Work Text:
Charlie’s boyfriend was making out with some random girl in the kitchen of this house party. Charlie’s boyfriend had insisted they stay low key with their relationship because he wasn’t one for being all public and showy with someone else. Maybe Charlie’s boyfriend wasn’t actually Charlie’s boyfriend this whole time but actually this random girl’s boyfriend who wanted to kiss a boy with no strings attached.
And the problem was that Charlie needed strings attached. He wanted all possible strings attached, and he convinced himself he wanted them with Ben. But he took what he could get because no other boys were lining up to snog him. Ben always made sure to remind him of that, to make sure he knew that no one else wanted him.
And yes, Ben had only given one word responses to Charlie’s messages for the past three and half weeks. And sure, they hadn’t actually seen each other in person for over a month, Ben always having something come up at the last minute. But Ben hadn’t actually broken up with him or fully ghosted him so Charlie figured some strings were still attached.
But now, Charlie was frozen in the doorway to the kitchen of this gross rugby house watching the boy who apparently wasn’t his boyfriend (and actually didn’t care about public displays of affection just as long as they weren’t with Charlie) makeout with a girl he didn’t know.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to puke or chug four more glasses of party punch. The latter would probably lead to the former, he reasoned, as he downed what was left in his cup and turned on his heel to refill at the makeshift bar in the front room.
As he tried to pour as much punch as possible into his cup without spilling anything, he saw his friends sidle up to him.
“I don’t think you need that much of this gross stuff,” Tao insisted with a raised eyebrow.
“No,” Charlie took a long pull from the cup and then refilled what he had just drank. “I do.”
“Are you okay?” He could always count on Elle to be the compassionate one, concerned about his well being instead of immediately jumping to judgment.
“Remember that guy I told you about?”
Tao scoffed. “The one who refused to meet us, your best friends? The guy whose name we weren’t even allowed to know?”
While in it, those things just seemed like Ben’s way to keep them private and intimate. But now, as he was aggressively entering his post-Ben era, they sounded like massive red flags.
Charlie knew how hard it was to come out, but Ben refused to even meet Tao and Elle as just Charlie’s friend. When Charlie would see him on campus, Ben would staunchly ignore him, only to profusely apologize once they were alone. Charlie learned to stop asking why they couldn’t just greet each other like casual acquaintances.
“Yeah. Him.” Charlie took another long sip, a little bit of punch dribbling down his chin. He wiped it off with the back of his hand. “He’s making out with a girl in the kitchen.”
“What?!” Both Elle and Tao exclaimed, looking livid on Charlie’s behalf.
Charlie laughed humourlessly. “I don’t think he was actually my boyfriend.”
As Elle tried to talk Tao down from bursting into the kitchen and giving Ben a piece of his mind, Charlie let his eyes wander about the room.
They’d been invited to this rugby party by Elle’s flatmates, Tara and Darcy. According to Elle, Darcy was hell bent on expanding their queer friend group and wanted to get to know Elle’s friends better.
And Tara and Darcy’s best friend was Nick Nelson, star of the rugby team and newly out as bisexual. Also the hottest person Charlie had ever seen, but he was self-aware enough to know he had no shot with him. And if he ever began to doubt that, Ben’s words acted as a reminder.
Maybe that’s why he’d started whatever he had with Ben; he had spent a term pining over Nick from afar and jumped at the first chance to get him out of his system.
As Charlie scanned the room, his eyes snagged on Nick, standing in the corner with Tara and Darcy, laughing and smiling and being wonderful. His face was flushed with alcohol and happiness, his strong rugby arms exposed thanks to his short-sleeve button up. Nick’s swoopy ginger-adjacent hair was redder in the dim light and looked newly shaven at the sides.
He was beautiful, and Charlie suddenly couldn’t remember any reason to hold back from him.
“Fuck it. I’m gonna go make out with Nick Nelson.” Charlie downed the rest of his cup as Tao and Elle sputtered next to him. He was halfway across the room before either could formulate a response.
Logically, this made no sense. Charlie wasn’t the kind of guy to just march up to someone and kiss them. And he’d only had three sort of conversations with Nick, so there was little chance he actually remembered who Charlie was. But Charlie had had just the right amount of alcohol and romantic betrayal that night to do something potentially disastrous.
As he neared the trio of his almost friends, he caught small snippets of their conversation.
“You could always talk to him more?” Tara suggested to Nick.
“I’ve barely figured out how to talk to girls, I’m way behind on talking to guys.”
“Yeah, but—“
“Charlie!” Darcy exclaimed as he got close.
The socially acceptable thing to do would be to stop a respectable distance from everyone else and attempt to join the conversation. Instead, Charlie walked right up to Nick, right into his personal space, and loosely gripped the front of his shirt.
Nick’s eyes grew wide, his face flushing deeper. Charlie needed him like breathing. “I’m going to kiss you.”
“Oka—“ Before Nick could get the word out, Charlie surged forward and kissed him hard.
It should have been sloppier than it was, but Nick met him halfway and slid an arm around his waist to steady him. Nick tilted his head slightly to avoid a weird angle, and Charlie felt himself sigh into the kiss.
Charlie’s hand migrated from Nick’s arm to the back of his neck, fingers just brushing the small hairs there. Nick tightened his arm to bring Charlie even closer, pushing back into the kiss with something like want.
They definitely kissed for much longer than they should have in the middle of a party, but Charlie hadn’t really known kissing could feel so good. His social anxiety, which was usually the driver, took a back seat to his shameless desire.
But eventually, they did pull back, slowly, reluctantly. Nick was bright red with kiss-swollen lips and sparkling eyes, a smile already on his face.
“Or you could just make out with him in the middle of your party.”
“Darcy!”
Tara and Darcy’s voices pulled Charlie back to the present and reminded him that he and Nick were not, in fact, the only two people in the whole world, prompting him to drop his arm from around Nick’s neck. He looked between them and Nick, utterly confused and silently asking to be filled in.
“We, uh, were talking about you.” Nick raised the arm not still wrapped around Charlie’s waist to rub at the back of his neck. “Before you— before we— yeah. I was trying to figure out how to get closer to you.”
Charlie reeled back in surprise at that. “Me?”
Nick chuckled self-deprecatingly. “Contrary to what you seem to think, I don’t kiss just anyone.”
“No, that’s not— I didn’t mean—“
“I know, I was kidding. Not about the kissing part, but I know you probably don’t… think I’m like that.”
“To be fair, I didn’t really give you an option.” Having to sit in the aftermath was sobering Charlie up enough to feel a bit sheepish.
“I agreed. And I could have stopped it.” Nick let go of Charlie’s waist and grabbed his hand instead. “I wanted to kiss you.”
Charlie gaped at him. “You barely know me.”
“As much as I’d like to claim my attraction is deeply rooted in knowing your personality, and trust me when I say that I’m very attracted to what I do know, you’re very hot. And I have eyes.” Nick scrunched his face at the end of his confession, somehow blushing even deeper.
“Oh.”
“That probably makes me a creep. I’m sorry.” Nick started to pull his hand away, but Charlie gripped it tighter.
“I’ve had a crush on you all year!” Charlie didn’t mean to blurt out his biggest secret, but the alcohol was still at least somewhat in charge.
Nick’s face brightened. “You have?”
“I have eyes.”
“Cheeky. I like that.”
They grinned dopily at each for a bit, and Charlie began the arduous task of counting Nick’s freckles. He’d definitely require many more sessions of up-close staring at Nick to be as accurate as possible with his results.
“If you did get to know more about my personality, would that… maybe increase the likelihood of more kissing?”
“Let’s find out together. I’m leaning towards ‘yes,’ but I’m all about practical application.” Nick’s face suddenly dropped. “Unless that wasn’t you asking me out, in which case I’m so chill and cool and it’s whatever.”
Charlie giggled, and Nick’s eyes softened. “It was, you read that right.”
“Awesome!”
Charlie grew serious. “I should go find my friends. The last they saw of me, I was chugging party punch and said ‘I’m gonna go kiss Nick Nelson’ before practically sprinting away. I need to let them know it all went far better than expected.”
“Will you be back?” Nick’s voice had a hopeful lilt that made Charlie’s head swim.
“Of course. I’m just going to check in.”
Nick bit down a smile and nodded. “Okay.”
Charlie giggled and reluctantly disentangled himself from Nick, staunchly avoiding Tara and Darcy’s eyes as he walked back to where he’d last seen Tao and Elle. But of course, they hadn’t stayed by the bar to awkwardly wait for Charlie to return. Which meant Charlie now found himself wandering through this rugby house, drunk on party punch and Nick Nelson.
As Charlie made to enter the kitchen, someone caught his arm, pulling him into a darkened corner.
“I saw you, Charlie. I saw you kissing Nick Nelson,” Ben practically spat out at Charlie, his eyes blazing and hair still mussed from his time in the kitchen.
“Hm, how did you manage to see that with your face glued to some girl’s?” Charlie was already beginning to wonder what it was he had seen in Ben. He’d convinced himself that Ben’s vitriol and rage was just his way of expressing passion. But now, as he glared back at this insecure boy, he knew that they were simply just those emotions, no complexity or nuance to be found.
Ben rolled his eyes. “God, Charlie, you know I’m not ready to come out yet.”
“That doesn’t mean you can just date somebody else behind my back!” Had he always been this ridiculous and manipulative?
“I’m a very desired person. It would be suspicious for me to just turn every girl down.” Ben smirked, evidently so sure he’d played a trump card.
“Yeah, okay. Well, you’re free to accept all the offers you want without worrying about me anymore. Or were you already doing that?”
Ben scoffed. “You’re dumping me for Nelson?”
“I’m not sure I can dump you because it doesn’t seem like we were ever actually together. And regardless, Nick was always who I wanted. You just had me convinced no one but you would ever want me back.” Charlie began to remember the times he’d thought someone might have been flirting with him and how he always dismissed it, Ben’s words so loud in his head.
“Nick Nelson doesn’t want you, Charlie. He’s just using you, obviously. No one actually wants you.” Ben’s words were like venom, seeping into Charlie’s veins.
“I want him.” A hulking figure appeared next to Charlie. Before he could fully tense up at the intrusion, he recognized Nick’s voice, even as it grew icy when aimed at Ben. Any encroaching tension faded away as he felt Nick brush their hands together. “And I’m not some coward who would hide him away or convince he’s not the most wonderful person.”
Ben tried to maintain his bravado, but he looked terrified underneath, hands just barely shaking, eyes darting around. “Didn’t think you’d be so insulting about someone not wanting to come out.”
“You know that’s not what I said. You can acknowledge and respect someone even if you’re not ready to publicly be with them. I’ve never seen you so much as look at him in public.”
“I can’t believe you’re so happy to have my sloppy seconds. You know, he’s very clingy. Probably not good for your image.” Even though Ben’s words tried to have a bite to them, he was almost cowering under Nick’s gaze, betraying any false confidence he tried to exude.
“Oh, just shut up, Ben!” Charlie surprised everyone with his outburst, including himself. “You’ve barely spoken to me in weeks and the first time I’ve seen you in a month was while you were kissing someone else. You were never my boyfriend, you didn’t even like me that much.”
Before Ben could stutter out a response, Charlie grabbed Nick’s hand and pulled him out of the corner and across the house from Ben.
Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, Charlie stopped short, Nick stumbling into his back. He turned to face him, finding him far closer than expected, though not unpleasantly so.
“You can’t tell anyone. Ben’s a knob who deserves for bad things to happen to him, but no one deserves to be outed.”
Nick frowned slightly. “You think I’d do that?”
“No, of course not!” Charlie squeezed Nick’s hand reassuringly. “I know you wouldn’t do that. I just… if I hadn’t said it, I’d feel guilty. I think I hate him, and I’m trying to separate that hatred from my thoughts about him being closeted.”
“The way he treated you is separate from being closeted. I was closeted for most of this year, and I still spent a lot of it thinking about how incredible you are.” Charlie could feel himself blushing, the heat grounding him and making it feel real. “He’s just a manipulative prick, regardless of his sexuality.”
Charlie sighed. “I want to stop talking about Ben.”
“Gladly.” Nick leaned closer, gently knocking his forehead against Charlie’s temple. “Wanna go up to my room and get to know each other better? Through both conversation and snogging, preferably.”
In lieu of a verbal response, Charlie kissed Nick hard and pulled him upstairs. He never did find the time to check in with Tao and Elle that night.