. I know you don’t know me, but I promise I don’t bite and I won’t charge you.”
Charlie thought about the measly 100 quid and change in his wallet - hardly enough to book a room in the shittiest of hotels for more than a few days, if that. Not seeing another option, he nodded, “Yeah… okay. I suppose that would be alright, but you’ve got to let me help out somehow. Let me wash dishes here for you or something. I’m rubbish at baking so I can’t help bake the biscuits or anything but…”
She nodded, “I could use the extra help anyway, since… well. Since my husband died, and my older son moved away, Nicky and I have had a hell of a time keeping our little shop up and running.”
As if on cue, the door to the shop flung open, “Mum,” a voice said, “Why’s the shop cl–”
“Oh, hi,” perhaps the most attractive man Charlie had ever seen said, “Um, I didn’t… expect anyone else to be here. Hi.”
Charlie gave the man a small wave, not trusting himself to speak, so the woman, whose name Charlie still hadn’t gotten, spoke up, “Charlie’s going to stay with us for a bit, darling.”
“Thank you so much for your generosity, Mrs…?”
“Nelson,” she supplied, “But please, call me Sarah. And this is Nicky, my baby that I was telling you about.”
Charlie grinned at that, but the boy let out a pained sound, “ Mum , Jesus. Nick, please,” he said as he faced Charlie, “My mum still thinks I’m about 5.”
“It’s sweet,” Charlie replied with a smile, “That your mum loves you like that.”
“Yeah,” Nick replied, face softening, “I lucked out in the pare–,” he trailed off for a moment, “In the mum department.”
“I did not,” Charlie said with a sharp laugh and then took a drink of his tea to avoid saying anything further.
Sarah cleared her throat, “Nicky, why don’t you show Charlie back to the house? I’m sure he wants to get out of those wet clothes. You can get him settled into David’s room. I’m just going to close up here and then drop off Evelyn’s order on the way home.”
Nick nodded, “Darcy dropped off some soup this morning, we can heat that up for dinner if you want?”
Charlie got to his feet, hiking his backpack up onto his shoulders as he listened to the conversation between mother and son.
“Oh, she’s a lovely girl,” Sarah said, wiping down the counter, “That was sweet of her. That sounds perfect. I’ll see you at home, love.”
Nick and Charlie left the small shop and stepped back into the rain, which had only let up a bit in the time Charlie had been with Sarah.
“So…is Darcy your girlfriend, then?” Charlie asked, trying to make conversation as the two made their way down the rain-slick street.
Nick let out a laugh, “Darcy… is the biggest lesbian you’ll ever meet. I did kiss her girlfriend Tara once, though,” he smiled at Charlie, but then quickly added, “When we were kids, it wasn’t like a weird thing.”
Charlie nodded, “So you’re from here, then? Like, proper grew up here?"
“Yeah,” Nick said, hesitating, “I left for a while but… my uh… my dad died and… I needed to be back here. My mum needed me and, well, my brother… Yeah I just needed to be here.”
“I never really left home before, well, today, I guess. I’m from Kent,” Charlie explained, “I was going to leave for uni but then… some things happened and it just… didn’t go the way it was supposed to. So I got stuck there. And now, here I am.”
Nick stopped in front of a house, pulling out a key to unlock the door, “Why did you leave? Today, I mean.”
Charlie sighed, “I had a row with my mum last night, quite a big one that… I don’t see us coming back from. I needed to get away, so I slept in the train station and caught the first one I could get on in the morning. I mean, she told me to. I’ve been… hard to love for the last few years, with the… being gay, and then I went through some trauma that made things … tense for a while. I guess my mum just got tired of dealing with it.”
“That’s absolute shit,” Nick said, making his way down a hallway, beckoning for Charlie to follow, “None of that makes you ‘hard to love’ , for fuck’s sake.
“So, this is your brother’s room, then?” Charlie asked, needing to change the subject before he cried for the third time that day.
Nick nodded, “You can go get changed out of those wet clothes in the bathroom,” he said, pointing across the hallway, “I’ll make the bed up while you’re doing that.”
With a grateful nod, Charlie headed into the bathroom and dug through his backpack, hoping that any piece of his clothing had been spared by the torrential downpour. But of course, because he is fucking cursed , not a single piece of his packed clothing is dry.
“Of fucking course,” he muttered, zipping his backpack with frustration. Staring at himself in the mirror, he tried to rearrange his curls, but the fact that his hair had air-dried while he was in the tea shop, and then gotten wet again on the walk over to the house, it was a nearly hopeless endeavor. Heaving another sigh, he left the bathroom to find that Nick had just finished making up the bed.
“You didn’t change?” he asked, raising a curious eyebrow.
“My backpack got soaked through,” Charlie replied, smiling tightly though his eyes betrayed his frustration.
Nick shrugged, “We can dry your stuff, no problem. I’ll grab you some stuff to put on in the meantime.”
Charlie stood awkwardly in the room, not wanting to sit on the freshly-made bed in wet clothes. Before too long, Nick returned with a pile of clothing in his hands, an awkward smile on his face.
“I got you a jumper, a pair of joggers and some socks,” he said, “I considered bringing you some pants as well but… that felt a bit… I mean I can grab some if you’d like…”
“I usually like to take a guy out for dinner before I get into his pants,” Charlie replied quickly, and then blushed, “Sorry – that… I’m sorry.”
Nick let out a laugh, blush rising high in his cheeks, “Wow, okay, I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll leave you to get dressed, then. I should put the soup on so it’s ready when my mum gets in.”
Once the door closed behind Nick, Charlie made quick work of his wet clothes. Fortunately, his pants were still fairly dry, so he was satisfied with just the jumper, joggers and the pair of socks. He laid his wet jeans, jumper and socks on the empty desk on the far side of the room, and then made his way into the kitchen.
“I’ve set up the drying rack in front of the radiator,” Nick said, not turning around as he stirred a pot of soup, “If you’d like to put all your wet clothes there, they should dry fairly quickly.”
“Oh, uh… thanks,” Charlie replied awkwardly, “That was really thoughtful of you.”
“No worries,” Nick replied, turning to smile at Charlie, “Seems like you could use a bit of kindness in your life.”
With a tight smile, Charlie retrieved his backpack and begun loading his clothes onto the drying rack.
“What would you have done if my mum hadn’t dragged you inside?” Nick asked, startling Charlie as he appeared beside him.
Charlie shrugged, “I would’ve figured it out, I guess. Your mum is such a lovely woman, though. Does she do this a lot? Letting random gay boys live in her house for undetermined lengths of time?”
Nick let out a laugh, reaching down to put one of Charlie’s wet jumpers onto the drying rack, “Well, she lets me live here, so…”
“Oh,” Charlie replied, looking at Nick, “So you’re…”
Nick’s cheeks flushed, “I’m bisexual, yeah. If you saw the little pride flag on the counter in the shop,” he pauses to laugh, “My mum ran out and bought that like, the day after I came out to her. She’s… yeah, I love her. She’s honestly like, my best friend. Don’t tell my mates that, though. They’ll be jealous.”
Charlie shrugged, “I’d say my sister is my best friend. I… don’t really have other friends, to be honest. School was… a bad time in my life, and then I didn’t get to go to uni because of my… Well, I was really sick.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Nick replied, misinterpreting Charlie’s meaning, “Hospitals are the worst. My dad spent a lot of time there before he died. The sounds, the smell… all of it makes me sick now.”
“That must’ve been so awful to see,” Charlie replied sympathetically, hanging the last of his wet socks on the drying rack. He took a deep breath, “I wasn’t… that kind of sick, though. I was going through inpatient treatment for my eating disorder.”
Nick sat down on the couch, patting the seat next to him, “Are you okay?”
Charlie shrugged, and then sat down next to Nick, “It depends on the day, but… that’s kind of why I needed to get away from home. My mum is… she has made my recovery almost impossible. Sometimes it feels like she wants me to stay sick. I’m sorry,” he apologized, blushing, “I don’t know why I’m unloading all of this onto you.”
“I think,” Nick said slowly, quietly, “Because you’ve needed a friend for a long time. I don’t mind. I’d like to be your friend.”
Before Charlie could say or do anything he might regret, the front door opened, a rain-drenched Sarah walking through it. She smiled at the two of them as she shucked her coat, hanging it on one of the waiting hooks by the door.
“Ooh, you owe Darcy a pan of those brownies she likes,” Sarah said, “That soup smells absolutely amazing.”
Charlie turned to look at Nick, “You bake?”
“Erm… yeah,” Nick replied, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, “A little bit, I guess.”
Sarah let out a laugh, “Nicky’s being modest. He does all the baking for the shop. People line up on Sunday mornings just for the chance to grab some of his famous blackcurrant croissants before they sell out.”
Nick shrugged, “We’re basically the only bakery in town, there aren’t a lot of options.”
Charlie raised his eyebrows, “Well, will I get to try one of these famous croissants?”
Nick looked like he was about to say something, but Sarah spoke first, “Actually, you’re going to help make them. I’ve decided. I don’t need a dishwasher, but I do need someone to help Nicky keep up in the kitchen, so if you insist on helping out, that’s where you’re needed.”
Nick grinned, getting to his feet, “Guess I’ll be seeing you bright and early, then. I start baking for the day around half 5.”
Charlie groaned, getting to his feet as well, “What have I gotten myself into?”
Nick let out a laugh, “We’ll have some fun in the kitchen, you and me, I promise.”
Despite the week he’d had, despite the fact that he was almost certainly fucking cursed Charlie couldn’t help but believe him. He followed the red-haired boy and his absolutely lovely mum into the kitchen that they had so generously welcomed him into, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, the thought of a shared meal didn’t inspire paralyzing fear in him.