Chapter Text
It’s a blisteringly hot June in Leeds, and Charlie is slowly beginning to realise that his boyfriend is… messy. Not in any obvious way – dishes usually got washed in a day or two, and he wasn’t in the habit of leaving old of cups of tea to fossilise in distant corners of his room like Olly was – but he had a tendency to drop his towel on the bed after a shower instead of hanging it up, or leave piles of clean clothes on a chair or on the floor rather than fold them away. It’s fine, obviously, but Charlie had always been neat, even as a child, and had found that an ordered environment helped him keep an ordered mind.
It's not a new thing, Charlie realises. He vaguely remembers Sarah gently reminding Nick to hang up the washing, or to hang Nellie’s lead by the door instead of leaving it in a pile at the bottom of the stairs. Charlie had never paid it much notice, though: in Kent, they were always on borrowed time, making the most of their little pockets of intimacy and connection in between school, and parents, and their friends. Even after that, when they started uni, every visit had a time limit and they would spend their stolen weekends wrapped up in each other.
They are nearly a month into their summer in Leeds now, and it’s been wonderful, intimate, joyous and everything Charlie had hoped for; it has also been enough time for him to pick up on some of Nick’s less desirable habits.
There’s a long gap between student loans in the summer, so he has started to pick up a few ad-hoc catering shifts in Leeds. Nick is working too, a part-time coaching gig at a kids rugby summer camp. It feels – grown up, domestic, and a little hilarious when Nick kisses Charlie on his way out and tells him to have fun at work. When they’re not working they spend their time reading, or having sex, or sunning themselves in the tiny patch of grass out the back of Nick’s student house. It’s been a gentle, undemanding start to the summer: the best of Charlie’s life so far.
Still, Charlie is irritated when he gets home: there’s a bead of sweat winding its way down his neck and he has the beginnings of a tension headache. He lets himself in, mind turning over all the ways he should have responded to the customer who had snapped his fingers to get his attention. Next time, he thinks, next time he’ll tell them to fuck off.
“Nick?” He calls, toeing his shoes off at the door and hanging his tote bag up, winding his head back and forth to ease some of the tension in his neck.
“In here,” comes the reply from the living room.
Charlie walks through to find Nick stretched out on his back, in a vest and shorts, reading next to the open window. The evening sun is streaming through the windows and catches the hair on his chest, and legs, and leaves a prism of light falling through a glass on the table.
“Hi, darling,” Nick says, setting his book down and holding a hand out, “how was work?”
“Hot, and irritating,” Charlie says, taking the proffered hand and letting himself be pulled into Nick’s lap. “I don’t know why they insist on us wearing these shirts during a heatwave.” Nick hums and buries his face in Charlie’s neck. “Don’t! I’m all sweaty,” Charlie protests.
“I know, I love it,” Nick says, inhaling.
“You are a very strange boy.”
“Maybe so,” Nick grins, drawing back. “I’m sorry work was shit.”
“That’s OK, it’s done now. I’m just going to go grab a drink of water.” Charlie drops a kiss to Nick’s cheek and makes his way through to the kitchen. He stops short at the sight of the still full washing basket next to an empty washing machine.
“Nick?” he calls through again, voice even.
“Yeah, love?”
“The washing?”
“What?”
Charlie closes his eyes and presses a finger between his eyebrows, willing himself to take a deep breath. “You said you’d do the washing today,” he reminds him, walking back through to the living room, “whilst I was at work.”
“Oh yeah, sorry, I completely forgot,” Nick says offhandedly, “I’ll get to it.” Charlie must have done too good a job at keeping the annoyance out of his tone because, come on, take a hint.
“Whatever, I’ll just do it,” he says shortly, turning to the kitchen.
“No- wait, come on, sit down, I’ll go put it in,” Nick goes to haul himself off the sofa.
“No, it’s fine, it’s not a big deal.”
“Charlie,” Nick starts, following him through to the kitchen, “you’re obviously upset about this.”
Charlie sighs. They’re not passive aggressive, as a rule; they’d both learned by now that things tended to fall apart when they stopped talking to each other.
“I’m upset that you didn’t do it,” he admits. “I think, in general, you’re a little less concerned with keeping things tidy than I am, and it’s been grating on me a bit.”
Nick opens his mouth to protest, them stops himself. “That’s probably true,” he acquiesces, “I’m just used to my own… standards? I suppose.”
His choice of wording gets Charlie’s hackles up.
“I don’t think it’s having particularly high standards to want things clean,” Charlie gestures around himself to emphasise the point.
“Is that what you tell yourself when you leave that curl shampoo on the floor of the shower for me to trip over?”
“That’s different! Plus, you use that too. Don’t think I can’t smell it on you, Mr short-back-and-sides.”
“I’m just saying, some would say that’s messy,” Nick points out, eyebrow raised.
“Your little shelf thing in there is tiny. Where am I meant to- Wait, no, we’re talking about the washing right now, not where I chose to store my shampoo.”
“Look, I just forgot, OK? I’m sorry. I can do it now.”
Charlie frowns. “I just don’t want to have to keep reminding you to do things, it makes me feel like such a nag.”
Nick doesn’t respond, he just bends down and starts shoving the washing in the machine. Charlie, through a feat of superhuman strength, doesn’t remark on his failure to separate lights from darks. Nick throws the pod in, shuts the door and jabs aggressively at the settings. He straightens up and turns to face Charlie, his hands on his hips. They make eye contact, eyes narrowed, and neither says anything as the tension mounts.
Suddenly, Charlie claps a hand over his mouth in an attempt to hold in a peal of laughter.
“What on earth are you laughing about?” Nick frowns, face morphing to somewhere between irritated and confused.
“I dunno,” Charlie replies, trying to compose himself and gesturing towards Nick, “your face. And… I’m just thinking how weird it is that even when you’re pissing me off, you’re still the one I want to vent to about it.”
Nick bites back a smile and looks up at the ceiling before looking back at Charlie, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “Yeah… It’s fucking annoying isn’t it?” he remarks, before holding out his arms. Charlie crosses the kitchen and lets himself be held.
“I’m sorry,” he says after a moment.
“Don’t be,” Nick replies, “I should’ve done what I said I was going to do.”
“Yeah, but it’s not, like, a massive deal. It’s just washing.”
Nick sighs. “It is, though. Like, you’re living here. It’s your home too, for the summer, and I want you to feel comfortable, and happy. You shouldn’t have to be chasing me up to do stuff.” Nick pauses and clears his throat before continuing. “And I know home home - like, at your parents’ - isn’t always… well, I know sometimes you feel pretty on edge back in Kent, so I really want here to be somewhere you feel relaxed and- safe, I guess. If that makes sense?”
Charlie looks up at Nick, nodding. “It does. I do feel safe, and I’m so, so happy being here with you. I promise I am relaxed most of the time… I think it mostly upsets me because I feel like you’re being so easy going and I’m the one getting wound up and being difficult about little things.”
“It’s not little if it winds you up,” Nick replies, frowning, then pauses before continuing, clearly weighing up his words carefully. “I- If it makes you feel better, um, it’s not just you. I mean, like, some of the stuff you do annoys me too? Sometimes?”
Charlie draws back, eyebrows raised. “Oh, really?”
Nick visibly squirms. “Yeah, you know, since we’re sharing.”
Charlie squeezes both Nick’s biceps where his hands rest on his arms. “Go on then.”
Nick pauses again, gauging Charlie’s expression before speaking. “Well… the stuff on the shower floor, for one. And like, you always leave the old pods in the Nespresso machine until it gets too full and starts leaking from the bottom and I need to take the whole thing apart to clean it.”
Charlie smirks. It does actually make him feel better. “That does sound annoying.”
“It is,” Nick agrees, but he’s grinning back now.
Fuck it, Charlie thinks, he hopes they get to annoy each other for the rest of their natural lives.
“I guess we’re just getting used to each other, hmm?” He remarks, pulling Nick close again.
“Yeah. It’s lucky that we’ve got our whole lives to figure it out,” Nick says, voice soft. Charlie doesn’t reply, just holds him tighter. After a moment of them standing there, listening to the faint whir of the washing machine and watching the fading evening sun paint Nick’s grubby student kitchen butter yellow, Nick speaks again. “Shall we go for a walk? To wind down a little?” He asks, and Charlie can feel the words blow across the shell of his ear.
“Yeah, please,” Charlie sighs.
They’ve been doing this a lot this summer, too: walking around the city in the endless blue twilight, watching the setting sun bruise the sky, talking about nothing and peeking into the windows of houses in nicer areas, debating the décor. They don’t really have the money to do much else, but Charlie can’t think of anything else he’d rather be doing than just existing with Nick.
It reminds Charlie of those stolen moments when Nick would walk him home to his parent’s house from Sarah’s; they would go as slowly as possible, stopping on every corner to talk or kiss, desperate to extend their time together, even as Charlie’s curfew would slip by. The thrill of it all has stayed the same even without the tinge of teenage disobedience.
“I’m excited to see everyone tomorrow,” Nick remarks after a few minutes of companionable silence, as they wind through the suburban streets around his student house and towards the park. They are on the early train tomorrow to meet the rest of the gang at Darcy and Elle’s flat for London Pride.
“Me too, it’s been a while,” Charlie agrees, “and it’ll be our first proper Pride.”
“Hey! We went to the Rochester one.”
“That was basically just us lot and two part-time drag queens walking down the high street - I don’t think anyone knew what to make of us.”
“Still.”
“Did you pack today?” Charlie asks.
Nick shakes his head. “Nah, I… I don’t really know what to wear.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like… I want to look the part, you know?”
“What part?”
Nick looks at him like the answer should be obvious. “You know, like I belong there. With you guys.”
“You do belong there, Nick,” Charlie reminds him.
Nick just hums and squeezes Charlie’s hand, looking forward.
“Nick.”
“What?”
“Talk to me, come on.”
They reach the park. It’s not their park: the one where they had spent so much of their adolescence, feeling out the edges of each other and their growing independence. It’ll do though; there is a chill damp in the air now that the sun is dipping below the horizon, and the fresh breeze on Charlie’s face makes him feel awake, and alive, after the stuffy unpleasantness of his shift.
Nick sighs, and looks out across the field before replying.
“I just… sometimes I feel like you guys are so… expressive and, like, confident,” Charlie sees Nick swallow against the words slightly, “and I’m just there ruining the vibe in some Nike jumper.”
“I happen to like your Nike jumpers.”
“Well, I know that.”
Charlie pulls Nick closer by their joined hands so he can use his other hand to hold onto the dip of his elbow, drumming his fingers over the soft skin there. “Nick, you’re not going to ruin the vibe by being yourself. Just wear what makes you feel comfortable.”
“But does it make me feel comfortable? Or is it just, like, what I’ve always done? I feel like I don’t really know.” One corner of Nick’s mouth is turned down slightly and he looks so genuinely confused that Charlie feels his heart sink a little.
“Baby. Let’s go shopping when we’re in London and see if we can find some stuff you like, hmm? Something a bit different, maybe, of that’s what you want? We can hit up the charity shops – there’s definitely a few near Elle and Darcy’s.”
Nick looks at him and smiles. “You’d trudge around British Heart Foundation with me?”
“I’d trudge around anywhere with you,” Charlie admits.
Nick flushes with pleasure at Charlie’s words. Charlie marvels at the effect they still have on each other, after all this time. “I still don’t really know what I want, though,” Nick admits.
“You don’t have to have it all figured out. I don’t think anyone really does. We can just… fuck around and find out,” Charlie ventures.
Nick startles out a laugh at that. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, is that not the whole point?” Charlie asks, leaning back out to the side so their joined hands are stretched out between them and gesturing around himself, letting Nick support his weight. Something about the endless summer evening is making him feel grandiose, and he’s desperate to pull that smile out of Nick; the one that’s just for him.
“Of what?” Nick asks, not following, but still laughing at Charlie’s antics and letting himself be pulled forward.
“Of being young,” Charlie answers. “Of, I dunno, being alive?”
Nick smiles. There it is.
“In that case,” he says, pulling Charlie back towards him, “I’m glad I get to be young and alive with you, Charlie Spring.”
Charlie lets himself be pulled back into Nick’s chest, and feels his arm slip around his waist. He goes to roll his eyes at Nick’s statement, but something in the earnest tilt of Nick’s head stops him. Instead, he just smiles, and moves a hand up to the back of Nick’s neck to pull him down for a kiss.
“I don’t know where nagging me about the washing fits in to all that though,” Nick whispers just before their lips make contact.
“Oh, fuck off.”
*
“It feels weird doing this journey with you,” Charlie remarks as the train passes endless fields outside as it winds its way from Leeds to London. He has travelled this route so many times that he could use the random warehouses that dot the countryside as way-markers at this point. “Usually it’s just me by myself trying not to cry after leaving you at the station.”
Nick looks up from where he has been folding his crisp packet into a tight triangle, never able to leave his hands unoccupied, and smiles. “I’m not going to lie, I do usually have a little cry in my car before driving home,” he admits.
“Aw babe, that’s so embarrassing.”
“Shut up!”
The train stops at Doncaster, and there is the predictable press of bodies for the door. Nick leaps up to help a woman with a pram get her case from the overhead shelf, and Charlie watches as a pair of men board with a child and sit at the table across the aisle from them. He’d put them both in their forties, and the child in his early teens.
They unpack their M&S wares and one pulls a book from their bag, handing it to the boy before passing a hand over his head, ruffling his hair. The boy ducks away in protest, but Charlie can see him smiling. Charlie doesn’t mean to stare, but he can’t help be drawn to the group; he can tell from the easy affection between them that they are a family, and it tugs at something deep within him.
Nick sits himself back down and notices Charlie’s distraction, following his line of sight before clocking the group too. He catches Charlie’s eye and grins, raising his eyebrows and hooking their ankles together under the table. Charlie blushes a little and puts a hand over his mouth to hide his answering smile. Nick shakes his head fondly, and looks down at his phone.
One of the men must have noticed their glances, because he is looking at Charlie with a frown, obviously trying to figure him out. Charlie understands his concern and wants to let him know he has absolutely nothing to worry about; he feels an impulse to connect, to scream me too, me too.
“Do you remember our first pride, babe?” He asks Nick, pitching his voice slightly louder than normal.
Nick looks up from his phone, glancing at Charlie and then across the aisle, a flash of understanding passing over his features.
“Yeah, of course,” he grins, leaning forward and taking both of Charlie’s hands in his, running his thumb over his knuckles, “I don’t think Rochester had ever seen so many sequins.”
“And Darcy made us drink those pink Venoms.”
“Oh, Jesus, don’t remind me.”
Charlie can see the other man relax and lay a hand over his partner’s where it rests on the table. His partner looks over at him and smiles before turning his hand over so they can link fingers, and leaning over to kiss his cheek.
The boy looks up. “Ugh, Dads, please, you’re so embarassing.”
Charlie feels Nick squeeze his hand and draws his attention back to his boyfriend.
Nick leans across the table. “What are you thinking about?” He whispers, a teasing lilt to his voice.
“You know what I’m thinking about,” Charlie whispers back.
“Me too,” Nick admits after a moment.
“Yeah?” Charlie breathes, raising his eyebrows.
“Yeah, someday, right?” Nick replies, cheeks colouring as he darts his eyes away and back to Charlie again.
Charlie taps twice in the centre of Nick’s palm, something unnamed tightening his throat. “Someday,” he nods, and it feels like a promise.
*
Pride is, as expected, fun, sweaty and chaotic. They skip the main parade, not particularly interested in being used as brand promotion for multinational corporations, and attend some of the fringe events instead, including a queer cabaret night at Darcy and Elle’s favourite bar. The night quickly descends into chaos when Darcy figures out that there is a deal on flaming sambuca, and Tao manages to somehow singe off part of his eyelashes in the resulting chaos.
They eventually end up at the flat party of one of Elle’s art school friends. Nick and Charlie ignore the Tarot readings going on in one corner and the ill-advised tattoos going on in the other in favour of kissing each other senseless in the front hall.
They all eventually stumble home to Darcy and Elle’s flat – soon to be Charlie’s too – everyone cramming on to spare mattresses and whatever soft furnishings they can find, trying and failing to be quiet so they don’t wake Melissa, the mysterious third flatmate who Charlie will be replacing at the end of the summer.
The next morning, Charlie and Isaac leave the group to their hangovers – both having made a personal rule not to imbibe anything that is actively on fire - and go to an event on queer literature at an independent bookshop Charlie has been lusting after on Instagram. There is a talk about careers in publishing, which touches on the need for more diversity in the major firms. Charlie finds himself strangely absorbed; Isaac notices, and pushes him to go and ask for the card of the woman giving the talk.
When they make their way back to Darcy and Elle’s flat, the group is mostly up and have draped themselves over various bits of furniture. Nick is sat on the sofa, leaning to one side slightly, with a pair of sunglasses on. Charlie stands in front of him and crosses his arms.
“Is he even alive?” He remarks to Elle, who is sat on an armchair in the corner, alternating between her vape and a cup of milky tea. Darcy and Tao are on one of the blow up mattresses, Darcy attempting to clumsily apply mascara to Tao’s affected eyelashes. Tara is still dead to the world in Darcy’s room, and Imogen and Sahar have apparently struck out to Sainsburys for juice.
“I’m not actually sure,” Elle remarks, eyeing Nick warily, “he did make a weird groaning noise earlier.”
Charlie reaches out with his foot and taps Nick on the shin. “Morning, princess,” he calls, voice bright.
“Ughhdndfh,” Nick replies.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Elle observes.
“Charlie?” Nick calls pathetically.
“Yes, love?”
“Help me.”
Charlie laughs, but also feels a clench of sympathy for his boyfriend. “Shall I get you some water and some toast?” He asks, rubbing his foot up and down Nick’s shin again.
“Please. I hate that you don’t get hungover.”
The realisation that Charlie could hold his alcohol much better than his burly, rugby playing boyfriend had been a delightful one.
“I’m a much younger man,” Charlie observes. “Plus, then who will wait on you hand and foot during your dramatics.”
Nick grimaces. “Love me,” he whines, holding his arms out.
“In a minute, darling, let me go get your stuff.”
When Nick’s face doesn’t waver, Charlie sighs. “Elle, can you give Nick a little hangover cuddle please, he’s being dramatic.”
“Of course,” Elle coos, standing up from her armchair and shuffling in next to Nick on the sofa. She slots in next to Nick and wraps her long arms around him, which Nick gladly accepts. Charlie feels a rush of affection and joy at the sight. It’s been a long time since he has thought about them all as his friends and not their friends – his and Nick’s. Still, it’s a reminder of how far they’ve come from that bowling alley, from sharing tentative milkshakes and fragile revelations as they all figured each other out.
Charlie’s soft-hearted nostalgia is rather cut short when Elle wrinkles her nose slightly and leans back again. “Fucking hell, Nick, you reek of sambuca,” she complains.
Nick groans again. “It’s not my fault, I was poisoned.”
“Hoist by your own petard,” Isaac interjects from the corner.
“I still think I came out of this the worst,” Tao grumbles. “At least you still have eyelashes.”
“I’ve made yours better than ever Tao, my darling,” Darcy says, waving the mascara wand around dangerously close to Tao’s face.
Charlie snorts and moves through to the kitchen to make the tea. He can still hear the vague rumble of the group talking through the wall, and a muffled cheer as Tara finally drags herself through from the bedroom.
It’s times like this that Charlie can almost see his future coalesce in front of him. It’s a heady feeling, the certainty that you will know people and love them for the rest of your life. Charlie wonders what these days might look like in ten years, twenty. He never used to like thinking about the future: there was so much uncertainty, and there were times where the thought of actually getting to that bright and promised time were things got better was exhausting rather than liberating.
Now, though, as he stirs oat milk into Nick’s tea and hears the laughter from the next room, he can feel it all begin to fall into place.