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Charlie dragged his bag through the airport arrivals gate, scanning the lounge for the sign directing him to the train platform, instead alighting on a sign with his name on it, held by a grinning Nick.
“What are you doing here? I thought your conference didn’t finish till this afternoon.” He asked, throwing himself into his husband’s arms. Charlie breathed in Nick’s scent, loving the feeling of being home.
“It didn’t, but I skipped out of the closing address. I listened to the livestream on the way here. I didn’t miss much. Coming to pick you up was a much better use of my time.” Nick said into Charlie’s neck. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
They spent the drive home catching up on all the little things that hadn’t come up on their nightly facetimes over the three weeks Charlie had been in Spain, Holding hands as they travelled, relishing the ability to have physical contact again. Even on such a small scale, it was a way of recharging for both of them.
“I don’t want to travel on my own for so long again, even if I could communicate by myself this time.”
“It’s nice to know you love me for more than my translation skills.” Nick joked, but he understood. This trip, at three weeks, had been the longest they had been apart since his first year of University, when Charlie had still been at Truham. Even then it had been rare for them to go three weeks without one or the other travelling to reunite them for a weekend.
“Seriously. I didn’t appreciate how lonely it would be without you. And stressful.”
“What sort of stressful?” Nick asked gently. Charlie could sense the concern in his voice.
“Normal stressful. I’m still eating fine.” Charlie lifted Nick’s hand up for a kiss then covered it, sandwiching Nick’s hand between his in his lap. “It was mostly not having anyone to debrief with at the end of the day. But it has made me realise how I’ll have to be careful when it’s time for writing. That seems to be when everyone pulls their hair out.”
“We’ll go back to your meal plans for when you’re writing then. Before then if you need it, as soon as you feel it will be helpful.” Nick’s voice was somehow a mix of firm, worried, and gentle, all at once.
“OK. But right now I’m fine. I promise. All I need is some husbandly hugs and to sleep in my own bed again.”
Nick grinned briefly at Charlie, then brought his hand up to his mouth to kiss it.“Those can be arranged.”
—--------
It’s the little things he missed while Charlie was away, the chatting about their day of course, but also they way that they each always make the other a cup of tea when they make themselves one. They never ask, they just do. Usually they drink it, sometimes they don’t, but it’s the making of the tea, not the drinking of the tea Nick finds important. It leads to mugs left all over their flat necessitating a mug collection tour every time they do the dishes, but it’s worth it to Nick. It’s worth it for the little bit of love they exchange every time they make a mug of tea.
“Mum came to see me while you were away.” Nick stated, as he placed a cup of tea down on Charlie’s bedside cabinet.
“I would have been surprised if she hadn’t.” Charlie responded sleepily, still snuggled into the bedclothes.
“Yeah, but there was more to it than that, she brought David with her ” Charlie woke up a bit and turned his head in surprise sensing there was more to come. “Gramps and Grandma are moving into an apartment at a retirement village. She says they’re starting to feel too frail to be on their own and want to move while they have the energy to settle in and make friends.”
Nick put his mug of tea down on his side of the bed, before climbing back under the covers and snuggling up to Charlie’s back, making sure he was getting enough restorative husbandly hugs. “She wondered if we wanted to move into their house. Well, if we wanted to buy it actually. Part of it anyway”
“Your grandparents' house? Us?” Charlie craned his head then flipped around in Nick’s arms, putting his hands on Nick’s chest and leaning back to peer into his face.
“Mmm. Their wills currently leave it to the younger grandchildren, so Me, David, the twins, and Daniel. If we agree, they’d gift me a quarter now in lieu of an inheritance…er, later” Nick said euphemistically. “If we buy out a quarter of the house, the value of the rest of it drops below the threshold for paying inheritance tax.”
“We’d have to buy the other half of the house from the estate at some point, but we’d do so with lots of equity. I asked why not 20%, you know ‘cause there’s five of us, and apparently if we buy 25% it avoids the inheritance tax and they could leave us all more that way. A quarter of an untaxed 75% is more than a fifth of a taxed 80% or something.”
“Why us, and not David? Or any of the other cousins?”
“Well, aside from the fact we're the only ones local, apparently Gramps and Grandma already gave Matt, Becca, and Nathan money for down payments on their houses, and other than David, the others are too young to be thinking about it” Nick responded. “David said they weren’t interested because the house will need some renovations and that’s not something they want to tackle. Not at this point in their lives.” Nick hesitated a little, then continued. “He didn’t say so, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they plan on giving Fleur a sibling soon, which probably played into it as well.”
“That’s a bit out of the blue” Charlie pondered, “the house thing, not the maybe baby thing.” Charlie clarified, and wriggling up to a sitting position, and grabbing his tea “I hadn’t really thought yet about buying a house. Do you want to buy a house? Do you want to buy their house?”
Nick pulled himself up to sit beside Charlie. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since Mum and David came around. I waited to tell you because I thought it was something we should talk about in person.”
Charlie nodded and made a noise of understanding, encouraging Nick to continue.
“I guess I thought if we were going to buy a house it would be after you were Dr Spring, but…yeah. I think I do want to.” Nick admitted. “I looked into the financial implications too. I reckon the bank would allow us to buy the quarter on just my income, then once you’ve got a regular income rather than a study grant we can buy out the other half. It would be a stretch for a few years but we could do it.
“You’ve thought about it a bit then.”
“Yeah. I had to do something to pass the time while my husband was off gallivanting across Iberia.”
“Hey!” Charlie exclaimed, but he could feel the teasing grin in Nick’s voice, even if he was trying to hide it behind the mug. “If you want to snag a doctor you have to make sacrifices.”
Nick chuckled then continued with a touch of wistfulness “I also thought, if we lived in a house and not just a flat we'd have space for an office, and for your drums, and if we owned a place with a garden…. we could get a dog.”
“Oh, it all makes sense now. The house is for the dog.” Charlie teased.
“Of course. Why else would we buy a house?” Nick said as seriously as he could muster through the smirk he was suppressing.
“We can get a dog when we buy our own place.” Charlie promised. “But I’m not committing to buying this house until I’ve thought it through properly. Which means for longer than five minutes. And somewhere other than bed.”
“Fair enough.” Nick accepted, snuggling up to Charlie’s back again. “Hey Charlie?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re gonna get a dog.”
—------------------------
Things moved quite quickly once they made the decision to buy Nick’s grandparents house. There was a flurry of meetings with lawyers and bank people, calculations as to their income and payments. The signing of documents to say Nick and Charlie would meet all upkeep costs from that point and had the right to alter the house how they saw fit even when they only owned 50% of the property. There was a meeting with Nick’s Grandparents and cousins to clarify the ownership and future inheritance, and papers for everyone to sign confirming their understanding of the arrangement, and how they would buy the rest of the house from the estate at some point in the future. Contingency plans were made for the event Nick's grandparents passed sooner than anticipated.
And then suddenly it was done.
Two months after they first discussed it Nicholas Nelson and Charles Spring were homeowners.
Charlie had been to the house with Nick for family events while his grandparents lived there, and they had visited a couple of times over the past couple of months while the paperwork was being sorted, but it was quite different unlocking the door and letting himself in. The knowledge that he had the right to do so didn’t do much to combat the feeling of sneaking into someone else's home.
He wandered through the house aimlessly, acquainting himself with his new home. His and Nick’s home. The house was large enough and in such a location they’d likely never need to move even if they did have kids Someday. That was a heady feeling for someone still a couple of months shy of his 25th birthday.
“Honey, I’m home!” Nick’s voice called out. “I brought dinner.” Charlie rolled his eyes as he descended the stairs.
“That was very cringe” he declared. “Even for us”. Charlie grabbed the bag of food with one hand, encircling Nick with the other. After a quick kiss he continued “We’re homeowners.”
“That we are. Shall we eat or christen the house?” Nick asked with a grin.
“You tell me. Doesn’t it still feel like your grandparents' house? Does it put you in the mood for house-christening?”
Nick suddenly looked a little ill. “Right. Good point. Let’s eat.” Charlie snickered at Nick’s sudden change of mood.
They sat on the floor of the dining room eating Chinese food with disposable chopsticks out of plastic containers. “How’s this? We go through the house now and decide what’s essential to make it feel like ours, then call up the Squad and have a bare minimum renovation party.” Nick proposed fishing the last spring roll out of the box.
“Bare minimum?” Charlie queried.
“Stripping wallpaper and painting a room or two. Getting rid of any furniture Gramps and Grandma left behind we don’t want. Giving the whole place a thorough scrub down like we would if we had bought it from anyone else. Doing enough that loving my husband in the house we own no longer feels like I’m a teenager sneaking around with my boyfriend at my grandparents house.”
“Let’s go then,” Charlie climbed off the floor, dragging Nick up behind him. “I want at least one room feeling like ours before we move. We have twelve days before we have to be out of the flat. We need to make plans.”
—---
By the weekend two days after their dinner on the floor Nick and Charlie had mapped out cosmetic changes for the master bedroom, the living room and the kitchen. Tao, Elle, and Darcy had heeded their distress call in the group chat, Tori, Michael, Olly, and David had been roped in as well, and Phe was popping in and out with Fleur in tow dropping off sustenance, and generally running errands for forgotten supplies. Isaac had apologised he couldn’t be there that weekend but promised to come by the following week to help with the unpacking. Sarah was scrubbing down the walls in all the rooms that were not scheduled for immediate redecoration and was also in charge of double checking that anything being thrown out wasn’t an misplaced item of family history.
Nick and Charlie had gone through every room and figured out what furniture would go where, selecting from the furniture they already had and the pieces Gramps and Grandma had left behind. David was now helping Nick carry any pieces they didn’t want into the detached garage-cum-storage shed and move other pieces into the appropriate rooms. Tao, Charlie, and Darcy were busy stripping the wallpaper and washing walls in the bedroom Nick and Charlie were claiming as their own, while Tori, Michael and Olly, were doing the same in the kitchen. Elle sat figuring out colour schemes and calculating the volumes of paint and primer required and jotting down ideas for murals as the whim took her.
By the time Phe turned up with dinner of multiple supermarket Lasagnes’ and salads, the rooms in question were all stripped of wallpaper and had been washed with sugar soap ready for the first coat of primer.
The Nelson’s had disappeared immediately after dinner to get Fleur back to her Grandmother's house for bedtime. Tori and Michael left soon after, dragging Olly with them, promising to return in the morning and barely missing Tara’s arrival after her shift at the hospital.
“Tara! How many babies did you catch today?”
“Four, but only three labours. One was twins.” The previous year Tara had decided that dancing as a career wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and enrolled in a Midwifery course based in Canterbury. “Sorry I couldn’t be here earlier”
Darcy threw a roller sleeve and disposable overalls in her direction. “Still plenty to do. Suit up”
“You can eat first.” Nick protested. “It’s just nice to have the squad together, or mostly together. We haven’t had this many of us in one place since…”
“Your engagement party turned wedding reception” Elle supplied. “A year and a half ago, give or take. We’ve had five of us together since, but never six of us.”
“Maybe now you have a guest room it will be easier. We won’t have to negotiate time with parents if we’re not staying in their houses when we come down.” Tao said.
“Hear that, Charlie? Apparently we are opening a B&B.” Nick teased. “Did you know we were signing up for that when we bought this place?
“Shhh, let’s at least get the decorating done before you stymie that idea.” Charlie fake whispered dramatically, and was promptly the target of a shower empty paper cups and balled up napkins thrown in his direction.
They managed to get a primer coat on before the night was out, though not without paint getting onto Tara’s curls or Tao’s ever present beanie. Nick and Charlie waved them off before securing the house and leaving for the night. As tempting as it was to spend the night in one of the spare bedrooms for the novelty of sleeping in their own house, the practical reasons; the paint fumes, and the heating not having been turned on yet, and the the only beds in the house being the single beds intended for grandchildren having sleepovers, sent them back to the comfortable bed made for two in their nice warm flat.
On the way downstairs after applying the first coat of paint to the bedroom the following day Charlie pulled on a corner of wallpaper on a whim resulting in an ever-widening strip leading from the top of the stairwell halfway down the stairs.
“You know, you could have just added ‘stairwell’ to the list of rooms we needed to update.” Nick chastised him, as he followed him down the stairs. “We kind of need to do both hallways up and down to match now. “
“Uh, Sorry? At least it won’t feel like your grandparents' house anymore.” Charlie offered up as an excuse.
“I suppose that’s true.” Nick grabbed Charlie’s hand as they reached the bottom of the stairs and pulled him back, “So I guess there’s nothing stopping me from doing this…” Nick bent his head into a kiss.
“No, I guess not.” Charlie smiled and reached his lips up again.
“Oi! Lovebirds!” Darcy interrupted loudly walking in the front door with a tray of coffees. “Save it for later. Then you can christen the place properly.” She added saucily before holding the tray out in front of her “Coffee?”
“Coffee!” Nick and Charlie took the offered cups gratefully.
By the end of the day not only were the master bedroom, living room and kitchen painted, the hallways and stairwell had been stripped of wallpaper and washed as well. Darcy and Tao had argued about music choices, Henry and Fleur had played in the pulled wallpaper and investigated the garden, Henry managing to find multiple escape routes which would need to be fixed before they became dog-owners themselves. Nick and David had reminisced about the times they had stayed with their grandparents, reminding Nick of the location of the creaky floorboards that David had used to scare him when they were very small. Olly had tried to negotiate sole use of one of the rooms and been shut down, but promised a bed whenever he needed it, within reason.
“We could stay here.” Nick said as they locked up again.
“We could, but all our things are elsewhere.” Charlie reminded him, “I have to make some solid progress with the coin analysis this week if I’m going to take time off with you at half term and you still have to deal with teenagers for the last week before the break. It’s probably better if we don’t add not knowing where anything is and sleeping in unfamiliar beds to that.” Nick raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth before Charlie continued shutting him off. “Yes, I said beds plural, we haven’t shared a single bed in years and we didn’t sleep well in one even when we were used to it."
“Do you have to talk such sense?” Nick almost whined. “I want to spend the night in our house with my husband.” he grumbled goodnaturedly.
“And we will. Next week. When we have the time off work to enjoy it.” Charlie reached for Nick’s hand and pulled him into his chest meeting forehead to forehead. “And… with all the upheaval I want the stability of the normal routine for a week. Moving house is considered one of the more stressful times in a person's life.”
Nick pulled back to look at Charlie, really look at him, “Are you feeling out of control?” he asked quietly.
“I’m fine. I promise.” Charlie reassured him. “Really.” He said earnestly. “We skipped over a lot of the more stressful and unpredictable parts of buying a house, like house-hunting and going to auctions anyway. I just think a week of relative normality would be better than flitting back and forth looking for things. I don’t want to push things when we don’t have to.”
“Mr Level-headed prevails. Let’s go.” Nick admitted defeat, as he knew he would the moment Charlie had mentioned feeling off-kilter, even just apprehension at becoming off-kilter, kissing him on the forehead and moving toward the car. “Wanna drive?”
“You drive. You know this area better than me anyway.”
—-------
“Did you check the bathroom cupboard?”
“Yes, and the airing cupboard, and the weirdly shaped corner cupboard in the kitchen. We have everything.” Charlie reassured Nick. “We have everything.”
Charlie and Nick wandered through the flat. Funny how after housing them comfortably for three and a half years it suddenly seemed small.
“Come on, we better go. The others will all be waiting for us before unpacking the van.”
They were both silent on the drive over to their new house. Charlie had been right, it had been good to have the last week of term in a familiar place, even as they packed up half their belongings into boxes in preparation for moving day. They had popped by the new place a couple of times, mostly to air out the paint fumes, not really having much time to do anything else as Nick approached half-term and Charlie hunkered down to be able to take a week off guilt free. Both now had an unencumbered week for them to settle in and unpack.
Isaac was sitting on the front step, coffee in one hand and book in the other, a sandwich resting on his knee. He glanced up as their car pulled in front of the house.
“Where’re Elle and Tao? They left in the moving van before we did.” Nick called across the roof of the car as he moved to the boot to bring in the all important kettle, milk, and tea making supplies that had been kept separate from everything else that was packed that morning.
“I haven’t seen them yet. Happy Moving Day!” Isaac grinned, and shuffled to the side as Charlie approached the door to unlock it.
“Thanks. So Isaac, I have a serious question for you. If…” Charlie pushed the door open and turned, offering a hand to help Isaac up, “..., if we put you in charge of unpacking our books, will you be able to stay on task or will you get distracted by reading them?”
Isaac grinned but before he could respond the moving van arrived with Elle at the wheel. Tao jumped down from the passenger seat and started motioning distances as she backed up to the house. Elle handed down a Boots bag before climbing down herself.
“We stopped to pick up lunch.” Elle lifted the bag in her hand. “Four meal deals.”
“We were wondering how we got here first.” Nick said
“You also could come directly. We had to go around the long way when we got to the rail underpass and the van was too tall to go under.” Tao grumped.
“Somebody was navigating and forgot how tall the van was.” Elle explained. Nick, Charlie, Isaac, were all suddenly suppressing smiles. Tao scowled at them all, took the bag of food from Elle and headed inside.
Imogen turned up mid-afternoon after finishing work bearing cupcakes. She promptly took over unpacking the kitchen saying everything else could wait, but everyone needed a functional kitchen so they could eat properly. Elle, much in the same vein as Imogen in the kitchen, took over basic unpacking in the bedroom, ensuring the bed was assembled and made up so that when the exertions of the day finally caught up with them, Nick and Charlie had somewhere to sleep.
“Tao! I found it!” Isaac called out from where he was unpacking the books in the office, valiantly refraining from reading any of them.
“You did? Nick, your grandad left his tools in the garage didn’t he?”
“Yeah, but why?” Nick said to Tao’s disappearing back.
“Isaac, we have a mission.” Tao called from outside a couple of minutes later.
Nick and Charlie followed Isaac outside, drawing Imogen and Elle’s attention along the way. Tao was wielding a drill and had a couple of screwdrivers, and was busy doing something to the gate.
“Should we stop him?” Charlie asked Nick.
“Uh, Could we even if we wanted to? It’s Tao with a bee in his beanie.”
“I think I know what this is,” Elle started delicately. “The day after you got married, Tao went shopping, he came home later very pleased with himself…” She petered off.
Nick and Charlie looked at Elle then at each other with sudden recognition on both their faces, before returning their attention to where Tao and Isaac were busy with the screwdrivers. They watched as the two worked hard for a minute before standing and proudly swinging the gate open so the assembled friends could see their handiwork.
Attached to the gate was a brass plaque. On it was etched in bold font ‘THE NELSPRINGS’, followed by the outline of a rainbow. It was indeed the plaque Tao had dropped off as a gift the day after their wedding. The plaque that had sat on their bookshelf for the last year and been bundled into a box during packing.
“I guess we’re a celebrity couple now.” Nick joked.
—-----
“Right now I am so glad we always used the family bathroom when we stayed as kids. I have no memories of my grandparents associated with this bathroom.” Nick said as he walked out of the ensuite rubbing his hair dry.
“And the bedroom?” Charlie asked from where he was collapsed on the bed, tired from the day's exertions, and grateful for Elle’s foresight in having the bed ready for use. Putting sheets on the bed would have been a job to many.
“The redecoration has done the trick.” Nick threw the towel over the chair in the corner and crawled over the bed towards Charlie. “This is the bedroom I share with my beloved husband and nothing else.” He leant down, meeting Charlie’s lips for a kiss.
“So… nothing to stop us christening the house?” Charlie asked suggestively, reaching up to pull Nick closer, a renewed sparkle of energy in his eyes.
“Not…” Nick kissed Charlie. “...a…” another kiss “ ...single..." kiss "...thing”.