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Charlie had made it a bit of a habit to just appear at Nick’s door, especially during the summer. He just couldn’t take all of the time spent cooped up with his family. Nick was a simp and didn’t mind this that much though.
Nick had been in the backyard with Nellie one day when Charlie had shown up. Nick felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket
Charlie <3: you said your mum’s at the store right?
Charlie <3: well it’s really fucking hot
Charlie <3: and i just walked here
Charlie <3: so you should let me inside
Nick decided it’d be more fun to scare Charlie than to let him inside like a normal person. So Nick instead went through the gate that led from the back of the house to the front of it, careful to make sure Nellie wouldn’t start barking and give away the surprise. Once he was on the side of his house, Nick texted Charlie back as a diversion.
Me: be there in a sec
Once the bubble popped up to show Charlie was typing, Nick made his move. He ran around to the front of the house, grabbed Charlie’s waist, and picked him up.
“Holy fucking shit!” Charlie’s surprised shouts mixed with Nick’s laughter at his rather stupid prank.
“Got you,” Nick giggled as he put Charlie down.
“Nick!” Charlie whined. “For why?”
“For funny,” Nick rested his head on Charlie’s shoulder.
Charlie leaned into him. “Were you even inside?”
“No, I was in the back with Nellie.”
“In this weather?” Charlie turned his head to look at Nick. “How are you not dying?”
“Maybe because I’m not wearing like 3 layers.”
“One, it’s only two layers,”
“Oh pardon me, so terribly sorry I miscalculated the number of layers you’re wearing in the middle of fucking June,” Nick interrupted sarcastically.
“And two,” Charlie ignored Nick’s interruption. “It’s called fashion.”
“Can’t you have fashion without layers in the summer?”
“Technically yes, but I’m gay. How the fuck am I supposed to signal to the other queer people that I too am not basic without suffering through the layers?”
“Charlie, darling, have you looked in a mirror recently?” Nick lifted his head from Charlie’s shoulder. “You just look gay. I think you still will without the layers,” Charlie looked unconvinced. “Here,” Nick reached to take off the flannel Charlie was wearing. “Now tie this around your waist.”
Charlie did as he was told.
“Look at that, you still look like you’re gay. Magic.”
“If you say so,” Charlie shrugged as he started heading towards the gate.
“Where you going?”
“I thought we talked about this before. I’m only dating you for your dogs.”
“How could I forget? What like a year and a half of us being together solely because Charlie Spring the cat person can spend time with my dogs?”
“Precisely.”
Nick laughed as he followed Charlie to the gate. “Oh, and I was thinking-”
“Oh god,” Charlie groaned dramatically.
“Hey! I have good ideas sometimes.”
“Emphasis on sometimes, Nicholas.”
“Well, Charles, I think you might like this one.”
“Enlighten me.”
“You know that thing on tiktok where people spray their dog with the different settings on the hose and have them rank it?”
“You wanna do that with Nellie?”
“Yeah. I’d actually just turned the hose on when you’d texted me.”
“I retract my prior doubt. That’s a pretty damn good idea.”
Nick smiled. “I know, that’s why I thought of it.”
“Jesus Christ,” Charlie rolled his eyes fondly.
“Well come on, we shouldn’t stand in front of this gate all afternoon. Nellie’s probably started digging at the fence again.”
~~~
After the two made their way to the back, Nick picked up the hose. “Nellie!” He called to the dog. “Come’re!”
Nellie bounded over and almost knocked Nick over. Charlie always thought it was hilarious how similar the two were, insane bundles of love and energy that probably only shared a handful of brain cells between them. Charlie loved both of them for that.
Nick had turned the setting on the hose to center. “All the ones I’ve seen have the dogs really liking this one.”
“Nick, are you on ‘having my dog rank hose settings’ tiktok?”
Nick smiled sheepishly. “Maybe,” changing the subject, Nick started spraying water at Nellie.
It took her a few seconds to realize what was happening, but when she did she started going insane. She ran around in the spray barking, she bit the water several times and barked at Nick until he brought the stream lower to the ground.
Charlie laughed at Nellie's reaction to the hose. "She's going fucking feral over that water right now. You're quite literally shattering the fabric of her reality."
Nick smiled as he took in Charlie's sheer joy. "Well what if this hose doesn't just shatter Nellie's reality?"
"The fuck does that mean?" Charlie’s inquisitive look still maintained that bright smile that had been threatening Nick’s self-control all afternoon.
Now, Nick wasn't stupid. He was just a himbo with a singular brain cell. Which led to there being very little time between the thought and the action with quite literally everything. This was why Charlie was getting soaked.
“Nick!”
At the sound of his name, Nick turned the hose back to Nellie, stifling his laughter. “Charlie,” He said after regaining some of his composure.
“Thank fucking god I put my phone on the table over there or you would’ve soaked it!”
Nick had completely forgotten about Charlie’s phone and whether or not he had it on him. Again, zero time between the thought and the action.
Charlie walked over to where Nick was avoiding eye contact and took the hose from him. “Give me that.”
“Oh shit.”
“Oh, shit is right. Except I’m going to make sure you don’t have your phone on you first,” Charlie had aimed the hose at Nick like it was a gun of some sort.
“And what if I refuse to give up my phone?” Nick had put his hands up but still asked the question smugly.
Charlie glanced over at the table the Nelsons’ had on their porch and saw Nick’s phone next to his. Nick followed his gaze and let the fear take hold of him. “I don’t think I need to worry about if you have it, actually. Start running, Nelson.”
Without even giving Nick time to process what he’d said, Charlie started spraying Nick with the hose and following him as he ran around the backyard. If Nellie was going feral before, she’d lost her goddamn mind at that point. The mix between Nick begging Charlie to stop, Charlie laughing, and Nellie going ape shit must’ve been concerning for the neighbors to hear.
At some point, they’d made it to a standoff. Charlie wasn’t actively spraying the hose, but he had it raised to face Nick. Nick was trying to figure out an escape route, he wasn’t quite cornered but anyway he’d run had him running around in circles again. Nellie was rolling around in the mud caused by all of the water being sprayed.
Nick eyed the gate and Charlie’s eyes followed. They both made a dash for it but Charlie, being a faster runner and closer to it, made it first. Nick stopped in front of him a few seconds after.
Charlie smirked. “Any last words Mr. Nelson?”
Charlie knew the scene must have been hilarious to anyone watching over the rather low fence, or anyone who could hear. Nick was absolutely soaked and dripping water, Nellie was covered in mud and had started beefing with a bird up in a tree, and Charlie was threatening his boyfriend with a hose. It wasn’t the way he’d intended to spend the afternoon, but it was a good time regardless.
Nick thought for a few moments before saying anything. “Actually I do have some.”
“Well, we don’t have all day.”
“You forgot about my ‘strong rugby arms’ as you call them.”
All Charlie managed to get out was an anticipatory ‘fuck’ before Nick had slung him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. But Charlie still had the hose, so he changed the setting to mist while Nick was gloating over his ‘absurd victory’ and how ‘they should make an action movie out of this and we should make Tao watch it’. Then he started spraying Nick’s back.
“What the fuck?”
“While you might have the physical advantage, I still have the hose.”
This started a cycle of Nellie going feral because of the vibes, and Nick and Charlie fighting over the hose itself while spraying each other with it. At some point, this had devolved into Charlie gaining control of the hose again, but now Nick’s shoes were so caked in mud that he kept slipping and falling into more mud.
When Sarah had made it back from the store, she hear the commotion in the back and figured Charlie had come over before deciding to check on the two. She was expecting to find them playing with Nellie or messing with each other to account for the noise, but that wasn’t what she found. The scene she walked in on was Charlie towering over Nick with the garden hose, and both her son and dog being covered in mud.
Charlie froze when he saw her walk in. “In my defense, Nick started it.”
“Don’t you throw me under the bus you little-” Charlie sprayed Nick with the hose to shut him up.
“I’ll…” Sarah didn’t even know what to make of the fiasco, “I’ll get you both some towels. Nick, you and Nellie aren’t allowed inside until she’s clean and all three of you are dry. Once you’ve come inside you’re taking a shower and putting your muddy clothes in the wash. Charlie, you aren't my son or dog so feel free to do whatever you want, just don’t track any mud inside.”
Once they’d heard the door close both of them dissolved into laughter. Sure it was a muddier and much more chaotic afternoon than the two had been planning, but regardless, both boys were convinced that regardless of what they spent their time doing, as long as they did it together it would be a good one.