I Can Hear Your Silence (A Heartstopper FanFic -- BOOK 2)

2. Apart

"What do you mean he's missing?"

"Helen isn't really allowed to tell me any particular details," said Sarah grimly. "But she said his neighbour found his flat empty. His cat had been yowling for food. There was no sign of a struggle but Helen and her team think he might have been kidnapped."

Nick swallowed his gulp of tea with some difficulty. He had not felt that sickening feeling in waking hours for a while. He pushed it down now and tried to ignore it.

"But, why?"

"I don't know, baby." His mum was watching him carefully over the rim of her mug, obviously having been dreading telling him this news. "Look, I don't want you to worry about it too much, Nicky. I just thought you'd want to know what's going on."

As they tucked into their lunch, Nick hardly noticed whether it was in fact as delicious as it'd smelt. He wasn't sure why this news had struck him so hard. He hardly knew Tony. He hardly liked Tony.

But Tony had been the one to kill Kane.

He was probably fine.

Nick focused instead on his food and answering his mum's enquiry about what he wanted adding to the Tesco order.

When they had finished eating, Nick set his empty plate in the dishwasher and excused himself to go upstairs and unpack. Once inside his room however, he dumped his suitcase in the corner and flopped onto his bed, reaching for his phone.

The news about Tony had him feeling far too jittery and anxious and he knew there was only one thing, one person, that would help.

When the screen clicked through however, the curly dark fringe which greeted him was not the one he had been expecting.

"Hi, Nick!" Oliver cried. The sound was heavily muffled as the little boy shifted about, moving the phone haphazardly so that the picture blurred. "Say something in French! Charlie said you can speak French --!"

"Give that here," came Charlie's voice from off screen.

"No!" The screen blurred once again as Oliver yanked the phone determinedly out of reach. "I want to talk to Nick."

Nick laughed, already feeling ten times better. "Hi, Olly. How've you been?"

"Okay. Can you really speak French because your dad is French?"

"Yep."

"Say something, say something!"

"Um... oui?"

"Oliver, stop pestering him," said Charlie, crawling onto his bed to sit beside his brother. "Please, give me the phone."

Nick grinned as Charlie's head appeared next to Oliver's. "What do you want me to say?"

"How about 'please let your brother have his phone back so he can speak to his boyfriend in peace'?" Charlie suggested.

Oliver pouted but --

"S'il te plaît! Rends son téléphone à ton frère, pour qu'il puisse parler à son petit ami en paix."

Nick flushed at the looks of impressed admiration on both of the Spring brothers' faces.

In an attempt to cover up his own flustered state, Charlie managed to wrestle his phone away from Oliver and settled down against the headboard, finally lining the screen up well enough so that Nick could see him clearly.

"Say merci to Nick, then, Oliver."

"Merci, Nick," Oliver sing-songed.

"Pas de problème, Olly. Au revoir!"