From Heartstopper Ao3's 99 Moments of Joy countdown to season 2. (Transferred here due to Ruzzian DDOS attack)
It was around May that Charlie began to suspect that Oliver was up to something.
The first time was when Charlie went upstairs to tell Olly that it was dinner time. He took a few steps into the bedroom, only to see a curly-haired missile hurl itself against him. Before he could say anything his little brother was pushing him back with all his strength.
“You can’t come in here!” Olly exclaimed. Charlie stepped back and Olly shut the door behind him. Charlie looked down perplexed.
“Why not?” Charlie asked.
Olly rolled his eyes. “Privacy, of course,” he replied. Then he took off and pounded down the stairs to the dining room, leaving Charlie rather nonplussed. For a moment he was tempted to peek inside and see just what it was that made Olly want to keep him out so badly. Then he decided better of it and followed his little brother down the stairs.
The second time was when Olly returned home from school. Charlie and Nick were snuggled together on the sofa, watching a sweet and wholesome new Hulu drama about these two gay American boys who fall in love in high school, when the warble of Olly’s voice drifted into the room from outside.
“...from Mrs. Keaton’s art room. I picked yellow and blue, and I think the yellow is going to be the stripes, so -”
Olly pushed the door open, Dad trailing behind. The moment Olly stepped into the room he froze, eyes wide, and stared for just a moment at Charlie and Nick.
“I’m going to be in my room, so no one bother me!” Olly said, and took off up the stairs, the straps of his bookbag trailing behind him. It might have been Charlie’s imagination, but he could have sworn something was sticking out of the top.
"What was that about?" Charlie asked.
Nick shrugged. "Teenage angst?"
Charlie looked over at his father. "Is there someone going on with Olly?" he asked.
Dad shrugged. "I suppose that's for him to know and you to find out," he said. He padded into the kitchen.
"What does that even mean?" Charlie asked after him. He received no answer.
The next time was when he saw Olly coming out of his room. He had his hand under his shirt, almost as if he was hiding something.
“Olly,” Charlie said, “what were you doing in my room?”
Olly froze. “I was… looking for the Switch,” he answered.
Charlie opened his door. He looked inside. Then he looked at Olly.
“The Switch is on the shelf where it always is,” he said with narrowed eyes.
Olly rolled his eyes. “Well I didn’t see it,” he said with a tone of prepubescent exasperation.
Charlie narrowed his eyes. “What have you got there?” he asked, indicating the hand that was still under Olly’s shirt.
“Nothing!” Olly insisted. With a smirk Charlie lunged for his brother. Olly dodged and managed to swerve around him. Charlie overbalanced and rolled over, narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the wall, and Olly dashed down the hall to his room, slamming the door shut. Charlie could hear the sound of scraping, as if a chair were being propped up against the door to block it.
Hearing the commotion, Tori poked her head out of her room.
“Is something going on with Olly?” Charlie asked her. Tori remained silent, simply raising an eyebrow.
“He’s been acting very strange lately,” Charlie continued, “and he won’t say anything about why.”
Tori continued to remain silent, though a glint had crept into her eyes.
“Victoria,” Charlie said, now somewhat scandalised, “You know something, don’t you?”
His sister made no move to confirm or deny this.
“Well what is it?” Charlie asked, “What’s going on with Olly?”
Tori simply smiled enigmatically. “I’m sure you’d like to know, Charles,” she replied, before slinking back into her room.
The mystery of what Olly was up to seemed like it would never be solved. A few days later Charlie, Tao, Elle, Aled, and Nick were watching a film in the lounge when Olly entered the door, Mum right behind him. Something square and boxy was very clearly hidden under his shirt, the outline clearly visible as Olly held it up by the hem.
“What are you smuggling in?” Charlie asked.
Olly fixed him with a weary, supercilious look. "Charlie, if I were smuggling something in, why would I be stupid enough to smuggle it under my shirt?"
"I never said anything about your shirt," Charlie replied, satisfied that he'd finally caught his little brother in a lie.
Olly's eyes widened. He froze for a moment.
"Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to!" he said, and took off up the stairs yet again.
"I do want the answers!" Charlie called after him. Nick had collapsed into giggles behind him. Tao and Elle snickered to themselves, while Aled just looked confused.
Charlie turned to his mum. "What is Olly up to?" he asked.
Mum's only reply was to smile enigmatically; it was an expression that looked very Tori-like. "You'll find out soon enough," she said.
Charlie was beginning to despair of ever learning the reason for Olly’s odd behaviour. It was June, and their “thirdaversary” was coming up, so-called because he and Nick could never decide between the day they met, the kiss at Harry’s party and/or the kiss in his bedroom the next morning, or their beach date as their proper anniversary. Charlie was beginning to think maybe he was imagining things - maybe he was going mad, even. He was certain that the photo booth pictures of him and Nick from their beach date had gone missing from their spot in his bedside table, but when he looked for them for the ninth time there they were, tucked away right where he left them.
When he saw Olly rummaging around in the bin in the kitchen clearly trying to push something to the bottom, he didn’t even bother asking what he was up to. He just walked past him, grabbed his meal plan from the shelf over the sink, and began preparing his usual Monday breakfast. In the reflection of the stainless steel he could see Olly back out of the kitchen, keeping an eye on Charlie until he was out of sight.
When he heard an exasperated “Oliver!” from Mum, he didn’t even look up from his maths revision. GCSEs were coming up, and he had better things to do than wonder what Olly had done to set Mum off, or why the vacuum was running in his brother’s room, haphazardly at first as someone (Olly, most likely) tried to push it across the floor, then with an irate huff Mum grabbed ahold of it and hoovered up whatever it was herself.
The day of the anniversary of their beach date, he and Nick had a plan to go to the milkshake stand, just the two of them. After that they were going to go back to Nick’s (Sarah inexplicably had a girls’ night planned and was planning on spending the night at a friends’ rather than drive back) and Nick had promised that he would do That Other Thing, which he had read about after a late night of Googling and was excited to try out, since That One Thing had been such a hit.
He greeted Nick with a kiss. Nick decided that wasn’t enough and scooped Charlie up, spinning him around before setting him back on the ground, giggling.
“Your chariot awaits,” Nick said, gesturing grandly.
Charlie snorted. “Can you really call a used Fiat a chariot?”
“Oi,” Nick chided, “I don’t see you with a drivers licence.”
“Fine,” Charlie chuckles, “let’s hope Bucephalus doesn’t die before we get there.”
“Bu-what?” Nick asked, nose scrunched.
“Alexander the Great’s horse,” Charlie explained.
“That’s from Don Quixote.”
“Well then,” Nick replied, “I’m pretty sure the windmills are waiting for us.”
They turned to leave, only to turn at the sound of feet pounding down the stairs.
“WAIT!” Olly called after them.
He skidded to a halt in front of them, holding something behind his back.
“You can’t leave without this!” he exclaimed, holding something out to them.
It was the most over-engineered card Charlie had ever seen.
It was a card made from blue cardstock with yellow stripes glued onto it. A white rectangle had been glued overtop that, and the words “Happy Aniversery!” were spelt out in quite a lot of blue glitter. The entire thing was trimmed in even more glitter, and little gold firework stickers studded the front and the back.
Nick took it from him and opened it. As he did so, a pop-up unfolded, which appeared to be a blown-up version of one of the pictures they had taken in the photo booth at the beach, cut out and glued to more cardstock. The entire thing when closed had to be a little over half an inch thick.
With the background cut out, the pop-up showed Charlie sat on Nick's lap, Nick kissing Charlie on the cheek. Both of them were blushing very brightly.
"Is that why you were in my room?" Charlie asked with an indulgent smile.
Olly nodded. "I had to wait ages for you to be gone so I could grab it," he complained, "you're always in there."
Charlie saw the inside of the card was peppered with stickers of falling leaves. Written in yet more glitter were the words “Nick and Charlie,” on one side, and “In any universe,” on the other.
“Olly,” Nick said, “I can see you worked very hard on this,”
“So do you like it?” Olly asked with wide eyes.
Charlie crouched down to Olly’s level. “Best anniversary present ever.”
Olly’s face fell. “But you haven’t gotten any other anniversary presents!”
That wasn’t true, strictly speaking - That One Thing was an early anniversary present, according to Nick, but Charlie wasn’t about to tell Olly that.
Charlie cupped the back of Olly’s head. “Yeah,” he said, “But I already know it’ll be better than anything else.”
“You can’t know that,” Olly objected, “Someone might get you a car or a dolphin or a rocket ship or something.”
Charlie laughed. "Come here, you.” Olly stepped forward into Charlie's arms and Charlie picked him up, holding him like a baby. Then suddenly he felt himself rising into the air with a yelp as Nick in turn picked him up. Olly giggled while Charlie’s face turned extremely red (Nick was wearing a vest that put his strong rugby arms on display, and his muscles were extra-rippley with the effort of picking up Charlie and an 8-year-old at the same time.) Nick kissed him on the cheek.
He set the both of them down.
“Do you like it, Nick,” Olly asked, looking up at him.
“Best anniversary present ever,” Nick said, “just like Charlie said.”
Olly beamed. Then a shadow crossed his face.
“But I only made one, and I gave it to both of you,” he said. “I didn’t think of that. And you can’t cut it in half like they did to that baby in the story from Grandma’s church, because then the pop-up won’t work.”
“I think it should stay in Charlie’s room,” Nick replied, “That way I’ll have a reason to come over.”
“Hey!” Charlie objected, punching Nick lightly on a well-muscled shoulder.
Olly nodded. “That makes sense,” he agreed, “Plus, it’s really nice when you come over, because then I have someone I can beat in Mario Kart.”
“Oi!” Nick objected. Charlie chortled.
The two of them stood up. “Well,” Charlie said, “shall we go?”
Nick nodded. “It was nice seeing you, Olly,” he said, “Thank you so much for the card.”
They were getting into Nick’s beat-up yellow fiat when Olly poked his head out the door.
“I almost forgot,” he called, “there’s a secret message in it, too.”
Charlie examined the card, turning it over in his hands. He noticed that on the back of the pop-up there was a bit cut out on three sides, and it bulged slightly. Opening it, he found a folded sheet of notebook paper. In Oliver’s looping scrawl, there was a note.
Charlie, you’ve always been a really great big brother, but sometimes it seemed like you were sad and you were pretending you weren’t so you wouldn’t make other people sad, too. Then you met Nick, and you fell in love with him, and you seem a lot happier now, even when you had to go away for a while to get better.
Nick, you’re like having an extra brother, which is really cool, because that means I have two brother and a sister, and that’s more than anyone else in my class. Also you make Charlie happy, even when he’s really sad or not eating or has to go away to get better, and that’s good. I’m sorry your dad isn’t around a lot, and it seems like you and your brother don’t get along a lot, which is sad, because I know I’d be really sad if I didn’t get along with Charlie and Tori. I think Charlie makes you happy, too, though.
I’m really glad you met each other, and I can’t wait for you to be together forever and ever and get married and get a house with loads of dogs and I can visit the dogs while I’m an astronaut or whatever job I’ll have as a grown-up. I love you both loads.
Charlie’s vision blurred, and he wiped his eyes. Nick looked over at him concerned, but Charlie simply smiled and leaned his head on Nick’s shoulder. He stayed that way all the way to the cafe. He was with his person, the one he’d find in any universe, and all was right with the world.
P.S.: Nick actually properly cried when he read the note.
P.P.S.: It turns out Charlie really liked That Other Thing.
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