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Charlie was vibrating with excitement, lost in a comfortable drunk state that made him feel like he was floating down the steps to The Tube at a little past two in the morning. Late last month, Tori surprised him with floor tickets for the Guts tour in London for his birthday. His friends doubled down on the surprise, buying tickets for the show as a surprise, despite the four of them being spread across England, finishing their second year of university.
They spent their night obnoxiously singing along to songs, buying overpriced drinks, and dancing. Charlie loved every moment of it, from the way their drinks sloshed onto the floor to how the lights reflected off the glitter Elle spread over their cheeks. The concert ended, and they made their way to the pubs with the rest of the crowd, wandering in and out of different places, falling and catching each other while they walked down the street with their arms linked.
“Chaaarlie!” Elle squeals, laughing when he jumps off the last two steps.
“God, he’s going to get us kicked off The Tube,” Tao says, affectionately rolling his eyes, something only he’s able to manage.
Isaac throws his arms around Charlie’s shoulder, doing little to steady his friend in his own drunken state. “Did you have a good birthday, my little Charlie-warlie?”
He giggles, the sound echoing through the surprisingly almost empty train platform. “My birthday was weeks ago, but yeeees!” Charlie says, clearly enjoying the way his voice sounds against the stone walls.
“Cooooome on boys,” Elle says, grabbing Tao by the hand and stepping through the open train doors.
Charlie looks around the compartment, finding a spot near the back that was almost empty save one row at the very back that was taken up by three people. “Holy shit you have the most fantastic hair!” Charlie says, eyes locking with a person sporting a colorful outfit, equally colorful hair, and a noticeable they/them pin on their bag strap.
“Charlie, you cannot just say that to random people.” Isaac scolds him while pulling Charlie down onto the seat next to him. While the person Charlie complimented nudges the man next to them, who’s sitting with his head in his hands between his knees.
“I mean, have you seen your hair? Look at those curls.” They say back, grinning at Charlie.
“But I want rainbow hair,” Charlie whines, fingers itching to touch the different colored strands at the end of their short hair. “But I’d have to bleach my hair.”
“You ever bleach it and ruin the curls, I'll hunt you down.”
“Darcy, can we not threaten strangers on The Tube?” the girl sitting next to her says while gently grabbing Darcy’s chin and turning them to look at her, while Isaac pulls Charlie down into his seat, facing away from the group behind them. “Again?” She says, Charlie covering his hand to hide his laugh.
The train moves, and the light music that was playing cuts out with an ear splitting crackle. Charlie sits in the silence, bouncing his leg and clicking his tongue against his teeth. Watching Tao’s head drop onto Elle’s shoulder, his eyelids fluttering closed. “Isaaaaaac.” Charlie complains, swiveling in his seat and pressing his knee into Isaac’s thigh. “How much longer?
Isaac shakes his head, patting Charlie on the leg. “Just a bit, bub.”
“I knew we shouldn’t have let him keep telling people it was his birthday.” Elle chimes in.
“Buuuut it was so fun and it’s rude to say no to free drinks,” Charlie says, earning him a laugh from one of the people sitting behind him.
He turns, looking over his shoulder, and for a moment his eyes lock with the man who’s finally looked up from the spot between his knees. Soft brown framed by light lashes, the freckles on his cheeks standing out against his skin in the harsh fluorescent lights. Charlie’s eyes travel across his broad chest and strong arms, showcased by a simple gray tank top. Charlie feels his cheeks grow hot when the man smirks at him, and he turns back in his seat so quickly that his vision blurs, his head going fuzzy.
“Isaac.” He whispers, loud enough that Elle and probably the people behind them can hear him.
“Yes, dear?”
“Look back there. Oh my god, he’s too fucking hot to be on this train. It should be illegal to look like him.” Charlie says, doing little to keep his voice low.
“Why don’t you try closing your eyes for a bit, babe? We’ll be home quicker if you do that.” Elle suggests.
“But then I can’t see the pretty man, Elle and that would be a very very stupid thing for me to do.”
They sit in the silence, the speakers overhead crackling in and out. “Isaac?”
“Yes, Charlie?”
“It’s too quiet in here.” He says, pulling out his phone and opening Spotify, scrolling through his top songs.
“Charlie, no.” Isaac says, his voice as stern as it can be in his drunken state.
“Charlie, yes!” He says, finger landing on the shuffle button and Love Is Embarrassing blaring through the tiny speaker. It starts with Charlie bouncing in his seat, quickly turning to him standing and dancing in the aisle.
“Charlie, please sit down,” Isaac says, pulling on his hand, his friend ignoring him and moving his full attention to Elle when he realizes she’s taken out her phone and is recording him. Charlie giggles and smiles for the camera, swinging his hips and doing a drunk, silly dance. Holding onto the pole next to the bench, Elle is sitting, dipping himself back dramatically. The song changes, finding a slower beat, and Charlie pretends to slow dance through the aisle, spinning slowly as the train comes to a stop. The sudden jolt of the trail causes him to stumble forward, caught only by a large hand on his waist.
“For the record.” A deep voice says from behind him, the person speaking gently pulling him back upright. “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.” The mystery man says, winking at Charlie before hopping off the train.
The next morning, Charlie wakes up to a pounding in his head and the smell of breakfast coming through the crack at the bottom of his door. While he’d shared a flat with three other freshmen his first year, he was lucky enough that his parents paid half his rent, so he was able to have a single room with a small kitchen his second year. Not that Charlie didn’t have friends or like his previous flatmates. But he enjoyed having a place of solitude more, a place where he could decompress and cook his meals in peace. He swings his legs out of bed, stretching his arms over his head, his foot hitting something solid on a mound of pillows and blankets on his bedroom floor. “Sorry, Isaac.” Charlie mumbles, forgetting Isaac had slept in his room.
Isaac makes a grumpy noise and rolls away from Charlie, who steps over him, stumbling to the bathroom. Once he’s washed his face and downed two paracetamol and a glass of water, he feels like he’s ready to face the light and noise that’s going on in his kitchen. Charlie walks down the small hall, rubbing his eyes. He finds Elle at the stove, curls tied up on the top of her head, and Tao sitting on the counter, eating a piece of toast. “Isaac, not feeling up to breakfast yet?” Elle asks.
“Not sure, he didn’t say anything when I got up.” Charlie says, grabbing a piece of toast off the plate, Elle snatches it from his hand and adds egg to the top before putting it back in his hand.
“Protein is good for the hangover.” She says, shrugging and neither of them comments on her subtle way of checking in to make sure he’s eating.
They spend their morning slowly eating the breakfast Elle’s made and helping each other piece together the missing moments from the night before. Tao puts on a movie that no one pays attention to as their time together comes to a close, all making plans to come back to London once their school year wraps up, since Charlie is staying to work as an intern with a publishing company for the summer.
“Oh, Charlie, I wanted to show you this before I left,” Elle says, pulling out her phone and pushing it into Charlie's hand, a video already playing. He watches, embarrassed at the way he dances on Elle’s phone screen, the music playing from his phone barely heard over the sound of the train.
“God, I shouldn’t be allowed to drink ever again,” Charlie says, passing Elle her phone back.
“Don’t worry about that, look in the background.” She says, Charlie hitting play on the video again. This time, he ignored himself and watched over his shoulder. First, Charlie sees the person whose hair he remembers complimenting, Darcy, he thinks the other girl called her. They’re smirking and nudging the man sitting next to them. Charlie watches his face, his eyes lighting up, and the grin spreading wider across his face, the more Charlie dances.
“Oh, did you get a video of the lad behind Charlie making absolute heart eyes at him last night?” Isaac asks while shoving his book into his bag
Charlie groans. “Shut up, he’s not making heart eyes.”
“Whatever you say, love, don’t think I didn’t hear what he said before getting off the train,” Isaac says into Charlie’s ear while hugging him goodbye.
Charlie mulls over the video, going back and forth on asking Elle to send it to him so he could watch it over (and over again) or maybe do something crazy and try and track down the man from the video. He pushes the idea from his mind the second he thinks of it, that would be something crazy to do. Right? A few weeks go by, and as much as Charlie tries he can’t get the thoughts out of his head, so he does the only logical thing he can think of.
🌈(L)G(B)TQ+Tao🌈
[Charlie]: out of curiosity, have
any of you seen one of those
missed connections instagrams or
reddit pages?
[Elle]: Interesting question,
Charlie. I have seen those pages before.
Any reason you might be asking?
[Isaac]: Why yes, Charles, whatever
could you be asking for?
[Tao]: Are you two really going to
encourage Charlie to find some boy
he saw on the tube once?
[Charlie]: tao’s right, it’s a silly idea
[Isaac]: Charlie, he literally called
you beautiful. If that man doesn’t
want to see you again, I’ll sell all my books
[Charlie]: whatever, it’s not like
those videos or posts ever work.
i went through a few of the pages,
and the people hardly ever find each other
Elle didn’t ask, and Charlie didn’t care. Like he said in the chat, the post never seemed to work. People would leave encouraging responses or sometimes suggest something that seemed minimally helpful to find the person, but Charlie scrolled back months and months on a few of the pages before he was able to find a post where the two people were able to find each other. That's until Elle’s went viral. What started as a silly post gained traction when different universities LGBTQ+ pages around England started sharing the video.
What started as me taking a cute video of my friend, Charlie, drunk dancing on The Tube around two in the morning on May 18th after the Olivia Rodrigo concert in London turned into a missed connection. We’d love if someone could help us locate the man in the background of the attached video. Charlie spent the whole walk home talking about the ‘pretty boy’ on the train while the mysterious man told Charlie that he was the most beautiful man he’d ever seen before getting off at his stop. Charlie is currently finishing up his second year at UCL, and we think the mystery man was about the same age. We were on the Jubilee Line and our mystery man got off at the South Underground Station stop. Thanks ❤️
The weeks passed and the school year ended, and the four of them decided to meet for lunch before going their separate ways for the summer. Charlie staying in London for his internship at a publishing company, Isaac choosing to go back to Berlin with Elle and spend the summer on her couch writing while Elle worked on her piece for applying for a masters program and Tao choosing to go home for the summer since he’d be moving up North for a job he’d accepted. Charlie wasn’t sure what exactly Tao would be doing in the North but from what he described he’d be ‘the film team's bitch’ and his friend couldn’t be happier about it.
“Oh my fuck!” Elle yells, forgetting for a moment they’re on a public patio. “Oh my god, Charlie.” She says, struggling to keep her voice at an acceptable level, while shoving her phone at him across the table.
“No way,” Charlie says, eyes moving quickly across the messages.
[Darcy]: i really hope you check your messages cause i don’t think that missed connections page is responding to things about your post anymore since it's almost three months old or whatever
[Darcy]: but anyway the guy in the video is friend nick and he too was blabbering on and on about your friend on the way home. he’s sitting next to me having the biggest bisexual panic of his life about getting maybe getting to talk to charlie
“There is no way, oh my god!”
“What?” Tao asks, his interest piqued, and reaching for Elle’s phone, Charlie swats his hand away.
“The person who was with Charlie’s mystery boy after the concert messaged me,” Elle explains, eliciting an excited squeal from Isaac and a confused look from Tao. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie says, voice panicked. “What do you guys think?”
His friends all start to talk at once, speaking over each other and making it hard for Charlie to understand. “Stop, okay, stop.” He says, holding up his hand. “Isaac, go.”
“Message them back, you dummy, that man was love sick and he didn’t even know it yet.”
“Elle?”
“What Isaac said,” Elle says, nodding “he was so hot but in a cute and total lover boy kind of way.”
“Tao?”
Tao wrinkles his nose, rolling his eyes before he shrugs. “Sure fine, message the boy. But if he’s horrible, I reserve the right to say I told you so.” Charlie smiles widely, eyes going squinty, and biting the tip of his tongue between his teeth.
[Elle]: well lucky him, i’m having lunch with elle. this is charlie tell him to message me, charlie_spr1
Weeks of Instagram messages turn into a first date. Charlie hates to admit it, never wanting to be one of those people who go out for a lunch date that turns into a dinner date that turns into going out for one drink before finally stumbling back to Charlie’s flat and Nick not leaving until after lunch the next day. He also wasn’t one to believe in faith, never putting any thought into destiny or thinking that there was such a thing as soulmates. But Nick put up a convincing argument. He was moving to London in August to work as a primary school teacher and coach a youth rugby team on the weekends. One thing led to another, and suddenly Charlie found himself writing essays on the living room floor of Nick’s flat and waking up early to get to class on time. Finishing his last year at university and graduating all with Nick by his side.
“Charlie?” Nick’s voice comes from his bedroom. He was about to start his second year of teaching, and Charlie was a few weeks into a permanent position at the publishing company where he’d done his internship.
“What, babe?”
“When was the last time you slept at your flat?”
Charlie tries to think of when he’d been in his bed last. “Your place is closer to work.”
“And your lease is month to month?”
“Yeah, really convenient.”
“Cancel it,” Nick says, walking into the living room, practiced fingers adjusting the knot in his tie.
“What?” Charlie says, confusion clear on his face.
“Cancel your lease, move in with me.”
“Are you serious?” Charlie says, dropping his spoon into his cereal bowl, ignoring the little splashes of milk that splattered over the counter.
“I mean, kinda. You’re here all the time.” Nick says, shrugging.
“You want me to move in with you because I’m here all the time?”
“I want you to move in with me because I’m fucking crazy about you Charlie. This has been the best year of my life. I know you still go back to your place every now and then, but I don’t want you to, I want to know I’m going to wake up to you every morning and fall asleep with you every night.”
Charlie launches himself at Nick, arms wrapping around his neck, hitting his boyfriend so hard that he’s forced to pick Charlie up off the ground. “I’ll take that as a yes?” Nick barely gets the words out before Charlie kisses him.
Another two years passed, their one bedroom flat turning into a two bedroom house outside of London with a small yard and a golden retriever named Daisy. Nick dropping the weekend coaching, and Charlie moving up with his publishing company and being able to work from home two days a week. Spending their weekends at the local farmers market or out with friends, falling into a comfortable rhythm neither of them had expected to find on the Tube in the early hours of the morning.
“Almost five years ago, I took that video,” Elle says motioning to the paused video behind her. Charlie blurry on the screen, while Nick leaned forward in his seat, grinning at him. “I never thought posting it on a missed connections Instagram page would end with Charlie finding his husband. So here’s to Charlie, I hope you never stop dancing in public and to Nick, I hope you never stop watching him like he’s the only man in the room.” Elle says holding up her glass of wine and turning to watch Nick take Charlie’s face in his hands, thumbs wiping away tears before pressing their lips together.