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“This is ridiculous,” Charlie whines, leaning heavily against the marble kitchen island in front of him. “This happens every year.”
Beside him, Nick reaches out to pat his shoulder. “We might still find someone queer for you,” he says kindly, but he doesn’t sound much like he believes it.
It is Harry Greene’s party, after all. Charlie isn’t entirely sure why they’re spending their New Years Eve here in the Greene’s massive, gated house. He would’ve been content watching fireworks on the telly with a cup of tea at midnight, but Tara and Darcy had convinced them it would be fun. The whole gang were back home from uni, so why not celebrate together in a giant house with free alcohol and no clean up duties?
But, yeah. It’s Harry’s party, so the odds of Charlie finding a man willing to kiss him at midnight are pretty slim.
“I never get to kiss anyone on New Years. I’m always surrounded by bloody straight people,” he says with a roll of his eyes.
“Hey!” Darcy calls from the other side of the island. She’s shovelling crisps into her mouth and frowning across at him. “I’m right here.”
“Yeah, Darce, I don’t think we’re compatible, do you?” Charlie deadpans.
She scrunches up her nose. “Yeah, fair enough. As you were.”
“You really want a midnight kiss that badly?” Nick frowns, tilting his head and giving Charlie his I’m worried about you now, let me make it better face. Charlie hates that face.
Ok, obviously he doesn’t hate Nick’s face. He quite likes it, actually. A bit too much, which is entirely the problem with it. His Very Platonic Best Friend seems to feel the constant need to make Charlie feel better at any given moment, which is an issue when Charlie is trying very hard not to have a crush on him.
He looks back at Nick and shrugs, trying to force a smile onto his face. “I’ve just never had one. Everybody around me is always kissing somebody at midnight and I’m just… there.”
“Well, then. I’ll kiss you,” Nick says, oh so casually, as if he hasn’t just melted Charlie’s entire brain.
Charlie blinks at him, his mind completely empty because… what?
Darcy chokes on a crisp. “Really now, Nicky?”
“I mean, yeah,” Nick turns to her and shrugs, then looks back at Charlie. “You’re my best friend, I’d kiss you if you asked.”
“What?” Charlie manages to choke out.
“What?” Nick echoes back at him, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
How is he smiling at a time like this? Charlie’s brain is screaming at him.
Darcy clears her throat to get his attention and smirks when Charlie looks at her. “He said he would kiss you if you asked,” she says, very unhelpfully.
Charlie gapes at her and then at Nick. “That’s not – I mean – no you wouldn’t.”
Nick looks back at him, steady and sure. “I mean, yeah… you’re my best friend, I’d do pretty much anything for you. If you really want a New Year’s kiss and there’s nobody else here willing, then yeah. I’d do it.”
“I bet you would,” Darcy pipes in, heaping too many crisps into her mouth at once and grinning at them.
“Nick, no. That’s - no,” Charlie says, shaking his head rapidly. He studies Nick’s flushed cheeks and shining eyes – yeah, he’s definitely drunk. “Have you had any water tonight? Maybe you should take a break from the shots.”
Nick laughs, head tipping back. “Char, I’m fine! What, I can’t offer to help out a friend? Is that really such a weird thing to suggest?”
Charlie gawks at him. Is he high? What is his very straight best friend doing, suggesting they kiss? Why is he doing it? He has so many questions, but all that comes out of his mouth is an indignant “Nick!”
“This is too good,” Darcy cackles. “I need popcorn.”
Charlie shoots her a warning glare.
“Charlie, come on,” Nick huffs out a laugh. “You look miserable at the prospect of not kissing anyone, and so far your only options are me or Darcy.”
“Um, I am not an option, thank you! I will be kissing my girlfriend and my girlfriend only,” Darcy interjects.
Nick rolls his eyes at her quickly before he turns back to Charlie with a smile. “What, am I really so repulsive that the thought of kissing me is so inconceivable?”
Charlie laughs out loud at that. Nick Nelson and Repulsive are certainly not words that belong in the same sentence. Nick tilts his head in question at Charlie’s reaction, so he schools his expression back into something a bit less hysterical. “But… you’re not into men!” he squeaks out, his cheeks bright red.
“So what?” Nick asks. “Just one mate helping another mate out.”
“Oh my god you are ridiculous, Nick.”
“Why? I don’t understand why you’re so against this!” Nick says. “Obviously if you don’t want to kiss me, that’s fine. Just saying that the offer is there.”
“Jesus,” Charlie sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I am going to talk to somebody sensible now, goodbye to both of you absolute drunken disasters.”
Charlie gives Nick and Darcy one last glare each before he stalks out of the kitchen to go and find Tao. At least he won’t offer to kiss him at midnight.
Nick finds him again barely half an hour later, two drinks in his hands. He passes one to Charlie as he sidles up next to him.
“Can’t have you empty handed on New Years Eve,” he smiles.
God, that smile. Even having known him for five years now, Nick’s smile still makes his stomach swoop. It’s so soft and kind and warm, just like Nick is, and Charlie feels like he spends half of his life trying to stamp down the butterflies he feels when it’s directed at him. Which is often.
“Thanks,” Charlie breathes out, taking the drink and gulping it down almost in one go. “You having a good time?”
“Yeah,” Nick shrugs. “Turns out Harry is still an idiot, who knew?”
Charlie snorts. “Yeah, who could’ve predicted that.”
“So. Why won’t you kiss me?” Nick asks, making Charlie choke on his drink.
“I’m sorry, what?!” Tao demands, turning away from his conversation with Elle to look between Nick and Charlie.
Charlie glances at Nick, waiting for the embarrassment at being overheard to hit him, waiting for that regret and shame to cloud Nick’s expression.
Instead, he just smiles wider. “Help me out, Tao! Char keeps moaning that he doesn’t have anyone to kiss at midnight so I volunteered but he is refusing to consider me as an option.”
Charlie is pretty sure his face is going to get stuck looking like the shocked emoji, because he cannot for the life of him seem to close his mouth. “Nicholas!”
“What?” Nick laughs loudly. God, he’s pretty. He’s also drunk.
“That… sounds like a terrible idea,” Tao says, eyeing Charlie a little too knowingly.
“Hey,” Nick pouts. “It’s a brilliant idea. It solves literally all our problems.”
“All our problems, hmm?” Charlie says, finally managing to smile at Nick. “That’s a lot of pressure on a kiss.”
“It would be a fucking good kiss,” Nick tells him, very seriously.
“Nick, drink some water and sit down for a minute, alright?”
Nick smirks at him and waggles his eyebrows. “Only if you join me.”
“Nicholas!” Charlie squawks.
“Charlie! There you are, I need your backup,” a voice calls from across the room, and he turns to see Tara waving him over to where her and Sahar are chatting.
“Um, don’t you dare. I’m not finished with you yet,” Nick says.
“Goodbye Nick,” Charlie singsongs. “If you’re that desperate for a midnight kiss, why don’t you ask Tao?”
Tao lets out a strangled noise as Nick laughs happily behind Charlie’s retreating form.
He gets sucked into a conversation with the girls pretty quickly, only getting distracted when Nick catches his eye from across the room. He grins at Charlie, blows him a kiss and then winks.
Charlie is not going to survive this night.
11.30pm finds Charlie hiding in one of the upstairs bathrooms to get some peace and quiet. Nick has been trailing him all night, getting progressively drunker as he repeatedly asks Charlie why he won’t kiss him. He’s laughing all the while, but not in a harsh way, not like he’s mocking Charlie. He just seems… happy, and carefree, and like he genuinely just wants to help his friend out.
The trouble is, Charlie wants to kiss Nick. He’s wanted to kiss Nick for a very long time, but he manages it. When they got seated next to each other in form when Charlie was fourteen years old, the crush had hit him hard and fast. He had managed to tame it as they had become friends, then best friends. They’ve been inseparable for so long now that Charlie has just become used to it. There’s his friendship with Nick and then there’s his crush on Nick, and they’re linked but they’re also separate. Charlie can compartmentalise them in his mind because Nick is straight and their friendship is so very important to both of them. He’s not risking it for anything.
Especially not for a drunken kiss that Nick is so innocently offering to him. Nick is the best friend he’s ever had and the kindest man he knows, so it makes sense that he would suggest something just to cheer Charlie up. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he doesn’t know the temptation that he’s dangling in front of Charlie. Charlie is not going to take advantage of that kindness, and he’s certainly not going to let himself have a taste of something he can’t keep.
He splashes some water on his face and blinks at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. The three shots he’d taken the last time Nick had slung an arm around his shoulder and mentioned midnight are just hitting him, and he needs to do something about that if he’s going to have any chance of resisting Nick at twelve o clock.
Charlie thinks the best tactic is to hide. Nick is persistent, so Charlie grabs an open bottle of prosecco from Harry’s bar and sneaks it upstairs to spend the rest of the night in safe solitude.
Of course that plan backfires when Nick comes striding into his hiding place at ten to midnight.
“Ah, there you are!” he declares. He looks around the spare room that Charlie is taking refuge in and nods appreciatively. “God, he’s so rich.”
Charlie snorts, taking a swig from the bottle in his hand. He’s standing by the window, looking out into the sprawling gardens below. “He really is.”
“You ok? You’re hiding,” Nick says, coming to stand beside him. He sounds slightly more sober than he has the rest of the night but he’s still swaying slightly on his feet. He takes the bottle in Charlie’s hand and has a long sip before placing it on the dresser by the window.
“Yeah. Lots of people down there that I don’t want to watch sloppily making out in a few minutes.”
“Well you wouldn’t have to watch them if you were sloppily making out with someone yourself,” Nick tells him, nudging their shoulders together.
Charlie groans and shoves at Nick’s arm. “Would you stop, Nicholas.”
Nick snickers. “Alright, fine, I get it. You don’t want to kiss me, I’ll let it go.”
Stupidly, Charlie feels guilty. “It’s not that I don’t want to,” he starts to explain, before his brain catches up with him and he realises what he’s said. “Um. I – not that I – ”
Nick turns to face him, that same kind and patient smile still on his lips. Those lips. “Charlie. You know I’m not offering out of, like, pity or anything, right? I just – you seemed genuinely sad earlier when you were talking about how you never get to kiss anyone and – well. I don’t like seeing you sad.”
He says it so earnestly and so easily that it makes Charlie’s skin itch. How can he just be so candid all the time, while Charlie feels like he’s seconds away from a crisis at any given moment? And why, why, does the only man who has ever been honest and open with him have to be completely unattainable romantically?
“Really, Char. I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t want to help, I promise.”
All the alcohol that Charlie has consumed is definitely finding his brain now, because he suddenly finds himself considering it. Nick is offering, has been offering all night. They’re best friends, close enough that they can move on from this tomorrow and carry on with their lives. If Nick didn’t want to do this for Charlie, then he wouldn’t. Charlie trusts Nick enough to know that he wouldn’t lie to him about that.
“You really – uh. It really wouldn’t freak you out?”
Nick tilts his head to the side and smiles wide like the puppy he is. “Why would it freak me out?”
“Because!” Charlie shoots. “Because I’m a guy, and you’re not – ”
“Oh, come on, you know me better than to think I’m scared of kissing a man, surely? Look, it’s 11.58. Decision time, Spring. I’m Team Kiss, if that wasn’t clear.”
“Oh my god, fine,” Charlie says, against his better judgement. “If it will shut you up, I’ll kiss you at midnight.”
“Yes!”
“Nick, seriously,” Charlie warns, pressing his hand against Nick’s chest to keep him back as Nick tries to shuffle forward. “If there is even the smallest of doubts in your mind about this, then don’t do it, ok?”
Batting his hand away, Nick chuckles as he steps towards Charlie. “Literally been begging you all night, Char. I’m good, promise.”
Charlie swallows thickly, letting his best friend into his space. He looks up at Nick as a hand finds his waist and they hear a loud cheer downstairs followed by the start of a countdown.
“Ten seconds, then,” Nick whispers, smiling down at him.
All Charlie can do is nod as they listen to the countdown, eyes not leaving Nick’s. He’s entirely done for now, completely lost in warm chestnut brown.
“Ok?” Nick asks as they get to two.
All Charlie is capable of is a small nod and Nick beams at him, and then he’s sliding his free hand across Charlie’s face and swiping his thumb softly against his cheekbone. Charlie leans into the touch as Nick tips closer, eyes falling shut. Charlie’s close too just as their lips meet and fireworks explode outside for the New Year.
There are no fireworks inside Charlie as their lips slide together, just… peace. A quiet contentment, a feeling of complete and utter rightness.
Fuck it, Charlie thinks as he presses his chest right up against Nick’s. He’s only going to get to do this once, and he isn’t about to waste the opportunity. He grips onto Nick’s bicep with one hand, the other sliding into the hair at the back of Nick’s head and holding him close. He feels Nick breathe in through his nose, his hand gripping tight at Charlie’s waist as he tilts his head for a better angle. Charlie hums and opens up to Nick, their mouths moving together as if they’ve met a thousand times before. It feels like they have, like they’ve been doing this their whole lives.
Charlie comes back to himself eventually – it could be five seconds later or five hours, he has no clue. He pulls out of the kiss but stays pressed right up against Nick, hands still gripping at him tightly.
“There,” he whispers shakily. “Happy now?”
Nick blinks his eyes open slowly, lips still parted. He breathes out as his fingers tighten in Charlie’s jumper. “Oh.”
“You ok?” Charlie asks carefully, watching as Nick looks at him with something like awe in his expression.
“Um. Yes. We - uh. We should do that again.”
“What?!” Charlie squeaks.
“Kiss me again,” Nick exhales, voice just on the edge of desperate. “Please. If you… if you want to?”
“Why do you want to?” Charlie asks, not quite following what’s happening. What is Nick doing to him?
Nick shakes his head minutely, gaze darting between Charlie’s eyes and his lips and back again. “I – um. Does it always feel like that?”
Charlie frowns at him. “Like what? You’ve kissed plenty of people, Nick.”
“Yeah but… that felt different. Is that, like, a guy thing?”
What on earth? Charlie thinks, staring up at his friend in confusion. “Is what a guy thing?”
Nick swallows, frowning a little as he tries to figure out his words. Charlie strokes a thumb against his arm, he’s trying to relax him but it only seems to make Nick jump. “Um. Like… it felt like… uh. Like I felt it right down to my toes and in my chest and – and I didn’t want to stop.”
Oh my god, Charlie thinks, is Nick having a gay crisis right now? Because he kissed ME?
If there was even the smallest chance that Nick enjoyed that like Charlie did, if there’s even the tiniest inkling of something there for him, Charlie is not going to walk away from that. What if he actually could have everything he’s spent years telling himself he can’t have? What if Nick actually…
“No, Nick, it’s not a guy thing specifically,” he says gently. He doesn’t want to scare Nick by saying too much, but… the truth. He can tell the truth. “That’s… that’s what happens when you actually have feelings for the person you’re kissing.”
“Huh?”
“Nick,” Charlie breathes.
“Oh,” he says, blinking down at Charlie. He doesn’t look scared, like Charlie expected, he doesn’t look disgusted. He just looks… calm. Thoughtful. “That – um. That makes sense.”
“It does?”
“Surprisingly… yes. Can we – can we do that again now?”
“Yes,” Charlie says quickly, “yes please.”
And they do, kissing each other over and over in their little hiding place in the middle of Harry Greene’s mansion, the noises of the party downstairs creeping in through the closed door.
Next year, they won’t find a secret place to kiss. They’ll stand amongst all of their friends and smile against each other’s mouths, already looking forward to the next year’s midnight kiss. And the year after that, and every year after that, if they’re lucky.