Archive of Our Own

SPRING – NIKO

Valentine’s Day was one of Niko’s favourite holidays. She secretly wished it could be a little more like Christmas – a seasonal thing instead of just a couple of days of build-up before a week of hurriedly cleared supermarket shelves, hearts replaced by eggs, pink and red swallowed up by yellow and green.

Luckily, she already had plenty of decorations, and Charles had been more than happy to help with putting them up.

“Just like old times, eh?” he joked, carefully pinning paperchains of girls holding hands to the cornice (a word Niko had learned when they’d moved in) in the living room. The ceilings were high in all the rooms, and even Charles had to stand on the sofa to reach. “What d’you reckon Edwin and Crystal’ll say?”

“Hm.” Niko thought about it. “I think they’ll be surprised.”

Crystal was out for the evening with friends, and Edwin was in his bedroom upstairs. When he did come down, Niko knew he’d reached the kitchen by the muffled, “Oh my God…”

“Reckon he’s found the roses,” Charles said, carefully climbing off the corner table and surveying his work. “What d’you think?”

“They’re perfect!” Niko hugged Charles from behind, and when Edwin came in, she turned them both so she was hiding behind him, her forehead just peeking up over his shoulder. “Hi, Edwin!”

“Niko,” Edwin said, pained. “Please tell me you aren’t inviting someone round for Valentine’s Day.”

“What if I am?” Niko teased, leaning out from behind Charles without letting go of him. He was holding onto her arms, easily holding her weight. “My room’s not next to yours.”

Edwin and Charles were both up in the attic, and Edwin’s bedroom was actually above Crystal’s, so he was as far from Niko as it was possible to get.

“Oi, what if it’s for me?” Charles objected, swaying slightly in place. “I could have a hot date.”

Edwin raised an eyebrow. “The décor has Niko written all over it, Charles. And if you were planning to get yourself a date between now and Friday, I think you would have mentioned it before now.”

The front door opened, and a gust of cold air blew in. “Ugh” Crystal said, stomping about as she took her boots and coat off. “It’s freezing out there, Mondays can suck my dick.”

Charles snorted with laughter, and Niko saw Edwin’s lips twitch. Crystal turned the corner and stopped, staring. Niko watched her expression, going so still Charles couldn’t even sway anymore. If Crystal didn’t like it, she suddenly didn’t know what she’d do.

“Wow.” Crystal’s gaze travelled around the room, taking in the pink scarf Niko had wound around the lamp, and the heart decorations on the mantelpiece, and the paperchains around the tops of the walls. “Can you get pink fairy lights?” she wondered aloud, and Niko’s whole heart felt like it suddenly grew in her chest.

“Wait till you see the kitchen, mate,” Charles grinned, and Crystal laughed, bad mood apparently lifted, and went to see.

“Oh hell yeah!”

Edwin sighed. “I can see I’m outvoted.”

“We weren’t ever holding a vote on this,” Charles said, amused, and Crystal came back into the room to give Edwin a scornful look.

“Okay, like you’ve got any room to talk. You love fairy lights, don’t lie. You guys just wait till Christmas,” she added for Niko and Charles.

“That’s – Christmas is different,” Edwin spluttered. “Anyway, everyone puts up Christmas decorations – I’ve never seen anyone put up Valentine’s Day decorations.”

Niko peeked out from behind Charles again and gave him her best sad eyes. “Do you want me to take them down?”

Edwin looked away, head tilted up, hands twisting together in front of his stomach. “I never said that.”

“Yay!” Niko bounced out from behind Charles to hug Edwin instead, who pretended to suffer through it even though he’d opened his arms to catch her. “So.” Niko pulled back to look up at him, and glanced at Crystal too. “You guys don’t actually have plans for Friday, right? I thought we could have a love-in!”

Charles burst out laughing. “You can’t call it that! It sounds like an orgy!”

“Damn, you mean it’s not?” Crystal smirked at him, and Niko giggled.

“Just a nice night in together,” she said, squeezing Edwin again. “Dinner, candles, a movie. Lots of wine.”

“And fizz,” Charles added. “You said we’d have prosecco earlier.”

“Can’t have a love-in without prosecco,” Crystal agreed. “Everyone knows that.”

“So you’re free?”

“Yeah, my dating life is non-existent right now. Besides, I can’t think of a less romantic time of year than this.” Crystal gestured pointedly to the bay window, upon which rain was beginning to spatter.

“With group participation, we can change that,” Niko said seriously, and Crystal snickered.

“You’re not not making it sound like an orgy.”

“Well.” Niko gave an over-the-top little body roll, batting her eyelashes. “Let’s see where the night takes us.”

Above her, Edwin snorted. “We’d need a bottle of prosecco each at least.”

When Niko and Charles had lived together (with Monty in a three-bedroom flat in Tottenham), they’d always had their own Valentine’s Day plans. Last year, Charles had been dating Niamh, and Niko had gone to a really fantastic sex party. The year before that, he’d been dating Kat, and Niko had spent the evening with Edwin. Both years, Monty had been with Thomas.

The evening before Valentine’s Day, Niko was making salted caramel fudge (in heart-shaped ice cube moulds) and fending Charles off with a rubber spatula and deep questions.

“Is this your first Valentine’s Day without a date?” she asked, pushing him back with one foot on his hip. Charles grinned and backed up against the counter obediently, then narrowed his eyes as he thought about it.

“First in a while,” he agreed. “Lemme think…me and Niamh did dinner, Kat…I took her to see that French food film I knew Crystal’d like. Year before that would’ve been Izzy? Or – no, wait, it was Theo, I remember cause it was like, my first Valentine’s Day with a guy, and I was shitting myself; I had no idea what to do.”

Niko carefully poured molten fudge into the mould. “What did you do?”

“Stayed in at his,” Charles said sheepishly. “Drank two bottles of wine and had sex. Good night, actually. And yeah, year before Theo was Izzy, but I’m pretty sure I was single the Valentine’s Day before her. Yeah, must’ve been – Lila dumped me just after New Year, and I was still really down about it.”

Niko could feel his eyes dropping to the fudge, so she threw him another question. “Are you sad you aren’t dating anyone this year?”

“Nah.” Charles smiled. “Really looking forward to tomorrow, actually. Orgy or no orgy,” he added, teasing, and Niko giggled. “Nah,” he said again, softer. “Be nice to hang out with you all.”

“We hang out all the time.” Niko twinkled at him over her shoulder, and Charles laughed.

“Yeah, but not like this!”

He was right. The four of them had moved in together just last month, and things were still a little ramshackle. They were still getting used to each other, really, even though they’d technically all lived together in various configurations before.

Niko had explained it to a lot of people, so she had it down to almost a script by this point:

“Okay, so I lived with Crystal in university halls, but only for that first year, and we barely knew each other. Charles and Edwin were in halls too, but they moved in together with some other students for the next two years as well, so they were already friends. Then Edwin and I met on our MA course, and we moved to Japan together for two years. Charles and Crystal met at work, and she moved into the warehouse he was living in. Edwin and I got back from Japan just before Covid hit, and I worked in York for a bit, and he moved in with his parents and then moved back to London and had the worst flatmates in the world. I came back to London right as Charles moved out of the warehouse, and we moved in with our friend Monty! Crystal also wanted to leave the warehouse – they had a rat problem – and she moved in with Jenny and Edwin. And then Jenny and Monty both fell in love, and wanted to move in with their new partners, so the rest of us all decided to move in together!”

They’d become a pretty close unit over the last couple of years, to the point that it had been easy so far, living together. And they were all on regular schedules, so they ate together most nights too. But tomorrow would be fancy. Crystal was on drinks, Charles was on dinner, Niko was prepping dessert, and Edwin would clean up. Niko couldn’t wait.

The next morning, Niko left little cellophane bags of heart-shaped fudge for each of the others on the kitchen table. Crystal was always the first out (she liked to go to the gym before work), followed by Charles, then Edwin. Niko’s hours were variable, but she only had two lessons today, neither of them far away.

By the time she got home, Charles was already at work in the kitchen. He was doing a full-on roast – a leg of lamb, potatoes dauphinoise, broccoli, parsnips, and carrots. Niko stopped in the doorway to watch him slicing potatoes – she’d bought him the mandoline as a present last year, and he loved using it.

“And singin’ bout it don’t mean I care, yeah I know I’ve been known to share!”

He hadn’t heard her come in, and he was singing along to Sabrina Carpenter, slightly off-key. Bopping his head, knees dipping to the beat, feet shuffling in place. He was wearing Niko’s little apron (which Edwin called a pinny, adorably), and Niko loved him so much that she wanted to jump on him like an ambush predator.

“Well I heard you’re back together, and if that’s true,” Charles sung, slicing potatoes to the rhythm. “You’ll just have to taste me –” Head thrown back, eyes closed. “– when he’s kissing youuuu!”

He caught sight of her as he opened his eyes and jumped half a foot off the ground with a shout of surprise that melted into relief in a split second of recognition.

“Jesus!” he gasped. “Niko!”

“Just know you’ll taste me toooo,” Niko sang in lieu of hello, and Charles laughed as she swayed towards him, immediately grabbing her for a quick spin. The song ended too soon for them to dance properly, but one of Charles’ hands was covered in potato residue, so that was probably for the best.

Niko retreated to the table and beamed. “Anything I can help with?”

“Nah, you’re good.” Charles grinned back. “I’m all on track. Got a list and everything, don’t I?”

“I’d better not throw you off then,” Niko said seriously. “I don’t want to distract you.”

“Yeah, you? Distracting?” Charles winked. “Perish the thought, right?” He turned back to the counter to keep slicing. “Good day?”

They chatted about their very different students as Charles finished slicing and arranged the potatoes in their biggest oven dish. Niko was a freelance Japanese tutor whose students ranged wildly in age and enthusiasm, and Charles was a primary school teacher whose year two class was an endless source of stories that ranged wildly from concerning to hilarious.

Crystal and Edwin arrived home a while later, Crystal bearing two clinking bags of bottles, and Edwin with a deep, appreciative sigh of, “That smells divine, Charles,” that made Charles preen.

It tasted divine too, when they got to it. Both Charles and Crystal had worked for a long time in hospitality, and they were both very good at setting a scene. Low lights, candles, music soft and lightly jazzy. They started with the promised fizz, with dates stuffed with cream cheese, with Charles giving them all the juiciest Valentine’s Day gossip from his class.

From there to the roast itself, to red wine for everyone apart from Niko, who still didn’t like it and switched to white. To Crystal’s story about a really cute dog on the Tube, to Edwin’s capital-O Opinions on dog training, to Niko’s thoughts on pet suitability, to Charles’ musings on animal PR. Children’s media, Looney Tunes, a digression from Edwin on historical views of animals, zoos past and present, animal enrichment, human enrichment, cooking as a point of distinction between humans and other animals.

Around and around, talking about nothing in particular, just enjoying each other’s company.

Niko had made chocolate mousse for dessert (served, of course, in heart-shaped dishes), and Crystal had procured proper dessert wine, which was so sweet that Niko could have probably drunk the entire little bottle and seriously regretted it.

Crystal insisted on cocktails as digestifs, and only when Niko enthusiastically agreed to help Edwin finish off the dessert wine in the living room did she realise how tipsy she was. Charles, always the most sensible, was snickering at her and Edwin as they cuddled up together on the sofa.

“We’re not drunk,” Edwin insisted. “Your metric is skewed, that’s all! You’ve had half what we have!”

“Less than that, even.” Charles sat on the coffee table, which Niko and Edwin both clucked at him for.

“No one likes a smug puritan,” Edwin huffed, knocking his leg against Charles. “What on Earth are you sitting there for?”

“Maybe I just wanna keep an eye on you,” Charles laughed. Niko swung her feet up into his lap and tried to hook them around his waist to pull him closer.

“You can say you wanna look at how good we look, we don’t mind,” she teased. “Right, Edwin?”

“We’d make a beautiful couple,” Edwin agreed, clinking his glass against hers. “Just imagine the children.”

“How many?” Niko asked.

“Oh, four at least.”

“Four!” Charles squawked. “She’s not a brood mare!”

“Who’s she?” Edwin pretended great offence while Niko giggled helplessly against his shoulder. “The cat’s mother? That’s my wife you’re talking about.”

Crystal entered with four dark glasses held carefully in her hands. “Okay, I see we’ve graduated to the Sasaki-Payne marriage plans stage of the evening.”

“Do you want boys or girls?” Niko asked, as Charles jumped up to take the glasses. He and Crystal shifted the table back and out of the way, Crystal throwing two of the big sofa cushions onto the floor and Charles dragging the ugly pouf over so they could sit opposite Niko and Edwin.

The pouf was horribly uncomfortable to sit on, but if you sat on the floor, it was good to lean back against. Charles did that, arms stretched back over it, and Crystal sat next to him, not quite leaning into his side.

“A mix,” Edwin said. “Like the Pevensies. They can go and rule a fantasy land or something, that takes care of childcare, and you and I can swan about going to parties.”

They were all laughing, and Niko finished her dessert wine as Crystal said, “You hate parties, come on!”

“Any party would be bearable with Niko,” Edwin said loftily. “She’ll be nice, and I’ll be a bitch, and everyone will say how good we look together.”

“Chemistry for days, yeah,” Crystal snorted. “They’ll wonder who’s whose beard.”

Niko gasped theatrically. “Rude! We have loads of chemistry!”

“No, I can see it,” Charles agreed, squinting. “You know how some people are so posh they’re camp?”

It was Edwin’s turn to gasp, a hand jumping to his chest as Crystal almost fell over laughing. “Charles!”

“I’m sorry!”

“Oh my God,” Crystal wheezed. “Holy shit, Charles, you can’t say shit like that!”

“I didn’t mean it in a homophobic way!”

“We have loads of chemistry,” Niko assured Edwin, who looked down at her and opened his mouth – and closed it, a twist to it like he was trying not to laugh. A look in his eyes that was a question.

He was thinking of Japan, Niko knew immediately, and her eyes widened. It would be the perfect story to blow Charles and Crystal away, but she and Edwin had agreed never to tell.

Edwin’s smile faded into something a little more serious, and he quirked an eyebrow. Could I?

Niko’s breath caught, and she gave him the tiniest nod, eyes wide now with anticipation. Do it!

“What’s this?” Charles asked, ever-sensitive to unspoken conversations. He was leaning forward eagerly, pointing between them. “What’s going on?”

“Niko and I do have chemistry, actually,” Edwin said, his arm tightening around Niko’s shoulders. “She’s the only woman I’ve ever had sex with.”

Niko almost wished she’d had time to get her phone out to record the stunned second of silence that followed. The way Charles and Crystal’s jaws dropped in almost perfect unison was beautiful.

Crystal recovered first. “Shut the fuck up.”

“You’re having us on!”

“No way have you –”

“When – wait, when did you do this?!”

“Japan,” Edwin said, obviously trying very hard not to laugh.

“You’re lying,” Crystal insisted, but she was laughing. “No way! Niko?”

Niko shrugged coyly. “It was just for fun.”

At least another solid minute of laughing denials followed before they accepted that Edwin and Niko were being truthful, and the real questions came out.

“I just wanted to see what the fuss was about!” Edwin accepted his espresso martini from Crystal. “And I was complaining about it, and Niko offered, and I knew she’d be lovely about it, and not make it weird.”

“How could it not be weird?” Crystal demanded. “You have sex, and then just…go back to normal?”

“I’ve had sex with loads of my friends,” Niko said. “It’s not hard.”

Charles snorted, and Crystal pretended to smack him on the back of the head.

“It wasn’t abnormal, I mean,” Niko went on, smiling up at Edwin. “It was just something we tried. It wasn’t a big deal.”

Charles couldn’t resist, affecting a scandalised tone. “It wasn’t hard or a big deal? Harsh, Niko!”

They all fell apart giggling, and Edwin tried valiantly to battle down his smiles to pretend to be suffering.

“I don’t know that I could do that,” Crystal said, giving them both a considering look. “I don’t know, maybe I’m incapable of not making it weird.”

“It was just sex,” Edwin protested, still smiling a little as he looked at Niko. “I just wanted to see what it would be like, and Niko was kind enough to…”

“Help out?” Charles finished, waggling his eyebrows, and Niko giggled again.

“I like sex!” she said. “It’s nice! It’s like playing spin the bottle.”

Crystal shook her head, grabbing her own drink and Niko’s. “Okay, there’s a big difference between kissing in spin the bottle, and sex.”

“My point is that it doesn’t have to change anything unless you want it to,” Niko said, taking her glass from Crystal. “You’d never have known Edwin and I slept together if we hadn’t told you, right?”

“True.” Crystal glanced at Charles, who shrugged.

“I get it. Like, I don’t know if it’s the same as spin the bottle, but like…a kiss can mean even more than sex, y’know? And I’m pretty much always up for a kiss.”

The energy between him and Crystal crackled all of a sudden, and she raised an eyebrow, lips quirking. “Oh yeah?”

Charles ducked his head with a self-conscious laugh, like he’d just realised what he’d said. He looked back at Crystal like he couldn’t help it, eyes darting next to Niko and Edwin, aware of everyone looking at him, and looked down again, shoulders twitching in what might have been a shrug.

It both was and wasn’t a surprise when Edwin said, “Come on, then.”

Charles looked up at him, and the smile that had started to slide off his face shivered back into place, shy and pleased at the same time. He went up on one knee in a smooth motion, planted a hand on the arm of the sofa, and leaned up and in.

Edwin’s free hand cupped Charles’ face, and they kissed each other without even a breath of hesitation. A long, chaste press of lips to lips, and then one of them exhaled and they started actually kissing, mouths opening, the wet sounds soft in the quiet room.

Niko took Edwin’s espresso martini from his unresisting hand and turned silently with a delighted expression to Crystal, who stared back with a look somewhere between thrilled and shocked.

“Wow!” Niko mouthed, and Crystal had to slap a hand over her own mouth to stop herself bursting out laughing.

Next to Niko, Charles and Edwin were still kissing. As she watched, the energy shifted from hungry and explorative to sweet and shallow. This close, Niko could hear the way Edwin’s breath shuddered as Charles withdrew, could see how wet both their lips were. They looked at each other, neither of them smiling, and Niko cleared her throat.

“Do I get a turn?”

Charles’ smile returned like a flood, and he laughed. “If you like.”

So Niko passed her and Edwin’s drinks to Edwin, and she kissed Charles next. And after that, Crystal tugged Charles back down to the floor and had her turn. At a questioning murmur from Edwin, Niko hummed pleased agreement and kissed him. They hadn’t kissed very much when they’d had sex, and she was pretty sure Edwin was better than she remembered.

Crystal, when she knelt up to try kissing Edwin, agreed that he was actually a really good kisser. His pretended scornful offence set Charles off again, laughing helplessly.

Niko felt like her skin was sparking with static electricity by the time she and Crystal looked at each other. That same energy that had crackled between her and Charles now ignited between her and Niko, and Niko barely had time to take a quick sip of her drink before Crystal was climbing onto the sofa to kiss her.

She wanted Crystal to taste the coffee in her mouth, and by the pleased sound Crystal made, Niko had succeeded.

The four of them went round and round again and again, growing bolder and gigglier with every pass. They finished their drinks between kisses, and even Charles, who’d had a virgin, looked hazy-eyed and drunk when they finally slowed down.

Niko and Edwin were on the floor now, and Crystal was lying on the sofa, a soft smile on her lips. Her head was right next to Niko, so she turned and kissed her gently. Across from her, Charles was leaning against the sofa with Crystal’s hand in his hair, Edwin’s head in his lap. Niko smiled and leaned down to embrace him, wrapping her arm around Edwin’s chest.

“And we, what?” Crystal mumbled, eyes closing. “Just have to decide it’s not weird?”

“Yep.” Niko smiled and sat up again. “It’s way easier than you think. I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Yeah.” Crystal took a deep breath and sat up. “Good idea.”

In bed, the anxiety hit.

It was probably Niko’s best Valentine’s Day yet. Much like Charles, she was always up for a kiss, and even though last year’s sex party had been amazing, she hadn’t known everyone there, and she really preferred kissing people she knew.

Plus, she loved Edwin, Charles, and Crystal more than basically anyone, and she’d thought about them all in far more sexual situations than friendly making out in the living room. Niko thought about having sex with lots of people, and she’d never been embarrassed about it.

And she wasn’t going to start now, she decided. She was going to focus on the positives. She’d refreshed her memory of what kissing Edwin was like (lovely), and she’d kissed Charles (fantastic) and Crystal (breathtaking) as well. She’d gotten to see all of them kiss in various configurations too, and they’d all cuddled a lot. All good things!

Things had never been awkward after she and Edwin had slept together. The whole experience had been so devoid of that awkward tension of so many first times, with the pressure of it being good and romantic. Edwin had been a little nervous, mostly determined, and approached the whole event like an experiment with a result he’d already predicted. Niko had enjoyed herself a lot. It had been surprisingly fun.

Edwin had been grateful, and never brought it up again. He’d never acted any differently around her, and she’d followed his lead.

If Charles and Crystal could do that, they would be fine. They were all mature adults – they could make it a fun anecdote (ha ha, remember the Valentine’s Day when we got drunk and all made out with each other?) or ignore it altogether.

It would be fine.

Niko looked up at her ceiling in the dark and hoped Charles wasn’t freaking out. Looked at the wall, imagining the hallway beyond and Crystal’s bedroom at the other end, and hoped she wasn’t either.

It would be fine. They all loved each other – even if it was awkward for a bit, they’d move on.

SUMMER – CHARLES

By the time the schools finally broke up for summer, Charles always felt like he was in the final stage of a race. After the finish line, but before his body could stop, when the momentum was just carrying his body forward slower and slower until he could finally rest.

The autumn term was objectively the worst. The chaos of a new class and new parents, the shorter days, the cold, the constant illnesses – it was the fucking pits. Spring term was a bit of a misnomer since it mostly took place in winter, but things were always easier when the days were getting longer and the kids had settled in.

The summer term was great. Better weather, better moods, he always knew his kids really well by then, and he had the glorious stretch of the summer holidays to look forward to. The last two weeks of July and the entirety of August. Six blissful weeks of sleeping in and relaxing and doing whatever he wanted.

In reality, that meant about a week of sleeping in and enjoying the bizarre freedom of wandering around during the day and staying up late, and then five weeks of increasingly neurotic attempts to fill the empty days stretching out in front of him.

He was eternally grateful for Edwin, Crystal, and Niko, who for the last couple of years had enthusiastically tackled the problem with various solutions. The best were holidays. This year, they were going to Snowdonia – or Eryri, as Edwin insisted they call it – for a week in August, and Charles couldn’t wait.

Last year, they’d gone to the Peak District, and the little cottage they’d rented had only had two bedrooms. The girls had taken the double; he and Edwin had taken the twin. This year, Niko had managed to find somewhere with the same setup, and every time Charles remembered, it felt like his breath caught in his chest.

Only a little. Barely at all, really.

It was just…something he thought of, sometimes. Something he wondered about, from time to time. Whether they’d split the same way, and if something might happen.

More likely that Charles was just reading into things. He’d broken his usual dating patterns this year, and he was getting a bit cuddle-happy, was all. Every time he thought about reactivating Hinge or Bumble though, he just…sort of never followed through.

Even his mum had mentioned it, when he’d gone to see her for her birthday. Charles had managed to time it perfectly for once, arriving just in time for dinner and keeping the chat light and easy while his dad poked and picked and was his usual nasty self. He’d insisted on doing the washing up, dodging his dad’s scorn, and he and his mum had had a nice chat in the kitchen while Paul got settled in front of the TV.

One day, Charles would figure out how to get his mum out of the house for her birthday. Take her for a nice meal where she wouldn’t have to cook or wash up or concentrate so hard on keeping his dad mellow.

Till then, he kept the peace and they murmured back and forth to each other under cover of the sound of running water and the rumble of the dishwasher and the clink of pots and pans.

“Who’s your sweetheart right now, then?” she asked, stacking things for Charles to wash.

“No one, actually.”

“What, still?”

Charles laughed. “What d’you mean, still?”

Sangeeta shrugged. “It’s been a while, that’s all!” She smiled and reached up to ruffle his hair. “You’ve always had a girlfriend, or a…someone, ever since you moved out.”

His mum wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea of Charles being bi, but he’d at least not felt scared to tell her. He didn’t ever plan on telling his dad, not if he could avoid it. He tried not to think about it.

Charles shrugged, smiling. “Been busy, I guess. And I’m always doing something with one of the others, y’know.”

“Maybe it’s good you’re taking a break,” his mum said, surprising him. “Take care of yourself, hm?” She laughed at his raised eyebrows and gave him a cheeky look. “Maybe save yourself for marriage.”

“Mum!”

It was true though, that Charles had basically always had a girlfriend or a boyfriend. He’d never dared at school, his dad too close for comfort, but the moment he’d left for university, he’d gone wild. He was a serial monogamist, Crystal said. He’d always fallen in love fast and hard, and like Niko, he loved being in love. He loved dating, he loved having a partner, he loved the first flush especially, when everything felt like it was sparkling with possibility and potential.

He’d never managed to hold onto anyone for longer than six months though. And after Isha had dumped him in November last year, Charles hadn’t followed his usual routine of moping for a week or two and then throwing himself back in the sea, with its oh-so-plentiful bounty of fish.

He’d been busy with getting ready to move into the new house with Crystal and Edwin. Not that shifting from Tottenham to Walthamstow was a long way, but Crystal had actually bought the house, so it was more complicated than Charles was used to. And in all that, he’d felt too frazzled to go on any first dates, and after they’d moved in, he’d just been revelling in how lovely it all was.

And then there had been Valentine’s Day.

And nothing had changed after that. Like Niko had said, they’d chosen not to make it weird, and they hadn’t. They’d been very chill about it. Just like spin the bottle in school. Totally fine. Not a big deal.

And he and Niko had always been pretty cuddly, but now Charles couldn’t be in the same room as Crystal or Edwin without finding an excuse to touch them either. It had developed naturally as the weeks passed, and it felt so normal now that Charles didn’t really think about how they cuddled up to each other on the sofa or brushed each other’s backs or shoulders as they passed each other in the hallway or kitchen.

On the final day of term, they celebrated by meeting Monty and Thomas at one of their old locals they hadn’t been to in a while, and Charles was squashed into the corner of the snug between Niko and Monty, the three of them catching up eagerly while Crystal and Thomas got drinks and Edwin played his usual game of watching with a little smile on his face.

One round later, Charles switched to 0% Guinness and they all shuffled round so he was sandwiched between Crystal and Edwin, leaning across the table to argue happily with Thomas about rugby and American football (two subjects Thomas knew bugger-all about but liked to pretend he did).

Another round, and Charles wound up between Monty and Crystal, wrapping an arm around Crystal’s shoulders both to keep her from sliding off the edge of her seat and to stop her from launching across the snug to throttle Monty, who kept insisting that she was experiencing problems at work because she and her manager had incompatible star signs.

It was still a lovely night though, and Charles had missed Monty (and Thomas, not that he’d ever admit it). Outside, he hugged Monty tightly, and Monty went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

“Summer freedom,” he smiled. “We’ll be seeing more of you, right?”

“Definitely.” Charles grinned at him.

“And – just double-checking – you haven’t slept with any of your roommates?”

Charles’ voice actually squeaked. “What?”

“That’s a no.” Monty gave him the smug smile of someone who’d just won a bet, and Charles looked over instinctively at Thomas, who was busy declaring his undying love for Niko.

“What – why would I have –”

“Just a vibe. Don’t worry about it!” Monty flapped his hand. “Have a nice night!”

“What vibe?!”

But Monty had swanned over to Thomas and was leading him away, and that was that.

And alright, Charles did find himself walking with his arm draped around Niko’s shoulders as they walked, but they’d always done that, that wasn’t new. And maybe the way he wrapped his arms around Edwin from behind and hooked his chin over his shoulder while Crystal was finding her key was a bit new, but he was pretty sure they didn’t have a vibe.

A couple of weeks later, they were on their Eryri holiday in a pub for lunch, and Crystal came back from the bar with their drinks and said, “Okay, so this guy thinks we’re two gay couples. Asked if my girlfriend wanted ice with her sugary fruit juice.”

Niko smiled and sipped her cider, giving Crystal a coy look. “Thanks, baby.”

Yesterday, they’d been on the train (an honest-to-God steam train like out of a Famous Five book, it was mad) and the conductor had taken one look at the four of them and assumed they were two straight couples.

Crystal sat down, not exactly dispelling any assumptions by crowding up close to Niko and sweeping her hair back over her shoulder when it threatened to fall forward into her drink.

“I think we’ve got a vibe,” she said, and Edwin hummed.

“I have to say, it’s much nicer being assumed to be gay.”

“Yeah, it’s sweet, innit?” Charles grinned at him. “Like, that bartender obviously wanted you to know we’re all welcome.”

“We should make it a game,” Niko said eagerly. “Any time someone says we’re beautiful couples or something, ask which of us they think are the couples.”

Edwin snorted. “It’s hardly happening that often.”

“But with a good effort, we can change that,” Crystal joked, and Charles snickered.

It was a bloody lovely holiday. Charles had no idea where Niko had found the cottage they were staying in, but he was trying hard not to think about how much it must have cost. The others had covered his share as a birthday present when they’d booked it earlier in the year, and Niko insisted it was cheaper than Charles thought, but he was pretty sure she was lying.

Every time he started spiralling about it, he reminded himself that Niko and Edwin were the ones most excited about the place – it was actually on the line for the steam trains, with its own tiny platform and everything, and you could flag trains down like buses and ride them for free. It was absolutely mental in the best way.

The tiny little cottage had a name only Edwin could pronounce and it was right out in the sticks with no wifi and only the patchiest phone signal. The entire upper floor was just the twin bedroom, and the trains went chugging and whistling by all day long. It felt about a million miles and five hundred years from the constant buzzing of London, always awake and always busy.

They were doing a lot of walking, a lot of train rides, and a lot of board games. Crystal was the least enamoured with it all, especially the games, but she secretly loved a bit of a stomp around a mountain, and she could sniff out a decent meal out anywhere. And for all that they lived together and spent basically all their free time together anyway, Charles had to admit that he was loving the extra.

No work, no internet, no other commitments or distractions. Just his three favourite people and the brightest night skies he’d ever seen.

They often watched stuff together at home – Niko and Charles were always up for a bit of Married at First Sight, Edwin and Crystal liked a gritty drama (Charles swore they rewatched Chernobyl at least once a year), and they all loved Taskmaster. But here, there wasn’t even a TV.

A sofa slightly smaller than their one at home opposite two armchairs in the living room and a sturdy wooden table in the kitchen. Two and two, every time, in every configuration. Charles always found himself on the sofa, leaning into whoever was sat there with him. Lying with his legs over the arm and his head in Niko’s lap. Tangling his legs with Crystal’s, his long and hers strong. Listing sideways into Edwin, pressed together from shoulders to elbow.

Talking about everything and nothing. Wishing it was cold enough to light the little wood burner.

They’d saved the hardest walk for the end of the trip. A whole day climbing Snowdon itself – or Yr Wyddfa, as Edwin reminded them. Something was eating at Crystal, Charles could tell. She was always the sturdiest of them – Niko said she was like a wolf, able to keep up a constant pace for hours and hours at a time – but she could forget hiking etiquette of moving at the pace of the slowest walker.

Edwin was almost always the slowest, and Crystal was visibly impatient with him as she kept pausing to let him catch up. By unspoken agreement, Niko fell back to walk with Edwin and Charles pulled forward to keep closer to Crystal. It was a perfect day – cloudy, not too warm, not too windy.

“Alright?” Charles murmured as he and Crystal stopped again. He kept an eye on Edwin and Niko making their way up to them, but Crystal was glaring at the path ahead of them. It was busy, and Crystal was tense.

“I don’t like the way they keep looking at me,” she muttered, and Charles nodded. They looked a bit out of place, no denying it. Every other hiker they’d seen so far was white and older than them, mostly dressed differently too. A fair few looked at their little group with ill-concealed surprise or condescension, and Charles could see why.

They all had decent boots, but apart from that they could’ve been walking anywhere, not up a mountain. Charles’ backpack was his old ratty one from uni, covered in patches and pins. Niko, as usual, was dressed like a fashion model. Edwin hadn’t been able to find his own sunglasses and had borrowed Niko’s heart-shaped pair. They didn’t exactly look prepared for hiking, even though the weather was mild and they knew what they were doing.

“Fuck ‘em,” Charles said, and Crystal smiled, giving him a wry look.

“Just ignore them?”

“Yeah.” Instinctively, Charles wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “Think of the sick views at the top.”

“I am.”

The views on the way up were pretty bloody spectacular too, to be fair. Charles stuck by Crystal, gently reminding her to keep pausing to let Niko and Edwin catch up, and linger longer so they’d have the chance to take breaks too. Crystal stopped complaining, but she stopped speaking too.

Charles followed her closely, eyes flicking between the path and the back of her head. Eventually, after they passed the rail line, she started to complain again, but this time about her job.

“Hear me out, yeah,” Charles said, after she’d run out of steam. “But…if you’re hating it this much, why not quit?”

“And do what?” Crystal bit out. “I hate it, but I’m good at it. And I really like having a regular salary and daytime hours.”

“Yeah.” Charles could get that. “It is the thing you spend most of your time doing though. Pretty shit if it’s making you miserable.”

“I don’t wanna start all over again,” Crystal groaned.

“No better time for it,” Charles pointed out. “You don’t have to worry about rent or anything. Take some time off, shop around. It’s not that scary, switching jobs.”

“Yeah, but you actually knew what you wanted to do, and you love it. I don’t have a fucking clue.”

“Mm. Hold up?” They shuffled to the side of the trail to let a couple – the usual sort: older and white with poles and bucket hats and Berghaus backpacks – pass them, and stayed there while they waited for Edwin and Niko to make their way up to them.

Crystal sighed and leaned into Charles’ side – he wrapped his arm around her and held on, even though they were both sweating.

“I don’t always love it,” Charles said quietly, gazing out across the valley. The air was a little hazy, blurring the edges of the green-brown hills that stretched out into the distance, and everything felt very remote and unimportant. “There’s parts I proper hate.”

“But if someone asked you whether you love your job…?”

“Yeah, I’d say I love it,” Charles agreed. “But if it ever tips, I’m switching again. If I ever start staying up late cause I’m putting off bed and waking up and having to go to work, I know it’s time to pack it in.”

“What would you do instead?”

“Paramedic’d be pretty cool.” Charles gave her a wry look. “Pay’s just as bad and the hours are even worse though, so it’s not like it’ll be a step up.”

Crystal laughed. “Is this because we binged a load of Ambulance?”

“Probably a bit, yeah.” Charles squeezed her. “What d’you wanna do? Like, with your life? And what’re you already good at?”

“I’m good at reading people.” Crystal closed her eyes. “I’m good at visuals. But I wanna do something bigger. Something that’s actually…useful. Something that helps people.”

“There you are.” Charles smiled, giving her another encouraging squeeze. “That’s a start, innit?”

“I’m not exactly narrowing it down, here.”

“Sure you are. What d’you wanna help people with? Sounds like you want it to be serious stuff, not like helping them figure out a menu.”

Crystal snorted, and sighed again. “Yeah. Ugh, I hate this. I hate like…not knowing myself enough to know what I wanna do with the rest of my life.”

“Whoa, the rest of your life?” Charles laughed. “Crystal.”

“What?”

“Hang on – Edwin!”

Edwin broke off from whatever he’d been talking about with Niko as they approached. “Yes?”

“What was that thing you said the other day about how many jobs a millennial’s gonna have in their lifetime?”

Edwin squinted. “I think it was gen z, actually. It was something like twenty jobs across six careers, not counting jobs held in the 18-25 range. Millennials and gen z are more likely to hold multiple jobs too. Why are you asking?”

“Wondering what I’ll do when I get sick of trying to make kids learn stupid grammar rules they’ll never need or use.”

Edwin laughed, and Crystal turned her face briefly into Charles’ shoulder with a smile of her own.

“You don’t have to know all the answers,” Charles told her quietly as they set off again, after a pause for Niko and Edwin to drink some water and get some snacks out.

“I guess I don’t like how wobbly it feels. And I know I don’t have to worry about rent, but there’s always other stuff to pay for.”

“Yeah.” Charles licked his lips and pushed his sunglasses further up his nose. “But if I can let you guys pay for my share of a holiday now and then, you can let us hold you up if you wanna shop around for a new career. You’re not on your own, y’know?”

Crystal didn’t say anything, but she swayed to bump her shoulder into his. By the time they reached the steps up to the very top of the mountain, she was grinning at the view, walking slower so Edwin and Niko weren’t constantly playing catch-up.

Niko charmed another walker into taking a few photos of all of them at the top, beaming and sweaty, and the way down seemed to take half the time, even accounting for the fact that it was all downhill. They could’ve gotten train tickets, but the queue had been long, and it was a separate line to the one they could get for free with their cottage booking.

They all ached like hell that evening – Charles felt like his legs had expanded like balloons, and Niko had a persistent headache that was definitely from not drinking enough water. Crystal, with her regular gym attendance and superhuman endurance, freely admitted to feeling very smug, and the only reason Edwin didn’t snap at her was because she was the only one able to stand on her feet long enough to put dinner together.

“It’s almost like climbing a mountain cold is bad for you,” she said, and Charles groaned.

“Lay off, I hate the gym.”

“Likewise.” Edwin gave a great, heaving sigh. “Oh, I can’t wait to be horizontal.”

Niko, her face mostly obscured by the damp flannel over her eyes, snorted, and Edwin smacked her arm half-heartedly.

Despite Charles’ secret wonderings, nothing had happened in their shared bedrooms. It had taken him ages to fall asleep on that first night, staring at the dark shape of Edwin in the other bed, wondering whether the girls were awake downstairs or sleeping and still in the double. He still didn’t know whether he was more disappointed or relieved.

It felt greedy to want more than he already had, when what he had was the best friends he’d ever had, and likely ever would have. The idea of ruining it by doing more than some tipsy making out – even if it was one of his most treasured memories – was too high a risk.

On the train they flagged down the next morning to start the long way home they managed to get a table, and a woman sitting across the narrow aisle from them smiled as they all sat down. “Double couples’ retreat, was it?”

Niko lit up. “Which of us do you think are the couples? No wrong answers,” she added, seeing the flicker of trepidation on the woman’s face.

“Hmm.” The woman looked at them. “Well, I’m just guessing from how you’re sat, mind, but I’d say you and this gentleman.” She nodded at Charles, who grinned. “And these two lovelies.” Edwin and Crystal, who both laughed.

Niko laughed and explained that they’d been mistaken for couples in various configurations all week, and Charles ended up swapping seats with Crystal so he could keep up the chat and Crystal and Edwin could just look out of the window and relax.

And it felt right, somehow, that they’d each been assumed to be with each other at least once.

“Maybe we do have a vibe,” Charles muttered to Niko later, waiting on the platform for a different train.

“Oh we totally have a vibe,” Niko agreed, and stepped back to lean into his chest, tilting her head to look up at him with a sweet smile. “But it’s kinda nice, right?”

“Yeah.” Charles smiled – he couldn’t resist, with Niko looking at him like that. “Yeah, it is.”

AUTUMN – CRYSTAL

Niko came back downstairs from giving Charles and Edwin their tea – both were deep in some sort of video game with each other – and sighed as she flopped onto the sofa with Crystal.

“I’m going to take next Tuesday off work.”

Crystal looked at her, remote in hand. They’d decided to watch an actual film together instead of two or three episodes of TV, but they were still undecided on what.

“What’s next Tuesday?”

“The Autumn Equinox.”

Crystal’s eyes narrowed, trying to remember the significance, and Niko smiled.

“It’s for honouring the dead.”

Crystal’s expression cleared. “Your dad.”

“Yeah.” Niko looked at the TV, currently just showing the Roku main screen. “I don’t know what I’ll do yet. Call my mom, obviously, but…I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I might go for a walk or something.”

Crystal hesitated. “Do you…want company?”

Niko’s relief was obvious in her nod, and Crystal made a sort of tutting sound and put the remote down to pull her in for a hug.

“You wanna ask Charles and Edwin too? Or, well. Edwin, I guess.” Since Charles wouldn’t be able to take a school day off, not without calling in sick, which he hated doing even if he was actually ill.

“No, I don’t wanna make a big thing of it.”

“Is it like, a festival day in Japan or something?” They shifted, adjusting so that Crystal’s legs were draped over Niko’s, the blanket that lived on the sofa year-round covering both of them.

“It’s a public holiday. I thought…maybe you could tell me about the family research you’ve been doing.”

Crystal smiled, surprised. “Because it’s about ancestors and stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Yeah, cool.” Crystal looked down at her lap, still smiling. She’d finally finished her notice period two weeks ago, and instead of jobhunting, she’d taken a hard left turn into researching her family tree.

Niko cleared her throat and looked at the TV. “Any ideas for a movie?”

“Depends on the mood.”

“Something the boys wouldn’t like?” Niko frowned. “I guess that doesn’t actually narrow it down much.”

“Or at all,” Crystal agreed. “Also, that’s not a mood. What’re we in the mood for? Happy? Tragic? Wholesome? Funny? Old? Experimental?”

“Something with lesbians,” Niko decided, and Crystal nodded approvingly.

“Nice, okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Kinda depressing how much that narrows it down, actually.”

They ended up watching Portrait of a Lady on Fire, since they’d both missed it in cinemas when it came out, and Crystal managed to compress all her sudden lust for running away to an island with Niko and maybe becoming a painter to, “Wow, it shouldn’t be so hot when women smoke pipes.”

Charles appeared just as the credits rolled, a little bleary-eyed. “What’d you watch?”

“Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Niko smiled up at him. “Are ya winning, son?”

Charles made a creaky sort of, “Ehh-hh,” sound, tilting his palm side to side. “It’s fucking hard.”

Crystal sighed. “That’s what she said.”

It worked – both Charles and Niko snorted.

“So unfeminist of you,” Charles grinned. “And after watching a classic gay movie, too!”

“Yeah, yeah, the duality of woman.” Crystal twisted on the sofa and pulled Niko between her legs, her back to Crystal’s chest, her hair soft against Crystal’s face. “Edwin still going?”

“Yeah. I’ll go and pull the plug on his computer if he’s still going in like, half an hour.” Charles yawned. “Was it good?”

“It was soooo good,” Niko sighed. “Not overrated at all. I wish I’d seen it when it came out. Also – Charles, we need a third opinion. Women smoking pipes?”

“Hot,” Charles said, no hesitation at all, and Crystal and Niko both laughed.

“Hotter than normal cigarettes?” Crystal asked, and Charles pursed his lips, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Maybe. I dunno – I’ve never actually seen a woman smoking a pipe before. Cigs over vapes though, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“That goes without saying,” Niko agreed, and looked up at the ceiling. “Hm. Now I really want Edwin’s opinion.”

“I’ll get him,” Charles said. “He’s probably shrimping like anything right now – do him good to get up and move about a bit.”

“Place your bets now,” Crystal murmured, as Charles went back upstairs.

“Well it’ll be interesting,” Niko said, “since he won’t think it’s hot the same way we all do. Edwin’s more objective.”

“Is that better?”

“No, but it’s more interesting. Diversity,” Niko said, turning her head to look at Crystal out of the corner of her eye, “is the spice of life.”

Crystal wanted to kiss her so badly it was like a fever. She settled for laughing and squeezing Niko tightly.

She kept going back and forth on who she had a worse crush on, Charles or Niko. Edwin’s presence somehow acted as a finger on the scales, stopping her from crashing out and going fully insane over one or the other. Crystal couldn’t have said how – it wasn’t as if she talked about it to Edwin, or like he inserted himself into the equation in any obvious way.

But if Crystal kept flipflopping between heated hunger for Niko and Charles, she supposed Edwin was a cool, calming influence. They’d all become pretty cuddly since moving in, but Crystal didn’t octopus with him the way she did with Charles, the way she was doing with Niko right now. They were perfectly comfortable sitting pressed together, or with one of them leaning into the other, but it wasn’t quite the same. It wasn’t the lack of the heat so much as the extra solidity.

Right now, Crystal felt like she might jitter out of her skin if Niko wriggled back against her or pulled her arms tighter around her body. With Edwin, she could just relax.

When Edwin did come downstairs, he agreed that women smoking pipes was objectively hot, and delivered his verdict that it was for the same reason women wearing old-fashioned men’s clothing was hot – it was the element of the forbidden queering the act and signalling the woman’s potentially rebellious sexual proclivities or her rebellion against social norms in general. Naturally, such acts were appealing.

“Naturally,” Niko smiled.

“Thanks, Professor.” Crystal didn’t sigh as Niko pulled away to sit up, Charles lending her a hand to help.

They looked hot together, no denying it. Crystal was pretty sure Edwin was thinking the same thing, in his gayer, more Charles-focused way, but that was none of her business.

Crystal had already made a bunch of crazy life choices in the past couple of years. It wouldn’t be tempting fate to give into her near-hourly urges to kiss her best friends: it would be torpedoing the ship they were sailing in while she was on board. Or something. Metaphors weren’t really her strong suit.

The point was, Crystal was absolutely not about to risk the three best friends she’d ever made over something stupid like a crush or two.

In her bedroom, listening to Edwin puttering around above her (honestly, what sort of freak showered before bed instead of in the morning?), Crystal flicked through the scrapbook she’d semi-accidentally put together of her family’s history.

Charles had gotten her started on it, funnily enough, complaining about the family tree project he was supposed to get his class to do at the beginning of the year, more vehement than Crystal had ever heard him. But it had gotten her thinking.

Her grandmother had died in one of the first waves of Covid in the US and left basically her entire estate to Crystal, bypassing her own daughter completely. Even though Crystal had only met her a handful of times, all when she was a kid, mostly too young to remember the visits. Suddenly, Crystal was an independent millionaire. It had very nearly sent her over the edge.

She’d been so good about cutting herself off from her parents’ money when she’d started university. She’d been so determined to make a clean break and get a fresh start. No more credit cards, no more monthly payments, no more spoilt rich-kid bullshit. She’d gotten a job, and then another, and felt like a total fraud for struggling with her bills and rent when she could’ve made one call or a trip to the bank and saved herself the bother.

But she hadn’t wanted to be the kid she’d been before. She’d wanted to change, and she had. She’d been doing well – she’d been living with Charles in a converted warehouse with eight other people, she’d been promoted to assistant floor manager at the restaurant she worked at, she had friends, she had a life. And then Covid had hit, and everything shut down. And just as she was starting to face up to the fact that she’d have to call her parents to bail her out, she’d woken up to seven figures in her bank account.

For two years, she’d ignored it. She’d made a new account, moved every penny out of sight, and not thought about it. She’d only told Edwin after they’d moved in together, and he’d been the one to convince her to see a proper financial advisor about it. Multiple, even. It had taken still longer for her to finally approach the idea of buying a house, and only because Jenny had broken the news that she was moving up to Scotland to be with her girlfriend, and Monty had decided to move in with Thomas at the same time.

Very few people in Crystal’s life knew that she’d bought the house she was living in outright. She couldn’t make a move on Charles or Niko without bringing that power dynamic into sharp, awful focus, and even the idea of doing that made her feel physically sick.

It was enough that she got to live with them. Enough that they were living easier lives by only paying for bills, not rent.

Enough that someone as lovely as Niko wanted to ask her to spend such a difficult day with her. Which was absolutely terrifying, obviously, because Crystal was even less tactful than Edwin sometimes, but Niko knew that. Niko loved her anyway, for some reason. Crystal just had to not say anything really fucking awful and everything would be fine.

So naturally the first thing she asked Niko as they left the house to get breakfast on Tuesday was, “Is it like, a special year for it or something?” The second the words left her mouth, Crystal wanted to dive into the nearest bin. “Oh my God, ignore that. Jesus, sorry.”

But Niko was smiling, miraculously. “Yes and no.”

“Oh?”

“Almost sixteen years.” Niko looked up at the sky. “Which isn’t a big anniversary year or anything, but it means I’ll have been alive exactly twice as long as I had him.” She took a deep breath, and her smile, when Crystal glanced at her, was slightly wobbly.

Crystal didn’t know what to say to that. She slid her arm through Niko’s, and Niko squeezed her gratefully.

“I’m probably gonna cry today,” Niko told her. “You don’t have to do anything about it if you don’t want.”

“Don’t have to – what do you mean?”

“You can just ignore it if it makes you uncomfortable.” Only Niko could say something like that with absolutely no judgement, like she’d totally understand if Crystal wanted to do that.

“Niko, I’m not gonna ignore it if you start crying.” Crystal sighed and squeezed Niko’s arm back. “I’m gonna hug you or something.”

“Okay.” Niko smiled. “That would be nice.”

“Is there anything I shouldn’t do?”

Niko considered that. “Don’t tell me it’s all gonna be okay,” she said.

“Got it.” She could do that.

It was pretty normal for the first couple of hours. They lingered over breakfast at one of their favourite cafés. They admired how lovely the weather was – cooling down after the sudden blast of heat from last week, it felt like they’d really jumped into fall now. And then Niko said they should go to the National Portrait Gallery, because the one time she’d been in England with her dad, that was where they’d gone. They’d only had the day, and Niko had been pretty small, but she remembered that they’d gone there because it was free.

She told Crystal about calling her mom that morning – the time difference meant that it was late afternoon in Osaka when Niko had woken up – and what her mom would be doing today. Visiting her grandparents’ graves, and seeing her family, and of course visiting her dad’s grave too.

“Are you sad you can’t be there?” Crystal asked cautiously, sitting side-by-side with Niko on one of the benches in whichever gallery room they were in now.

“A bit.” Niko tilted her head, studying the paintings across from them. “But…I feel my dad in lots of places. I felt him at his grave, but only because I was there, I think. I wish he could’ve met you. And Edwin, and Charles.”

“Think he would’ve liked us?”

“Of course!” Niko turned to give her a big, dramatic stare, pretending to be shocked just to make Crystal smile.

“I don’t know,” Crystal said. “Charles is obviously, y’know, the most likeable guy on the planet, but Edwin and I are more of an acquired taste.”

“Mm.” Niko pursed her lips, then shook her head. “No, I think he’d like you. You’d be on your best behaviour, after all, and you’re both really smart, and my dad liked smart people.” Her smile slipped away, and she looked forward again. “He’s never gonna know me as an adult. I’ll never know him as an adult.”

Her chin trembled, and Crystal froze for an awful second. But the moment Niko sucked in a shaky breath and lifted a hand to wipe at her eyes, Crystal slid an arm around her back and just held on tightly. And Niko did cry, but it wasn’t as frightening as Crystal had thought it would be.

It was good to feel useful, actually, because Niko clearly just wanted to get the crying out, and Crystal could meet the eyes of the concerned people who shot them panicked or worried looks and mouth that it was alright, that they were fine, and that made them keep their distance.

Niko hadn’t worn makeup, Crystal realised when she stopped crying and wiped her face with an honest-to-God handkerchief, because she and Edwin both came from a different century.

“Tell me about your research,” Niko instructed her, taking a deep breath and standing up. “Your family history.”

“Uh, okay.” Crystal got up and started walking at Niko’s side. It helped to have the portraits to look at, to give her something to pretend to focus on. “Well, actually, I think I might have to do a proper trip to the states next year if I wanna do it properly. My grandma was living in Louisiana when she died, and I’m pretty sure that’s where she grew up.”

“Have you gotten your mom to talk about it?”

“Not really.” Crystal made a face. “My dad sent me a bunch of stuff about his family though, and that was really wild. I told you he was born in California, right?”

“I think so?”

“Right, and I always thought he was an only child, but it turns out he has an older brother. Like, way older, and technically a half-brother, but still! And I’ve been stalking this guy on Facebook –”

“Ew.”

“I know, but it does make me kinda glad I still have my old account – and I think he might have kids? Which means I have cousins, which is absolutely crazy.”

It was kind of funny, how all four of them had such tiny families. Edwin was the only one of them with a sibling, and he was the only one with cousins he actually saw semi-regularly. Niko had scattered family back in Japan, but none she really knew, and Charles said he had cousins on his mother’s side, but he was pretty vague about it, and he’d never met them.

They got lunch, and then Niko decided that she wanted to visit a graveyard, which Crystal was in the weird position of being able to offer actual opinions on.

“How do you know all this?” Niko asked, utterly delighted in a way only Niko could be once Crystal had finished running through the pros and cons of all the cemeteries she’d visited in London.

Crystal winced. “I went through a major goth phase. And a witch phase. I was like, conjuring spirits and shit. I nearly got caught like, three times.”

“We should return to the scene of the crime and apologise to any spirits you offended,” Niko said, and again, coming from anyone else that would have sounded ridiculous. But Crystal found herself nodding, and agreeing to schlep down to Nunhead Cemetery to awkwardly apologise in the circle of tiny pauper graves she’d once lit candles and chanted within.

And it did make her feel better, was the truly insane thing. Crystal couldn’t explain it, and that too was oddly fitting. Lots of things that involved Niko defied explanation.

They meandered through the cemetery and talked about ancestral memory and what they knew of their family histories (not much on Niko’s side either, it turned out, but she was tempted to change that), and nature verses nurture, and the impossibility of pinning down their thoughts on what happened after death.

The trees around them were all orange and yellow, practically glowing in the autumn sun, peeping out regularly from behind the clouds. Crystal could smell damp soil and leaves, and she almost wished it was cold enough for the excuse to walk arm-in-arm with Niko like they were from a different time.

“I like imagining that he’s somewhere else, at peace,” Niko said. “But I like imagining he’s watching over me too. And I do feel him sometimes. Like…finding that cottage in Wales? It felt like him putting it in my way. He loved steam trains. And when the bulb in my room’s big light blew, but then all the fairy lights turned on at once, so I was only in the dark for a second? That was definitely him.”

“Maybe he moves around,” Crystal suggested, smiling. “Time with you, time with your mom, time just…chilling out. If I was a ghost, I’d be going to gigs for free all the time.”

“Yes!” Niko turned to her with wide, excited eyes. “Oh my God! I’d go to so many places! I’d be sad about not being able to eat anything,” she allowed, “but I think it might be worth it. Also, if I was already dead, I think I wouldn’t be scared of rollercoasters, or bungee jumping, or things like that.”

Back at home, after a bit of wavering, Niko decided that she did actually want to eat out that evening. Crystal messaged the boys and found them a table at a restaurant one of her old friends worked at, and they ended the day on what felt like an almost celebratory note. One of the waiters even asked if it was someone’s birthday.

Good food, good wine, and the best company. Crystal couldn’t imagine fucking this up for anything. Not when Edwin was looking so fondly at Niko, and Niko was insisting Charles try some of her dessert, and Charles was laughing at Crystal for nearly spilling wine down her front.

Crystal had done some therapy, in the wake of facing up to her new millionaire status. She was pretty sure Kashi would have told her that she was able to face the past and the tangled mess of emotions she had around her family because she was finally happy in her present. And even with that, she was still leapfrogging her parents to look at family beyond them, because that was a bomb she didn’t feel quite ready to diffuse yet.

Diffusing that bomb felt like an actual possibility on a day like this. She and Niko told the boys about their day, and it was just…a miracle. Edwin must have seen something in her face, and he frowned at her.

“Everything alright?”

“Yeah.” She smiled, rolling her eyes at herself. “Okay, no, actually – I’m about to get mushy for exactly one minute, and then we’re moving on and never talking about it again, okay?”

“Very British of you,” Edwin murmured, a long-standing joke that she obligingly elbowed him for.

Crystal cleared her throat and managed to meet everyone’s eyes in a quick sweep. “I love you.” She swallowed, and pursed her lips so her smile wouldn’t do anything awful like tremble as she looked at Niko. “And I’m really glad I got to do this today with you.”

There was a pause. Niko was beaming at her, eyes shining. Next to her, Edwin said, “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Wow.” Charles grinned. “Really took it out of you, didn’t it? You sap.”

“Ah-ah-ah.” Crystal waved her hands. “We’re done!”

“Minute’s not up yet!”

“Minute’s up if I say it’s up, time bends to my rules, actually, so. Shut up.” Crystal grabbed her wine glass and took a big drink. “No one look at me.”

“Very British,” Edwin stage-whispered to Charles, who nodded.

Something nudged Crystal’s foot under the table, and she looked over at Niko, who was still beaming at her. “I don’t have to be British about it,” she said. “I love you too, Crystal.”

“Well yeah, obviously we love you too,” Charles grinned, leaning in to kiss Crystal’s temple (a little zing of heat went through her at the touch). “Right, Edwin?”

“Oh, we’re all doing this, are we?” Edwin sighed. “Yes, fine, obviously I love you madly.”

“You’re doing this wrong,” Niko told them. “Quick – we’re back in the minute. Be sincere.”

Edwin, as always, melted like an ice cube in the sun under the force of Niko’s guileless eyes. He turned to Crystal, who met his gaze head-on, and watched as whatever he’d been about to say died in his mouth. Something flip, probably, but if it was difficult for her to be emotionally open, it was like pulling fingernails for Edwin, who really was British, and the worst kind of stiff-upper-lip British, at that.

But Crystal said nothing, and watched as Edwin visibly reconsidered his words, and finally said, without a trace of a smile, “I don’t know how I’d live without you.” It felt like there was a physical snap of electricity between them as he glanced away. “Any of you.” He took a deep breath and fixed his gaze somewhere over Niko’s shoulder. “Will that suffice?”

“Yes,” Niko said, pleased and proud. “Charles?”

“Tough act to follow,” he muttered, and took a deep breath, then laughed. “God, I feel nervous now!”

“You’ve got this.” Niko smiled and reached over to take his hand. Hers looked so small under his, his fingers covering her palm completely.

Charles smiled at her, and shyly at Crystal and Edwin. “Alright. You’re all…I love you.” He was actually blushing, Crystal saw with a jolt, the tips of his ears bright red, his cheeks slowly following suit. “Best friends I’ve ever had.”

Niko cooed and leaned in to hug him, and Charles hid his red face in her hair with an embarrassed laugh.

As they left and Crystal was hugging Maren goodbye, promising to meet up for drinks at some point soon, Maren grinned and moved a finger in a circle. “So you’re all…?”

Crystal blinked, and felt another jolt go through her as she realised what Maren was saying. “Oh! No, not – we’re just – it’s not like that.”

“Awww, that’s a shame!” Maren smiled. “You all look so cute together! I’ll see you later though, yeah?”

“Yeah, definitely.” Another hug, Crystal’s head spinning, and she left to catch up with the others.

Charles wrapped an arm around her shoulders, his eyes fixed on Edwin with a look that Crystal could read like an open book – she looked at Charles and Niko like that all the time, she knew she did.

Maren’s gesture replayed in her mind before Crystal shut it down and wrapped her arm around Charles’ waist, leaning into his comfortable warmth. They were happy as they were. She was the happiest she’d ever been. It was more than enough.

WINTER – EDWIN

Edwin was not, as a rule, a big drinker. Out of the four of them, the girls easily took that trophy. Crystal could hold her alcohol better than people twice her size (an advantage, she said, of starting to seriously drink when she was about twelve, which obviously wasn’t recommended, but did seem to have lined her stomach with concrete), and Niko took great pleasure in working her way through a cocktail menu.

Charles detested being drunk, so limited himself to one or two, three at an absolute push. Four was when Edwin started feeling squiffy, and five guaranteed a hangover. The girls were far more likely to split a bottle of wine over dinner, while Charles and Edwin stuck to water.

But there were some days when Edwin got in and just needed something to take the edge off a day that had left him literally seething.

Charles was already in the kitchen when Edwin got home, and raised his eyebrows the moment Edwin entered the room. “Whoof. Bad day, mate?”

“How can you tell?” Edwin asked sourly.

“Apart from the way you’ve gone straight for the booze cupboard?” Whatever Charles was making smelled delicious, and Edwin could feel himself relaxing already, even before he unscrewed the cap on the gin. “You look pissed as hell.”

“Mm.” Edwin poured himself a generous measure, and sighed gratefully as Charles handed him one of the little cans of tonic from the fridge.

“You want some ice and lemon with that, or are you just necking it back like an animal?”

“I am inclined to start hissing,” Edwin muttered, topping up the glass with tonic.

“No excuse for shit drinks, you know what Crystal’d say. And me, come to that. Give it here, come on.”

Edwin handed the glass over and let Charles add two ice cubes to it. Instead of lemon, he peeled a spiral off one of the oranges in the fruit bowl and squeezed it in his fingers, getting the oils over the surface of the liquid. He arranged the spiral neatly over the edge of the glass before handing it back to Edwin.

It was a trick he’d learned at one of his first bartending jobs, and it worked a treat. Even cheap gin tasted good with citrus oil burst over it. Not that this was cheap gin – Crystal would never allow it.

Edwin leaned against the cupboards and sighed, savouring the first sip. Acutely aware throughout of Charles’ eyes on him, of course, but he’d had plenty of practice concealing his reaction to that.

“What’s for dinner?” he asked.

“Spiced squash soup.” Charles smiled. “Niko reckons she has a cold coming on, and nothing knocks a cold on the head like a shitload of ginger and chilli.”

“And a shot of fire cider.”

“Obviously.”

Crystal had made her own this year, after going down some rabbit hole to do with botanicals, and while Edwin was sceptical about the medicinal value, he couldn’t deny that the garlicky, vinegary potion had nipped a tickle in his throat in the bud so hard it had vanished immediately.

“What’s got you in a mood then?”

Edwin made a face. “Julie, at work.”

“Nosy Julie?”

“The very same.” Edwin sipped his G&T, wanting nothing more than to put it aside and ask Charles, rather pathetically, for a hug.

Charles would give it, no questions asked. But Edwin wanted it very badly indeed, which was reason enough, in his opinion, not to ask.

“Crystal called me,” he explained. “She just wanted the VPN password, but I hadn’t seen her messages, and she got impatient. I wasn’t even thinking – she told me she loved me, very dramatically, of course. I said it back, that was that.”

Charles raised his eyebrows, keeping his eyes on Edwin while he stirred the contents of the big pot on the hob. Onions and garlic and ginger, Edwin guessed, by the smell.

“That must have been at about ten this morning?” Edwin glared at his glass. “By lunchtime, apparently I’d been hiding a boyfriend from everyone.”

“Ah.”

“I spent all bloody afternoon telling people to fuck off and mind their own business. As if we’ve got nothing better to do.”

Charles’ lips twitched (the traitor). “I hope you were a bit politer about it than that.”

“Yes, hence my bad mood.” Edwin could feel his jaw clenching, and ran his tongue between his teeth to try and force himself to relax it. “I’d report her to HR if I could. But it’s not a crime to spread nice rumours.”

Charles kissed his teeth. He checked the pot, gave it a quick stir, then crossed the kitchen to take Edwin’s drink and set it on the table. Edwin was already slouching a little when Charles wrapped his arms around him, already closing his eyes to better feel it.

He loved Charles’ hugs. He knew Niko and Crystal did as well – they’d all voted Charles best hugger, while Charles laughingly protested that it was just because he had a height advantage. And it was true that the height helped. Edwin sometimes wished he was smaller so that he could bury his face in Charles’ shoulder the way Niko and Crystal could.

But really, it was because Charles had some sort of instinct for it. He knew on some innate level how tight to hold on, and for how long. There was never any hesitation or awkwardness. Charles’ heart was in his embraces, and the recipient could feel that every time.

This kind of hug was the best kind. Charles’ arms heavy and strong around Edwin’s upper body, completely enveloping him without restraining him. His chin pressed into Edwin’s shoulder, the sides of their heads warm against each other. And Edwin’s arms rose to wrap around Charles’ waist in turn, his head dipping so his mouth was hidden, aching want lighting through him at Charles’ touch like bubbles rising in champagne.

The horrible thing about fending off rumours all afternoon like he had was that it hurt to have to deny them, and in such horrible, complicated ways that Edwin could barely wrap his head around it.

Obviously he wanted Charles to be his boyfriend, the way so many of his colleagues had assumed. He talked about Charles at work – it was unavoidable; Charles was his best friend, his housemate, someone Edwin spent a great deal of his free time with – and he’d brought Charles to work functions before.

But he’d brought Crystal too, and Niko. Separately and together. He talked about Crystal and Niko in the same breath as Charles, because they did so much together as a group. The disappointment in people’s eyes when he’d said he’d been talking to Crystal on the phone had stung at first, and gotten increasingly painful with each repetition.

“Ohhhh,” Rhea had said, mouth twisting. “Julie said you had a boyfriend! I didn’t realise it was just your flatmate.”

As if Crystal was just anything.

Charles had to let go eventually, but Edwin stayed down in the warm kitchen with him while he cooked, sitting at the kitchen table to keep out of the way and trying in vain to read his book.

He would feel better tomorrow, he knew from experience. But for the rest of today he would feel small and ugly and out of place. He knew he was the odd one out, even here, but he so rarely felt it these days that it came as an unpleasant slap when he did.

But Charles put on some carols, and made Edwin another gin and tonic after he’d finished his first (weaker, which was for the best). And when Niko got home, she was in full Japanese teacher mode, and insisted Edwin keep it up with her. Crystal finally arrived just in time to help set the table for dinner, and told them all about the ghastly behaviour of a friend’s brother in a way that had them lurching between shock and hilarity.

Edwin washed up, still talking to Niko in Japanese while Crystal and Charles went into the living room. And with time enough for a movie before bed, they spun the Christmas Movie Wheel (a handmade contraption from Niko and Edwin’s flatmate days, when they could never decide on which festive or non-festive film to watch during December) and landed on The Grinch.

“You gonna be alright, mate?” Charles teased.

“I regret every conversation we’ve ever had about childhood fears,” Edwin groused. “I’m getting my knitting.” Which had absolutely nothing to do with not wanting to look at the screen while Jim Carrey was dancing around in green fur and yellow contact lenses. Honestly, confess one or two childhood nightmares, and no one ever forgot it.

“Oh shit, me too!” Crystal hurried upstairs after him. “You can help me.”

“If you insist.”

“Oh, like you don’t love it.”

Only for Niko and now Charles would Edwin suffer through The Grinch. Charles adored the Grinch’s cave, which Edwin could reluctantly understand. The zipwire, the homemade technology, the lights – it was easily the best part of the movie. It was just a shame that it included the Grinch himself, who Edwin’s childhood imagination had furnished with razor-sharp teeth and animalistic tendencies and gave him nightmares.

“What is your favourite Christmas movie then?” Charles asked a couple of days later, hunting for number eleven on his advent calendar. He had a chocolate one, but had agreed that Edwin’s picture one was prettier. Edwin’s family hadn’t ever done chocolate advent calendars, and he’d awkwardly accepted that he agreed with them on this issue as he’d grown up. The chocolate ones were overpriced and tacky and frequently hideous.

Niko had a tea advent calendar this year, and Crystal had gone for a bath bomb one. The corner of the kitchen where they’d all been gathered was quite pungent.

“I like almost every version of A Christmas Carol,” Edwin said.

Charles shot him a sideways grin. “Muppets is the best though, right?”

“It’s in the top three,” Edwin said, and smiled at Charles’ raised eyebrows. “My favourite is the 1970 Scrooge with Albert Finney.”

“I’ve never seen that.”

“You will. It’s on the wheel.” Edwin cleared his throat. “It’s a musical.”

“Get out of it!” Charles laughed, advent calendar forgotten. “You hate musicals!”

“I dislike most musicals,” Edwin corrected. “But I saw this one at an impressionable age. It’s very Christmassy,” he added, unaccountably shy. Charles’ eyes twinkled.

“Can’t wait to see it, then. Reckon we can load the wheel?”

“That would be cheating.” Edwin looked away innocently. “Besides, it can’t be watched earlier than the second weekend of December. It’s too festive.”

He already knew how to hold the wheel to get the result he wanted, after all, and he wasn’t wasting Scrooge before he was ready.

He rather suspected that Charles had figured out the same trick when that Sunday rolled around and Charles spun the wheel and landed it on Scrooge. Edwin hardly minded though. The weather outside was dutifully frightful, Niko lit candles, and they all squashed in together on the sofa.

Edwin had expected a basic level of teasing for his inability to hold back his smiles at the film – he loved it, he really couldn’t help it – but even Crystal didn’t say a word, only watched.

And maybe it was Crystal’s really excellent homemade mulled wine, or the warmth of their bodies pressed against his, or the nostalgia of his favourite Christmas film, but Edwin realised in a burst of wonderful, terrible clarity that he wanted this for the rest of his life. He couldn’t bear the idea of the four of them being pulled away from each other for any reason. He wanted to always be with them, and he wanted them to want the same.

That last desire reminded him that he was drunk on Christmas cheer and in no fit state to voice anything so embarrassingly true.

Still, it was probably the remnants of that and a fair amount of lingering bitterness over Julie’s rumourmongering that had him saying the next day, “I want all of you to come to my horrid work Christmas party, actually.” He paused. “If you’re free, of course.”

They were in the kitchen, Niko cooking while Charles and Crystal watched TikToks or some nonsense on Crystal’s phone. They all looked at him, and Edwin wanted to die on the spot, wishing he’d said nothing at all.

But – “I thought you were only allowed to bring one person?” Niko asked curiously.

“Partners and family are welcome as long as they’re over eighteen,” Edwin said, feeling an awful, treacherous heat rising in his neck and cheeks. “And you’re all. Well.”

“We’re all your partners?” Crystal smirked.

“We are a little bit, aren’t we?” Niko stopped chopping up mushrooms and turned to face them all properly, hands twisting in her pinny. “I mean…I’ve always said that your best friends are the ones that you’re in love with.”

Edwin’s heart lurched. Crystal and Charles weren’t laughing, as he’d assumed they would. They were pressing into each other a little, shoulders together, and Niko wasn’t smiling either, though she gave a little shrug with one shoulder and tried to, like she was trying to give them all an out.

Edwin didn’t want an out. But he was terribly aware of the imbalances between them. “Even though I’m…” Their eyes flicking to him again made him shrink, then straighten. “You have to admit that I’m the odd one out, in this situation.”

“Love’s not all about sex,” Crystal said, and glanced at Niko. “I mean, you’ve both done that, and it didn’t make you love each other any less, right?”

If anything, it had made him love Niko more. Edwin shook his head, looking from Niko to Crystal and Charles and back again.

“We’re all basically dating already, right?” Charles said, surprisingly quiet. “I’ve not really wanted to date anyone else since we moved here.”

Edwin watched Crystal twist to look at him properly, and the tension in the room spiked. He saw her eyes dip to Charles’ mouth, and saw Charles lick his lips, and felt the moment stretch out and out, almost unbearably heavy with the weight of all the things they weren’t saying.

Then Charles breathed out and kissed Crystal, his hands lifting to fit to her face, and it was like they all exhaled with him.

Niko stepped towards them at once, and Edwin followed, and a moment later Charles and Crystal were on their feet and Crystal’s arms were around Niko and Charles –

Edwin swooned. There was really no other word for it. Charles kissed him, and it was even better than Edwin remembered from Valentine’s Day. Charles’ arms were around him, and Edwin slid a hand around the back of his neck and moaned, and gasped as he felt another pair of lips press a firm kiss to his jaw.

Niko, of course. Beaming up at him, and going up on tiptoes to press a closed-mouth kiss to his lips. And then Crystal, nudging Charles sideways so she could wrap her arms around Edwin and hug him tighter than she ever had before.

Dinner was served very late that evening. Everyone kept distracting the chef with kisses.

Before they sat down to eat, Crystal popped the bottle of champagne Niko always insisted on keeping in the fridge ‘in case of emergency celebrations’.

“This is literally the perfect occasion,” Crystal declared, to no argument. Edwin hugged Charles from behind and accepted his flute with a helpless smile he couldn’t have wiped off his face for anything.

“Do we reckon champagne really goes with goulash?” Charles teased, and grinned when Crystal pulled him down for a kiss.

“Shut it, Rowland,” she smiled. “Champagne goes with everything.”

“Oh yeah?” He squeezed Edwin’s hand where it was tangled with his own around his middle. “I’ll see you on New Year’s Eve then.”

Edwin hid his laugh against Charles’ neck, suddenly so happy he could barely breathe.

“It’s gonna be so fuuuun,” Niko sang, hugging both him and Charles from the side and accepting her glass from Crystal. “I can’t wait! I’ve never had three people to kiss on New Year’s Eve before!”

Edwin had never particularly cared for New Year’s at all before now, but all of a sudden, he understood the appeal. The whole season seemed to sparkle in a way it never had before. Peace and goodwill on planet Earth or whatever the saying was.

Crystal kissed his cheek, lips sticky from the champagne, and Edwin closed his eyes and gave into the urge to just hold Charles tightly. He was surrounded by his favourite people in the world, and for once, his brain was quiet of worries. He had his partners – his partners! The loves of his life who were willing to share their lives with him!

All he could think was that if there was a heaven, he couldn't imagine how it would surpass this.