Let me take care of you

Court

Nick looked at Charlie and placed his hand on Charlie's lap,
"Hey, Charlie? You okay?" He asked, Charlie turned from the car window he was staring out of and gave a weak smile,
"Yeah, just stressed." He replied quietly, turning back to the window.

That was understandable, it was his court day today, the day where he would have to go into a room full of strangers and people who had caused him so much pain and review everything that had happened to him.
He has a right to be nervous, but as Nick had been reminding them the whole time, he wouldn't be there alone, his family and friends would be up there with him.

"Don't worry Charlie, I'll be with you the whole time okay? And if you feel to panicked or uncomfortable you can end the trial whenever and we can pick it up again later. Okay?" Nick said, brushing his hand against the side of Charlie's face,
"Okay..." Charlie replied, squeezing Charlie's hand. Nick smiled and blushed softly at Charlie, Charlie smiled back.

They pulled up Infront of the large white building and were greeted by stairs. Charlie groaned and rolled his eyes in annoyance. They got out of the car and Charlie's parents and Charlie helped him up the stairs to the front door. Charlie kept repeating to himself that everything would be fine and that his friends were in the crowd of people cheering him on and ready to leave if anything goes wrong.

They pushed the doors open, there was a loud creaking sound as it opened. Heads turned in awaitment as they all spotted the star of the news recently himself, Charlie Spring.

Charlie awkwardly limped down passed the hundreds of eyes staring at him in the room and made his way to his seat. He sat down by a lawyer with a kind yet serious face and spiky black hair that seemed to have a large amount of hair gel in it. He was dressed in a smart suit which made Charlie look very underdressed in his hoodie and jeans. The lawyer smiled at him and held out his hand,
"Hello Charlie, pleasure to meet you, I'm your lawyer. But you won't need me much, I'm here incase we need exact information." Charlie hesitantly took his hand and took a quick glance at Nick, who was in the front row with Charlie's parents. He nodded and put his thumbs up, Charlie turned away. He shook the lawyers hand and nodded at him.

The judge came on after a couple of minutes of the crowd talking in excitement of the trial, to Charlie it felt more like dread. The judge was an old lady with a tough talk body and a serious and start glare. She nodded over to Charlie and his lawyer,
"Charlie Spring, Mr Vallent." She said, in a greeting tone, Charlie just looked at her, not really giving an expression of response.

The turned away from the two of them,
"Everybody quiet down." She slammed her hammer down on the long wooden table and everyone fell into silence,
"Thank you, we will know begin the trial between Charles Spring and Ben Hope. Ben Hope has been charged with many different assaults towards Charles Spring in an event which happened on the 12 of May 2022, it is now July 2nd 2022, 63 days after the incident. This incident has left Charles Spring and his family in shock and outrage, let us bring justice to this fine court and the people inside it. You may now being him in." She declared as if she was bringing an animal in. The whole recap already sent chills down Charlie's spine, and made him twitch and fidget, could he handle this?

Large oak doors opened opposite Charlie and two police officers brought him in. He was shouting and shaking in rage,
"Fuck off! I didn't agree to this fucking trial!" He shouted, the officers grunted and held him back by the arms, taking him to the table beside Charlie, and sitting in between him.

The judge gave Ben a disgusted look,
"Okay, we hope to make this short, we just need you to plead your case, if you decide to cooperate with us Mr Hope." The judge said, standing up tall and towering over Ben. Ben rolled his eyes,
"Let's get this shit over with then." He said, glancing over to Charlie for a moment, his eyes dead and his face bruised. Charlie looked away quickly, taking a quick deep breath.

-

Once everyone was finally settled and they had properly done a full recap of everything, the questions began, unfortunately, she started on Charlie.
"Now, Charles Spring, will you please come up to the stand?" She said, and Charlie froze, he looked at the lawyer next to him, and he just nodded and gestured to the stand right by the judges. Charlie grabbed his crutches and stood himself up, it was a good thing that he knew how to use them properly now. He kept and eye on Ben the whole time as he went up, Ben just watched him expressionless, his hair falling Infront of his eye.

He stood Infront of the full court and eyed Nick, Nick smiled at him kindly. Charlie snapped his head to look at the judge as she spoke,
"Okay Charlie, you agree that everything I've said so far is accurate?" She asked, Charlie nodded.
"Good, now can you repeat what you told the police about your involvement with Ben before the incident?" Charlie immediately tensed up, he didn't know why, he'd done this before with the police, they were just questions.
"Uh... Yeah. So Ben was... He went to m-my school, yeah. He was... Er- dating me... F-for like a while..." Charlie tripped over his words and stuttered uncontrollably.
"What about online, what did he message you." The judge asked, pushing him to explain the death threats.

Charlie took another shaky breath,
"Oh... Yeah. Before all.. this happened I-i... Was on my phone... And then he like... He like texted me... L-like him and other numbers... And yeah...yeah they like sent th-threats... And... And like that to me..." Ben was the next to speak,
"Bullshit, you can't tie me to that, people just bullied him, I mean look at him." Ben said, anger rising in his voice, which had gotten rougher and deeper since the last time he heard him. The judge sighed in an annoyed tone,
"We have a claim from Nicholas Nelson stating that he picked up for Charlie and heard you on the call, he then blocked you, which tracked with Charlie's phone history." The judge said, as if she had explained this a lot to him,
"Bull crap! You don't know it was me! You're just trying to get me into shit here, don't lie to her Charlie! Even you fucking know it wasn't me, stop being a dumb little shit and admit it!" He shouted, sitting up higher, he was quickly shushed by the police men who glared at him menacingly.

Charlie started breathing heavily, no no no, this was not the time,
"I-i-i... I don't... Maybe it wasn't... But it s-sounded..." Ben scoffed,
"K-keep stuttering like an idiot! Earn yourself some pity points attention seeker! It's the same lying you did when you tell people we dated. We didn't do shit!" He shouted at Charlie, rolling his eyes at the gasps from the crowd. Charlie shrunk in his spot, what could he say, he was that, an attention seeker, oh god why was it getting so hot in the room all of a sudden,
"And now you're going to have a pathetic panic attack! You're just as worthless as I remember you! No one deserves to deal with your crap! Just fucking die! I should've killed you anyway!" Ben stood up from his seat and started shooting, guard slammed him back into his seat as he kicked and shouted insults at Charlie, who was know shaking and breathing heavily.

He stood up from the stand and ran as fast as his stupid crutches could take him to the nearest door he could find, the judge stood up too,
"Charlie!" She said, not as loud as Nick though, who stood up from his place and ran after him.
"Run little bitch! Or limp there! Ha! There's a pathetic sight right guys." Ben lurched himself forward to try to get out of the police men's grasp, but was shoved back into his seat with a loud thud.

Charlie just kept running, till the chaos of the room felt distant and far away.