Work Text:
08.54, Charlie ❤️🐱🖕🏼
morning love x
no rugby this morning? usually you beat me to the morning text
09.23, Charlie ❤️🐱🖕🏼
maybe you went early
or forgot to charge your phone again
idk
anyway
love you, run and fall over well x
11.02, Charlie ❤️🐱🖕🏼
still not home yet?
11.46, Charlie ❤️🐱🖕🏼
niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick
nicholas luke nelson
12.17, Charlie ❤️🐱🖕🏼
fancy letting me know you’re alive please?
i don’t think i’m even joking anymore
12.50, Charlie ❤️🐱🖕🏼
or if i’ve done something to make you not want to talk to me, tell me that too
not like you so i’m going to assume you’re dead instead of in a huff
13.12, Charlie ❤️🐱🖕🏼
do i actually need to call sarah???
Charlie sulks, dropping his head into his hands. He always knew this day would come. The day that the other shoe would drop, when the world would reset and rebalance and stop letting him live his wildest romantic fantasies. The day Nick Nelson would be done with him.
Well. They’ve had a good run, Charlie supposes, and all good things must come to an end.
He stares down at his phone as it continues to not buzz with new messages. He knows it’s only been a few hours and that he shouldn’t actually be panicking, it’s just… well. It’s Nick. And Nick not texting back for four hours is genuinely terrifying.
With a huff, Charlie flips his phone upside down so he can no longer see the screen. Naturally, that’s when it buzzes. He grabs it in an instant and stares down at the slew of messages coming in.
13:21, Nick ❤️🐶🖕🏼
Omg Char I’m so sorryyyyyy
Hello
I love you
I’m so so sorry
I did have rugby but then I had to run home and watch the curling and I left my phone in my kit bag
13.22, Charlie ❤️🐱🖕🏼
oh, he lives!
and, uh. curling?
Yeah! At the Olympics
Have you seen any of it?
um, ew x
i can’t figure out if you’re being sarcastic or not
asking me if i’ve voluntarily watched sports?
specifically a sport i have never heard of??
did u hit ur head at rugby???
Omg no Char it’s incredible, you have to watch it
It’s not a crashy and bangy sport or anything
I think you’d like it actually
okay sweetie, whatever you say
weirdo xox
The GB women play at 6pm tonight
Give it a try. It’s addictive af
Omg and they’re all Scottish
You love a Scottish accent!
Literally the whole men and women’s teams
And you hear them screaming at each other the whole way through
It’s so interesting!!
Charlie stares blankly at his phone, not quite able to believe that this is why Nick had gone missing for hours. And okay, yes, Scottish accents are very attractive. Nick’s flatmate Callum is a good example – his voice is all soft and warm and lilting. An Edinburgh accent, apparently. He’s told Charlie before how different each regional accent is and how some are impossible even for him to understand but, so far, they’ve all sounded the same to Charlie.
Read: hot.
Anyway, a good accent still isn’t enough to convince him to watch an actual sport willingly, and so he placates Nick until he can swiftly change the subject to something normal again. Like his dick. At least that distracts Nick from sports for ten minutes.
A few days later and it’s official. Charlie is a curling widow. Of all the reasons, all the scenarios he’d cycled through on his darkest days of how he might lose Nick one day, he can categorically say that a bunch of Scot’s sweeping on ice was one that never crossed his mind. How foolish of him.
Of course he knew that Nick could get like this. He loved sports, and big events like the Olympics always grabbed his attention. Charlie supposes that he never expected that he wouldn't be able to grab it back. He tries his best, but Nick is thoroughly distracted. Charlie tries sending dirty texts when he knows the curling is on. He tries risqué mirror selfies, post-shower. He tries every trick in his arsenal to win his boyfriend back, to no avail.
By the second week of the Winter Olympics, Charlie has had enough. If he can't get Nick’s attention virtually, then he’ll just have to do it in person.
And, so. Leeds, here he comes.
Charlie stands on Nick’s doorstep, having snuck into the building as someone else was leaving. He’s expecting Nick to be in class so he’s almost as surprised as his boyfriend is when he opens the door.
“Charlie!” Nick practically squeaks, diving forward to wrap his arms around Charlie’s waist and pick him up into the tightest hug. Well, at least some things never change. “What are you doing here?”
When he’s put back onto his feet, Charlie shrugs a little sheepishly. What’s he meant to say? ‘You weren’t paying me enough attention, so I jumped on a train’? ‘You deserted me for a weird sport, so I am physically putting myself in your space so that you don’t forget about me’? ‘I was worried you might leave me because there’s something else new and shiny to keep you busy’?
Christ, no. A bit too real. A bit too needy. Maybe this is actually bothering him more than he thought it was. He has been kind of anxious lately, so it makes sense.
Fuck.
When he doesn’t answer, Nick’s grin drops a little. “Alright then, you. Inside. Come on. Looks like we need a blanket and a hug.”
Charlie manages a smile at that and he nods, already feeling a hundred times better now that he can see firsthand how Nick looks at him.
“Missed you,” he says, and Nick’s face lights up again.
“Gay. Get in here, loser.”
Nick ushers Charlie into his room, taking his bag and easing Charlie’s coat off as they go. He pulls his duvet back and Charlie automatically takes his jeans and jumper off and climbs onto the mattress in his boxers and t-shirt. Nick climbs into bed with him and wraps Charlie up in both the duvet and his arms. Charlie sticks his face into Nick’s shoulder and breathes him in – he smells a bit like he hasn’t showered for a few days which, ew.
Also, yum.
“So, what’s going on?” Nick asks, sliding his hand into Charlie’s hair and scratching lightly at his scalp. “Did something happen?”
“No. I actually didn’t know something was wrong until I got here. Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“Um. So, I thought I was being silly. Like, you’ve been really into the Olympics and not chatting much and I thought it would be funny to show up and make you pay attention to me instead. And then I saw you, and I think I realised that I’ve been an idiot.”
“Okay,” Nick says carefully. “Firstly, I’m sorry I’ve been shit. I didn’t mean to get so caught up and make you feel neglected. Secondly, why do you think you’ve been an idiot?”
“It’s stupid.”
“I bet it’s not.”
“It is. It’s, like, 15-year-old Charlie levels of insecurity.”
“Well, I really loved 15-year-old Charlie once upon a time. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t judge him any more than I’m going to judge the Charlie in front of me now.”
“You’re so annoying,” Charlie grumbles, but he snuggles in closer all the same. “I just… I thought it was finally happening.”
“You thought what was finally happening, love?”
“Oh my god. I swear it’s crazy, and I don’t actually think this, like, 99.9% of the time, but I got weirdly in my head about you being done with me.”
Nick pauses for a moment and, when he finds his voice, it comes out almost scandalised. “Oh my God, Charlie.”
“I know!”
“That is crazy.”
“Nick!”
“Charlie,” Nick mimics his tone. “I’m more obsessed with you than ever and I know you know that.”
Charlie sighs. “I do know that,” he says truthfully, and he really does mean it. He barely ever gets like this anymore because he knows Nick, trusts Nick, trusts them. And yet…
“So, obviously there’s more going on here than me not texting back instantly,” Nick says, finishing Charlie’s thoughts out loud. “Because I know that’s unusual, and I am genuinely sorry about it, but I also know that wouldn’t send you into a spiral under normal circumstances. So, there’s something else going on and this is how it’s coming out, right?”
“I think so. Which I also didn’t realise until you opened the door. I thought I was being whimsical and delightful and hilarious.”
“Well, naturally.”
“Exactly,” Charlie whines. He wants to keep deflecting with humour, but he doesn’t quite have the energy. Besides, it’s always easier when he tells Nick. “I – I don’t think I really realised that I’ve been a bit down. I thought it was just the January blues and the constant grey and rain. But obviously, I usually don’t assume you’re leaving me when you don’t text me back, so… there’s more to it, I guess.”
“Hm,” Nick hums, stroking a large hand up and down Charlie’s back. It’s so soothing, so grounding. Charlie feels himself relaxing into Nick with every pass of his palm. “How’s your appetite?”
“Oh, no, it’s not off,” Charlie reassures him, giving Nick a quick squeeze. “It’s not, like, a bad bad brain. I’ve been eating fine and doing things and there’s only been, like, two days where I’ve needed to nap. I really do think it’s, like, general stuff. Post-Christmas and dark winter and missing you. Normal human things, not mental illness relapse things.”
“Well, that’s good. We can manage normal human things.”
“Fucking annoying though, aren’t they?”
“So annoying,” Nick agrees. “Have you spoken to Geoff?”
“Not for a couple of weeks. He was away last week so we skipped one, but we’re back tomorrow.”
“Perfect. I’ll clear out for an hour whenever you need.”
“Thanks, love.”
“Of course. And how long can you stay?”
Charlie cranes back so he can look up at Nick and smiles sheepishly. “So, I actually didn’t book a return. I don’t have any in person tutorials until Monday, and my next shift isn’t until Saturday night, so… I could stay until Saturday morning, if you’ll have me?”
Nick makes a sound like he’s thinking very deeply about his options, even though his eyes are shining with glee. “I guess. I mean, five whole nights of you in my bed is a bit much when I’m due to come to you next weekend already, but I suppose I’ll make it work.”
Charlie thumps him on the arm for the sarcasm, but Nick leans down to kiss him silly before he can verbally complain about it.
Fair, honestly.
Charlie wakes up feeling much lighter the next morning, though he also feels like an idiot. He has no idea how he’d missed the signs that he was low. He’s usually so good at spotting them these days, at being able to adjust and rest as he needs to in order to stop himself slipping too far out of reach. Nick usually notices earlier, too. Which, Charlie supposes, is why he got so stupidly annoyed about the sports thing. Usually Nick spots everything – every change in tone, every clipped answer, every half-arsed text. He just… hasn’t been paying as much attention over the last fortnight.
He tries to remind himself of a very solid fact that he knows, and that he tells Nick when he’s spiralling, and that is that Charlie’s mental health is not Nick’s responsibility. They’ve both gone over this with each other, and in therapy, and with their loved ones, and Charlie knows it’s not fair to rely on someone else to guess how he’s feeling. He also knows that Nick is probably already beating himself up for not seeing it, so he’s not going to bring it up. That’s not going to help anyone, or anything.
“Hey, sleepy head,” Nick’s voice comes from across the room, and Charlie turns to find his boyfriend at his desk, smiling over at him. “That’s an awful lot of thinking you’re doing for someone who’s just woken up.”
“Sorry,” he murmurs. “What time is it?”
“11.”
“Fuck.”
“All good, you clearly needed it,” Nick says, standing up and walking towards the bed. “I don’t have any classes until later on so I thought I’d do some work on my essay while you were sleeping so I don’t have to do it while we’re both awake.”
With that, he collapses down onto the mattress, and Charlie, and starfishes across both.
“Nick, ouch.”
“Oh, sorry, did I land on you? My bad.”
“Oh my god, you’re so annoying.”
Nick doesn’t seem to care much about being called annoying, shockingly. He’s too busy nuzzling his face into Charlie’s neck and sighing happily.
Gay.
That evening, it starts again. Luckily, Charlie seems to have got over his actual distress and has moved back to being playfully grumpy about being abandoned for curling. Being in front of Nick and being able to see his disgustingly sappy smile and soft eyes every time he looks at Charlie will do that for a guy. Still. When 6pm rolls around and Nick and his flatmates gather around the TV again, Charlie wants to stamp his feet. He swears it’s the twelve thousandth match – game? Set? Performance? – of the day.
“It’s the third,” Nick laughs when Charlie wonders that out loud. “I mean, there’s a few on at a time, but it’s only the third GB one of the day.”
“Wait, the same team plays three times a day?” he asks, glancing back at the TV.
“The men and women have separate teams,” Thomas explains. “Usually one of them will play at 8am and 6pm, and the other will do the 1pm slot.”
“Right,” Charlie says, trying to sound interested and not bored out of his mind. “Cool. Well, I’m just going to…”
He doesn’t bother to finish the sentence, because it’s clear that none of them are listening. Something happens on the screen that makes them all gasp loudly, so Charlie simply rolls his eyes and walks out of the room. Nick’s bed is comfier than the flat’s ratty old sofa, anyway.
It takes Nick far too long to realise that Charlie is no longer in the same room as him. Charlie would be offended, but he's already been offended enough this week to last him a lifetime, and he doesn't think he can quite be bothered anymore. So, instead, he lies on Nick’s bed and texts Isaac for two hours about absolutely nothing until Nick wanders in, looking confused.
“Hey, you never came back out,” he says, stating the bloody obvious. “I missed you.”
“You definitely didn't,” Charlie laughs, and is comforted by the fact that the reaction is a genuine one and that he is no longer feeling horrible and bitter about the whole thing. “It's fine, Nick. Go and enjoy your weird sport.”
Nick looks at him warily. “Why does this feel like a test?”
“Oh, you sweet idiot. It's not a test, I promise. You have thoroughly reassured me, and I no longer feel like you're going to leave me because the Olympics are on.”
Nick looks half like he wants to laugh and half like he wants to tell Charlie off for dismissing his own insecurities like that. “Well, either way,” he says after a moment of studying Charlie’s expression. “I'd rather hang out here with you anyway.”
Charlie narrows his eyes for a moment, and then he smirks. “The match has finished, hasn’t it?”
Nick at least has the decency to flush and look sheepish. “Maybe,” he admits, and Charlie throws a pillow at him.
After some complaining from Charlie and an exceptionally enthusiastic blowjob from Nick, the latter promises he'll do better tomorrow. He promises affection and quality time and all of his attention.
And, predictably, Charlie does not have all of his attention. He has it for the rest of the evening, sure, but Charlie wakes up in bed alone the next morning. Cold and confused as to why he doesn’t have a human limpet attached to him, he gets out of bed and pads towards the living room to find his human heater.
What he finds instead is four boys in various stages of undress, staring intently at the telly they keep perched a little too precariously on their kitchen island in their open plan kitchen/living room. Nick and his three flatmates are all bent forward, staring wide eyed as a woman on the screen rubs a broom up and down some ice.
“Oh surely fucking not,” Callum gasps as a strange round kettle looking object slides into another strange round kettle looking object at the end of the pitch – rink? Runway? Stage? It then bounces off two other strange round kettle looking objects, and all four men in front of Charlie jump to their feet.
“How the fuck did she do that?” Thomas practically screeches as Nick and Callum perform the very manly ritual of high fiving each other into a hug and then bouncing up and down in glee.
Wow. Wow.
“That was insane,” Luis adds, shaking his head. “I can't believe we actually got to witness that.”
Christ on a bike, Charlie thinks as he takes in the scene. He’s definitely going to need coffee, and lots of it, if he’s going to get through the next few days.
Charlie makes a home at Nick’s desk while Nick goes to his classes that day, setting up his laptop and starting on his next essay. It’s that blissful time between midday and 6pm when there’s a break in the curling schedule and Nick has miraculously actually gone to class. Charlie refuses to admit that he might possibly, sort of, kind of miss his boyfriend’s incessant chattering about stones and hammers and hacks, whatever any of those words mean in this context. He won’t ever admit that, actually, considering all of his whining over the last week or so. Nope.
As grumpy as he's been about the whole thing though, Charlie isn't a total monster. He secretly loves it when Nick gets all nerdy and excited about something, even if that something is a bunch of Scots shouting at each other on long strips of ice. Besides, if you can't beat ‘em, join ‘em was a saying for a reason, and their time together was limited enough by distance already.
And so, reluctantly, Charlie decides to embrace the curl.
That night, he tells Nick to wake him up the next morning instead of sneaking out of bed for his illicit sporting affair. There are a good ten minutes when they both regret that request in the morning, when Charlie calls Nick all sorts of names for disturbing his sleep and forcing him to be awake before 8am unnecessarily. They bicker all the way to the kitchen, Nick’s voice going all high and shrill in his own defence as he repeats again and again that Charlie told him to wake him up. Charlie knows he’s right, obviously, but he argues with him anyway, because that's his job as boyfriend: to be as annoying as physically possible.
Nick’s flatmates are already awake with the telly on as a VT plays of the GB curling team. Disappointingly, it looks like it's the men's team playing and not the women. Charlie really chose badly there. Although… one of them is actually quite cute, and maybe Charlie can get behind this after all.
“Charlie!” Luis greets him happily. “Are you watching with us this morning?”
“Unfortunately so,” Charlie deadpans.
“Hey. You better be nice about it or we're kicking you out,” Nick tells him. Charlie rolls his eyes, but he's pretty sure Nick is serious.
Sigh.
Charlie is bored. He’s bored, and he doesn’t understand a single thing that’s happening.
“So, why are they leaving that kettle there? Isn’t it in the way?” he asks during a brief look up from his phone, where he’s been thoroughly amused by trying to fit tiny little blob people into their appropriately matched coloured holes.
“It’s a guard,” Callum answers. He’s lounging back on the armchair with a cup of tea in his hands, manspreading more than Charlie has ever seen a human manspread before. It’s actually quite impressive.
“They’re trying to block Italy from being able to shoot a straight shot,” Luis adds, far more helpfully. He’s sprawled across the floor on his stomach with his chin in his hands, looking like a cross between a puppy and a five-year-old. He does have a nice arse, though, so Charlie isn’t too put off by it.
“Right,” he responds, as if that makes any sense to him, and he goes back to his hole people.
Half an hour later, something else starts to bug him. He puts his phone face down next to him and asks, “Why do they keep saying GB has the hammer? Isn’t it a broom?”
“The hammer means you have the last shot of the end,” it’s Thomas being helpful this time. He’s sitting at the opposite end of the sofa from Charlie, on Nick’s other side. He has his laptop and a fancy calculator perched carefully on his lap, but he hasn’t looked at them all morning.
Charlie makes a non-committal noise to confirm he’s heard him. “And… an end is?”
Nick, who is trying to match Callum’s manspread so much that he has one leg draped over Charlie’s knee, takes that one. “Like, the round. So they play ten ends, or up to ten ends depending on how well or badly it might be going.”
Charlie pretends to understand that, too. “Alright,” he says, and picks his phone back up.
He’s not sure when it happened, but Charlie’s phone is now locked and sinking itself between some sofa cushions. He’s staring at the telly, trying to understand what the players are yelling at each other.
“Blank end?” he asks. “What does that mean?”
“That no one has scored any points,” Thomas answers. Charlie doesn’t remember him getting up, but he’s now replaced the laptop and calculator with a huge plate of toast. Somehow.
“Right. And who the fuck is Crammy? And Hammy and Lammie? Why do all their names rhyme?”
“Hammy and Lammie are nicknames for two of the players, because it’s whimsical that they rhyme. They’re the two who sweep and they’re the best in the world,” Callum grunts. Charlie didn’t expect to ever hear the word ‘whimsical’ come out of Callum Docherty’s mouth, but it was pretty delightful. “Well, Lammie is his surname, but they call him by it because, again, the whimsy…”
“And Crammy is one of the commentators,” Luis adds.
“And is he also a famous… curly person?”
“No,” four voices echo back at him at once.
“He was an athlete,” Thomas says, as if that was sufficient explanation for why he was commentating on the curling.
“O… kay. And which one is that?” Charlie checks, pointing at the very serious looking man on the screen. The cute one from earlier. Charlie is very interested in knowing his name.
“Bruce,” Nick responds, and then he nudges his ankle into Charlie’s leg. “Char, you know I love you loads but… shut up?”
Charlie glares at him, but it’s fair enough. If Nick spoke the whole way through any of their Trixie and Katya reaction video watches, he’d be pissed off too. And he is. Regularly.
He pats Nick’s knee in apology anyway and shuts the fuck up.
Weirdly enough, he doesn’t pick his phone up again for the rest of the match. End? Set? Fucking hell, there are too many words. He didn’t hate it as much as he expected, but he’s not going to learn the lingo. Jeez. Even weirder, he doesn’t pick his phone up for the 1pm match either. He becomes instantly obsessed with the women’s team, who are laughing between shots and looking like they’re having the best time ever. He loves that. Even even weirder, he doesn’t play silly games on his phone during the next men’s match at 6pm. Somehow, even even even weirder, a whole day has passed while Charlie sat in a smelly room with smelly boys watching three sports events.
He doesn’t even know who he is anymore.
“You loooooove curling,” Nick singsongs as he wraps Charlie up in his duvet that night. “You loooooove sports!”
“Oh, shut up,” Charlie gripes, turning over so he has his back to Nick.
Nick, as ever, isn’t bothered. He just snuggles against Charlie’s back with a happy little noise, sticking his cold nose into Charlie’s neck.
God, he was annoying.
On Thursday, tragedy strikes. Charlie has truly given up on pretending not to care as he watches the women’s GB team crying with JJ Chalmers as they’re knocked out of the competition, and he even almost finds himself crying with them.
“They can try again, right?” he asks, looking around at his four very forlorn companions. “Like, next year? They were so good! This isn’t fair!”
“In four years,” Luis says sadly.
“What? They get banned for that long for losing a game?”
“No, Char,” Nick huffs a laugh. “The Olympics are every four years.”
“You mean we have to wait almost half a decade to find out what happens next?!”
“Well, there are other competitions until then,” Callum explains. “But for this specific medal, yeah. Four years.”
“It’s only their first Olympics as a team, so they did insanely well,” Thomas says gloomily. “We should be so proud of them.”
Charlie doesn’t think he’s ever felt proud of someone he’s never met before, and yet here he is… proud of the GB Women’s Olympic Curling Team.
Christ.
As it turns out, he has to rally quickly. Only a few hours later, the men’s team has their semi-final. It’s an emotional rollercoaster, honestly. Charlie, his boyfriend, and his boyfriend’s three straight flatmates all bundle into the living room again with some beers and pizzas and get ready to watch it. Charlie hasn’t done anything quite so stereotypically laddish before in his life.
Possibly less stereotypically laddish is the way he stares dreamily as the very stoic man on the screen smiles, pleased with his shot. “That one's really hot,” he says, before he can remember that he’s in a room full of sports boys.
He needn’t have worried. He gets a couple of affirming hums in response, and then Nick adds, “Grant? Yeah, I know.”
Charlie frowns at the different man on the telly now. “No, not him. The other one, with the eyes. The trip.”
“Skip,” Callum corrects him.
“Yes, thank you Callum,” Charlie says, as if Callum has just agreed with him on the hotness and not simply corrected him on a technical term. Callum, as ever, couldn’t care less about the implications and simply shrugs.
“You have such weird taste,” Nick tells him, frowning.
Charlie has about twelve responses on the tip of his tongue to that, but Thomas beats him to it.
“I mean, obviously. You’re all the evidence we needed to know this, Nick.”
“Oh, don't you start,” Nick mutters. “But, yeah. I walked right into that one.”
“Well, at least he's self-aware,” Charlie coos, patting at Nick’s knee as patronisingly as he can manage and sharing a faux sympathetic smile with Thomas. Thomas sends him a ‘what can we do’ shrug in response, and Nick flips them both off.
He looks like he wants to say something clever in response, but he’s interrupted by Callum and Luis literally jumping up off their seats and yelling. Charlie blinks. Yes, maybe he’s got into the whole curling thing this week, but he still doesn’t think it’s a jumping out of your seat kind of sport.
Nick and Thomas spring up too, whipping their heads around to the telly. “What, what happened?!”
“Oh my god, watch the slow-mo. That was insane!” Luis cheers.
“I have never seen a shot like that in my whole life,” Callum gawks. It’s the most animated Charlie has ever seen him. It’s a bit like watching a wise old owl do a backflip with some rainbow streamers. Whimsical, indeed.
Charlie looks, though. He watches the replay alongside Nick and Thomas. And, low and behold, Charlie stands up.
“Holy shit!” he exclaims, watching as Bruce delivers literally the best shot that Charlie has ever seen in his very long and extensive two-day-long curling watching career.
Maybe it is a jumping out of your seat kind of sport, after all.
The five of them go to the pub after the match to celebrate. Or, really, to meet a bunch of their friends that they had told they’d be late to meet because of uni stuff and failed to tell them it was because they’d all become obsessed with a niche Scottish ice sport. Charlie has this weird kind of buzz inside him that has come from watching a bunch of men he doesn’t know winning a game of a sport he hadn’t heard of a week ago, and it’s very disorientating. He orders a double rum and coke to try and chase the weird, fond, sports feelings away.
Then, though, he gets his half-tipsy, love-drunk feelings instead. He curls up into Nick’s side in their booth – it’s not his fault, there’s too many of them for the space, so he has to get close – and leans his head on Nick’s shoulder.
“Alright?” Nick asks, quiet enough for only Charlie to hear.
“Yeah. I just like you.”
Charlie can’t see his face properly from this angle, but he can tell that Nick is doing that adorable little happy nose scrunch he does when Charlie is nice to him.
“Quite like you too, Spring,” he says, pressing a quick kiss to Charlie’s curls.
He’s quite content to stay like that for the rest of the night. He listens to Nick’s friends – their friends, in some cases – chatter away about all sorts. He gets his usual little happy zap of pride at how well Nick has done for himself in Leeds, including making good friends that let him be all of himself, and doesn’t feel the need to insert himself too much. He’s never excluded, though. The group draws him in every now and then, making sure he isn’t left out, and it’s nice. It’s all just so nice.
Also nice is rum, and after he’s had a few more, Charlie gets an idea that is definitely great and not at all silly.
“Hey,” he says to Nick as they wait at the bar. It’s Nick’s round and, of course, it’s very important that Charlie accompanies him for moral support. And to stick his hand in Nick’s back pocket, because he’s taken to wearing tighter jeans than he used to and it’s really doing it for Charlie.
“Hey,” Nick says back, grinning in that half-drunk, all-sap way he has. “What’s up?”
“I was thinking,” Charlie starts, looking up at Nick through his eyelashes as if he’s about to suggest something really sexy instead of just… normal. “What if I stayed an extra day?”
Nick’s face lights up instantly, but the smile is quickly followed by a frown. “Don’t you have to work though?”
“I could text Lexi. She’s always looking for extra shifts, and she told me last week she wasn’t doing anything this weekend.”
“Okay… Well, you know you’re welcome to, obviously. Are you… I mean, are you feeling a bit down again, or…?”
“Oh, no,” Charlie shakes his head quickly. “But you can’t seriously expect me to go home and work during the curling final, can you? Or even go home, skive off and watch it on my own?”
“Well, well, well,” Nick drawls, looking far too smug. Charlie almost wants to retract his offer to stay longer. “Look who’s obsessed with the curling.”
“Shut up. Do you want me to stay or not?”
“Well, obviously,” Nick says, his voice full of duh. “But I’m still going to be a little shit about it.”
Charlie sighs dramatically. “I should have known. I’ll allow it for now, but you won’t get long.”
Nick salutes him, and then kisses him, and then keeps kissing him until somebody beside them intentionally knocks into them to stop them being gross in public.
That was valid. 10/10 life choice, no notes. Charlie would’ve done the same.
Oh my god, Charlie thinks. This is horrible. This is one of the worst things I’ve ever felt in my life.
“Char,” Nick’s concerned voice somehow makes its way through the pain. “Are you crying?”
“It’s so heartbreaking, Nick,” Charlie sniffs. “Nobody deserves a gold medal more than Bruce.”
Charlie thinks Nick might laugh, but he’s comforted by other sniffling noises coming from around the room. If Callum is crying, then Charlie is certainly allowed to cry.
“Oh, Char,” Nick says, still sounding a little amused. He wraps an arm around Charlie’s shoulder and squeezes him.
“And the Canadians cheated! In that other game, remember? It shouldn’t be like this! They should have been punished!”
“Preach,” Luis says pitifully. He’s back on the floor, his face flat on the ground now in his post-loss depression.
“I fucking hate sports,” Charlie grumbles. “How do you do this regularly? It actually hurts.”
Nick makes a sad little sound and gathers Charlie even closer, peppering kisses all over his face. “You are so adorable. And also, you get used to it. Promise.”
“I don’t fucking want to!”
He feels Nick’s body shaking with laughter and he pulls back with a scowl.
“Actually, King of Sensitivity. Why aren’t you sad?”
“I am sad! But my boyfriend is literally crying in my arms and that seems more important right now.”
Charlie glares more. “You did this to me. I was perfectly fine before you made me watch this. Never again, Nicholas.”
“So,” Callum interrupts their bickering. “See you for the next one in four years then, Charlie?”
Charlie sighs dejectedly. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”
12.41, Charlie ❤️🐱🖕🏼
safely on the train 😞
12:43, Nick ❤️🐶🖕🏼
Boooooooooooo
Hey, so I'm looking for Bruce Mouat’s biggest fan
I don't suppose you know him?
fuck off x
Is it too soon to say I told you so about curling?
Or are we still in mourning?
it will literally always be too soon for you to say that to me
our whole relationship works on the basis that i'm the one who says that to you
don't mess with the system, nick
I never agreed to this system
liar
you agree with everything i say
God you're annoying
and you love me
Stupid amounts, actually
I can't believe you watched sports for me
i thought we'd already established that i watched sports for bruce mouat and bruce mouat alone
Please
You didn't even know Bruce existed 2 minutes ago
You loved me before Bruce and you will continue to love me after Bruce
that sounds a bit murder-y, nick
please don't kill bruce
I would never
We have the 2030 winter Olympic gold medal to win
After that? In a fight for your affection?
Anything goes
i can't believe you're going to murder a future olympic gold medallist because you're a jealous bellend
Can't you?
Can you really not believe it, Charles?
………
touché, nicholas
touché
so, hey, on the topic
The topic of… murder?
shhhhh a minute
i'm building up to being nice
Wow don't hurt yourself
fuck off
really though. i wanted to say sorry for my weird freak out
and before you “no sorries” me
i know i didn't do anything wrong, per se, but i also didn't really do it right either
if i’d just texted you and said “please pay more attention to me, i'm needy and sad” then you would have known something was actually wrong and we could have avoided all the weirdness
typically and annoyingly, i felt much better as soon as i saw your stupid face
anyway
all that to say, thanks for still liking me even when i’m a weirdo x
I'm pretty sure we established fairly early on that I like you most when you’re a weirdo
nicholas
I know
But it's true
I love you all the time obviously
But I also really love that I know how to make you feel better and that I can help you and that seeing my stupid face really makes you feel better
That's literally the best thing in the world
Like, ME
You like ME so much that just seeing my stupid face can calm you down
I must have done something right in a past life, hey
god
i should have known you'd have made this horrendously cheesy when all i was trying to do was say sorry for being a twat
Yes
You have met me before, correct?
It's pretty much a guarantee that I am going to make any moment horrendously cheesy
okay, fair, that's on me
still, thanks
dork
Love you too, snookums xox
oh do fuck off
anyway
as much as i may have got into this weird sport over the weekend
i’m kind of glad that it’s over and we can go back to normal now
Um
Well
About that……………
what
nicholas
what
no
what??
Well
See
The thing is
The Paralympics start in two weeks, soooooooooooo…………………………………………
oh for fucking fucks sake