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Nick Nelson had never been the jealous type. He had always been a mild mannered boy, happily sharing both his toys and candy with other kids. When he grew older he was always generous with others, always sharing and not thinking twice about it. He was never suspicious of other people’s intentions and found it easy to have trust in others.
But now there was no mistaking it, Nick Nelson was jealous, and fiercely so. He and Charlie had been dating for almost two years now, and in that time he had taken to notice how he wasn’t the only one who had eyes for Charlie. And it wasn’t surprising to him that people noticed just how beautiful, cute, kind and amazing his boyfriend was. Of course, other people would fall in love with Charlie, it was inevitable with Charlie being Charlie. It was just…just…why did other guys think it was ok to shamelessly flirt with Charlie when Charlie was already together with Nick? What the fuck were they up to? Who did they think they were?
And they had the audacity to do it right in front of Nick too and act like he wasn’t even there. Nick was fuming. And Charlie was as oblivious as ever, never really noticing the way other guys looked at him or taking notice of just how many compliments they paid him.
Nick and Charlie were standing together in the hallway chatting and holding hands when James approached them. Nick didn’t like James. The guy always seemed to find any excuse to touch Charlie. He would often bring Charlie in for long hugs, sometimes even tug at his curls (disguised as teasing, but Nick knew better). Nick would always find himself silently grumbling and fighting the urge to just yank Charlie away from the grasp of the other boy and proclaim that he was the only one who got to play with Charlie’s curls, thank you very much. He didn’t want to come off as an asshole, but he was so sick of watching James fucking McEwan flirt with his boyfriend.
“So, Charlie,” James started cheerfully, “Are you ready to work on our project?”
“Oh, hi, James!” Charlie said, smiling that dimpled smile that made Nick weak at the knees. Nick looked over at James and apparently he wasn’t the only one affected by Charlie’s dazzling smile. That stupid git. “We can just go to my house now, Nick will walk with us.”
“Oh, hi, Nick,” James said, not as cheerful as before, “I didn’t notice you there.”
Nick just waved and tried not to roll his eyes. Sure, he didn’t. “Charlie, is it alright if I’m there as well? I don’t want to go home and see David.” It wasn’t a complete lie, Nick didn’t want to go home and see his asshole older brother who was home from uni, but he also just wanted to keep close to Charlie. Of course, he trusted Charlie, knew that Charlie loved him and didn’t have an interest in James, but the thought of the two of them alone in Charlie’s room just made him sick to his stomach, alright? And it wasn’t really a crime to want to spend time with his boyfriend, he reasoned.
Charlie just smiled brilliantly at him, and Nick’s heart stuttered. “Yes, of course, silly.”
“Thanks, love.” Nick replied and then tugged Charlie gently towards him and pulled him in for a soft kiss. Charlie sighed happily into the kiss, but seconds later he was pulling away, a blush covering his face as he obviously remembered that James was present and that they were in the hallway. He smiled shyly at the ground before slipping his hand inside Nick’s. James was staring morosely at the ground, and Nick couldn’t help the little smirk that formed on his mouth.
“Let’s go then” Charlie said, and Nick nodded, still keeping a tight grip on Charlie’s hand. As they were walking there was a long silence until James decided to speak.
“You look so pretty today, Charlie.” All Charlie did was say a quiet thank you. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that James was flirting with him. Nick was torn. On one hand he was glad that Charlie didn’t notice the others, because what if he realised that he could do so much better than Nick? But on the other hand, it broke his heart that Charlie had such a low view of himself that he didn’t entertain the possibility that someone was interested in him. Nick thought back to when he had told Charlie that he liked him two years ago, and how Charlie had been so surprised to hear Nick utter those words, as though he didn’t think it was possible for Nick to like him.
“Are things very bad with David?” Charlie asked him.
“Well, they’re not good, but really I’m just using it as an excuse to spend as much time as possible with my favourite person.”
“Oh, and who’s that?” Charlie asked, smirking.
“Well, Nellie of course!”
“I always knew you loved your dog more than me.” Charlie giggled.
“Obviously it’s you, idiot.” Nick said with a fond roll of his eyes.
“Watch who you’re calling an idiot, Rugby Lad!”
“You’re a rugby lad too, Char!”
“Not in spirit!”
“Wow, you sure you guys are in love?” James asked suddenly. “You fight an awful lot.”
Fighting? Nick could count on one hand the number of times that he and Charlie had truly fought. Did James think this was fighting, that Nick and Charlie were genuinely annoyed with each other? This was basically flirting, for fuck’s sake! Suddenly he felt panicked. He had always considered it flirting but was it possible that Charlie was really annoyed and felt that Nick was annoying him?
Before he could spiral further, Charlie started replying to James. “Nah, this is just how we flirt,” Charlie said easily. He smiled at Nick, dimples on full display, and Nick’s heart fluttered.
When they arrived at Charlie’s house they quickly walked up to Charlie’s bedroom. Charlie and James opened their backpacks and pulled out books and paper and laptops. Charlie turned to Nick.
“We’ll just start working right away, if that’s alright with you?” Charlie said.
“I’ll just make myself comfortable,” Nick gestured to Charlie’s bed, “And just scroll on my phone.”
Charlie gave him a quick peck. “Right, let’s do this, then,” he said to James.
James and Charlie went over to Charlie’s desk and started talking. “Maybe we could make a powerpoint, to like, give the audience a better overview of our topic,” James suggested.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”
Nick pulled out his phone and started and started chatting with Tara and Darcy, telling them all about the stupid, useless boy in his boyfriend’s bedroom. It was all good until they started to offer advice.
Tara
Maybe you should just tell Charlie how you’re feeling…
Nick
Why? It’s not his fault that he’s so perfect and wonderful that everybody loves him
Darcy
u could just fight that guy
go all caveman u know?
Tara
Or that I guess
Darcy
so what will it be?
Nick
Right, so according to the two of you, my two options are either talking about it or resorting to violence?
Darcy
yeah so choose wisely my guy
anyway i have to go
Nick
I don’t wanna do either of those…
Tara
I have to go too, but seriously Nick, just talk to him…and don’t fight James either way
Nick
I wasn’t planning on fighting him!
For the next two hours, Nick listened to James’s endless attempts at flirting with Charlie. It was getting harder and harder for Nick to stay silent. He felt himself shake with the urge to just walk over and push James away and tell him to just go the fuck home. At one point, Charlie dropped his pen on the floor, and Nick could clearly see James ogling his boyfriend’s perfect bum as he bent to pick it up. Fucking prick.
But finally, he heard Charlie say, “We’re done!”
“Thanks to you! You’re so smart it’s unbelievable!” James said, sounding reverent. Nick wanted to vomit.
“I’ll show you the way out,” Charlie said. James stood up reluctantly and looked as though he wanted to say something, but then he simply followed Charlie out the door and down the stairs.
Nick let out a sigh of relief and put away his phone. It was very obvious that James couldn’t care less that Charlie had a boyfriend. Charlie walked back to his room and smiled at Nick. “Sorry that took so long.”
“No problem, you had to get your project done, now get over here,”
Charlie enthusiastically walked over to Nick and sat down in his lap. Once Charlie was seated Nick leaned in and presses his lips against his. What Charlie thought was a sweet kiss quickly turned into something more. Charlie let out a small moan when Nick turned them over so that Charlie was on his back, and Nick was hovering over him. Nick pulled away from Charlie’s lips and started to kiss his neck. He lightly bit on the skin of Charlie’s neck and then sucked hard. Charlie bucked his hips up when Nick bit down on a tender area. Once Nick was positive that Charlie’s neck was littered with hickeys he pulled away and looked at the panting boy under him. Charlie’s cheeks were flushed, and his lips were red from the intense kiss.
“Are you ok?” Charlie asked. Sometimes it was astonishing how well Charlie could read Nick’s emotions.
“Yeah, obviously, I just needed to kiss you,” Nick lied.
“I don’t believe you, is this about James? You’re always acting a little off when he’s around.”
Nick sighed, time to come clean. “Ok fine, I don’t like him.”
“Yeah, no shit.” Charlie giggled, and Nick was relieved to see that he didn’t seem mad that Nick didn’t like James. “Why though?”
“Because of the flirting, Charlie!”
“What flirting?”
“You are unmerciful, you know that? Did you really not know James was flirting with you? How many times today has he called you pretty, clever, you name it? How many times has he tried to touch you? Also, he totally ogled your bum when you bent to pick up your pen…which you know, so did I, but I’m your fucking boyfriend and I have rights!” Nick was panting by the time he finished his rant.
For a little while he was worried that he had crossed some sort of line and that Charlie would say that he was way too possessive or something, but then Charlie smiled at him.
“Ah, I understand now, you were just jealous.” he said, petting Nick’s hair. Nick couldn’t help it, he leaned into the touch.
“Yes, and with good reason! He didn’t even care that I was in the room, just kept flirting with you in front of me!”
“You know you have nothing to worry about, right?” Charlie said softly, tracing his fingers up and down Nick’s arm. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice, it’s just hard for me to pick up on the signs, no matter if it’s obvious to everyone else.”
“I know that, I’m not blaming you, I’m blaming James, the stupid, useless, motherfu..”
Nick’s last insult was cut off by Charlie. “I know you aren’t blaming me, Nick. There’s another reason I don’t notice, and that’s because I literally only have eyes for you. Why would I look at anyone else when I have you?”
Nick sighed and to his embarrassment he felt a tear slide down his cheek. “I know, Char, I know. I just get insecure sometimes, you know? And you’re so amazing, beautiful, sexy, kind and perfect and I sometimes worry that you’ll wake up one day and realise that you can do so much better than me.”
Charlie placed his hand on Nick’s cheek, brushing away the tear “That will never happen, your brain is just being mean to you, trust me I would know. I don’t want you to ever worry about me leaving you, because it will never happen.” Charlie pressed his lips against Nicks and gave him a tender and gentle kiss. Nick pushed his body closer to Charlies and deepened the kiss.
Charlie flipped them and straddled Nick’s hips. He then pulled away from Nick and heard the boy under him whimper before he started to kiss and suck on his neck. By the end, Nick was moaning uncontrollably, painfully hard in his pants.
“I need you to listen when I say this, because it’s important to me that you know this. I love you so much, and I want you forever. The only way you’re getting rid of me is if you decide to leave me.” When Charlie finished speaking Nick had tears brimming in his eyes and the biggest, dopiest smile on his face.
“As if I’d ever leave you. I love you more than anything in the world.” Nick said thickly, and another tear fell. Charlie kissed his cheek and laid his head on Nick’s broad chest.
And alright, maybe Nick still didn’t like it when people flirted with his boyfriend, but he knew now, without a doubt, that no matter how many people fell in love with Charlie, that he and Charlie were forever.