Chapter Text
Nick felt like someone had wrapped blankets around his head. He felt too warm and confused and also completely panicked. Something was very wrong. He was crying and he couldn't remember why. Someone else was crying too, he could hear it distantly through the fog in his brain. There was a warm hand on his shoulder.
"I don't feel well," he said quietly.
"I know, Nick, I know. This will wear off soon."
He couldn't move his arm. Why wouldn't his arm move? "My arm? What's wrong with my arm?" He could feel it and it hurt, it hurt rather a lot. But he couldn't move it. Fingers, yes, he could wiggle his fingers and open and close a fist. Why did his arm hurt so much? There was beeping, and it was bright in the room. Monitors, plastic bags hanging on metal racks. Hospital? Hospital.
The truck. But the truck had missed them. But something else, something else had happened, right, something that hurt? He couldn't remember. He just remembered surprise and pain and Charlie's voice.
"Charlie!" he screamed suddenly. "Where is Charlie? Is he okay?"
The hand on his shoulder moved to his face. "Charlie's fine, Nick, Charlie's okay. He's a little bruised and scraped up but you're the one who really got hurt."
Nick sagged into the bed. The hospital bed. That's where he was. His arm was in a cast and it hurt worse than anything he could ever remember feeling. It started to come back to him - the walk, the truck, something hitting them, and then waking up with Charlie there and he'd said.... "oh god, Tara."
"Do you need me to call the nurse?"
Nick shook his head. "No, I just.... I just remembered some of the stuff I said to Charlie when I was coming around."
"You were really out of it," Tara agreed diplomatically.
"Tara. That's such a fucking cop out and you know it." He sighed and wiggled his fingers again. He had one hell of an itch just above his elbow. And his entire arm panged. "What do I do?"
"They gave me a whole packet of instructions for your after care, and I already messaged your section leads and the coaches."
"Not about my fucking arm, Tara!" He flinched at his own tone. "But also, thank you. For doing all that. But what the fuck do I do about Charlie?"
"Apologize and give him some space? He knows you didn't mean it."
Nick really wanted to drop his head into his left hand. "Tara?" She looked up at him expectantly. "I did though. You know I did."
"I know you care about Charlie a lot, Nick– "
"No, Tara, I am in love with Charlie. And I think you’ve known that for a while.”
Tara sighed and stood up to push his hair back out of his eyes. “I wasn’t sure if you knew it, Nick, to be honest. But yeah, it’s been pretty obvious to me and Darcy for a while. And also, you know, I wasn’t sure what it means for you to be in love with a guy when you are also straight.”
"I'm not straight, Tara." He dropped his eyes to the blanket across his hips. It felt so strange to say it out loud. She blinked at him and asked when he discovered this. He knew she expected him to say something like six months ago or when I met Charlie . But instead, he said, "I think I was about 15? Sometime around then is when I figured out that I'm bi."
Tara started pacing the small room. "And you never told us?"
"I've literally never told anyone until you just now."
Silence filled the room, only broken by the beeps of the machinery. "But Nick, why? I mean, your best friends are a lesbian couple and an out gay man. Did you think we wouldn't accept you?"
"It was easier not to? And look, before you start, I can already hear Darcy screaming at me about 'bi erasure' and 'comp het', but it was just... I like girls and I like guys and it was just easier, you know, to just be with girls and then I didn't have to deal with any of it." He shrugged. "I could just be the friendly ally at Pride and at the LGBTQ+ social club and I wouldn't have to worry about my teammates or my family or just general assholes in the world having an opinion about my sexuality."
"Wow." Tara stared at her feet for several minutes. "I'm... Nick, I appreciate you trusting me with that. But also, I am... a bit angry with you right now."
He picked at the blanket. "Yeah. Me too."
"Like, I want to be supportive and tell you that no one should have to come out before they're ready. But Nick, we've been close friends since we were 16, which means you already knew this when we started hanging out again really and you never shared it with me in like five years and I don't know how I feel about that."
"I never intended to come out at all. Like, ever. I figured that eventually I would meet a girl I wanted to spend my life with and none of this would matter and I would never have to tell anyone." The itch above his left elbow made him want to tear his arm off. “And then I met Charlie.”
“But that was almost two years ago, Nick!”
“Yeah.” He looked up and for a minute he thought he saw Charlie’s face through the little window in the door of the recovery room, but when it opened it was the doctor. The doctor described to him in graphic detail what she had done to his arm and then said to schedule a followup appointment in two weeks to get the hard cast off and to start setting up weekly PT in four weeks. Nick was relieved to see that Tara was writing this all down. Afterward the nurse came back with what seemed like forty bottles of meds and a chart showing what he should take when and for how long. She warned him to take it easy on the painkillers and that he would likely be out of it for the next two days, until the pain was down to manageable levels.
Tara asked the nurse a few things he couldn’t quite grasp as the first dose of pain killers numbed his elbow but also his brain. It seemed like two hours had passed and then Tara was trying to get him to put a pair of joggers on, which was surprisingly difficult to do one-handed and she ended up having to help him. She tied his shoes for him and pointed out he would need to break out the slip-on Vans for a while.
Once the packing was in hand, Tara checked her phone and let him know that Isaac had messaged to say that Charlie was sleeping and that everyone hoped Nick was okay. He nodded miserably. He fell asleep in the taxi and Tara shook him awake. It took her and Darcy working together to guide him up the stairs. The painkillers had him completely fuzzed out. He woke around 3am and saw that he had a text from Charlie.
Charlie: Isaac said they discharged you and you’re home and resting. I’m glad.
Nick: Please come around when you wake up.
He managed to get his pants down so he could relieve himself. He still couldn’t take another dose of painkillers for another 3 hours and his elbow was killing him. He pulled up a movie on his laptop and finally dozed back off. When he woke up again, it was just after 7 and Darcy was shaking him gently by the shoulder.
“I’m sorry to wake you, Nicky, but you need to stay on schedule with the pain relief and antibiotics. We’ve got like four different kinds of meds you have to take on different schedules. Thank god for Tara; she left very detailed instructions.”
He staggered to the bathroom again to have a wee, brush his teeth, and awkwardly wash his hands. Darcy brought him some juice, toast, and a banana to get the different types of meds down so that he wasn’t taking it all on an empty stomach. When she took the dishes away he turned his phone over.
Charlie: I don’t think that’s a good idea.
Nick: Please Charlie. I need to talk to you.
He flipped through his other messages from teammates, his coaches. A couple of his instructors had gotten back to him and let him know they understood that he might need a couple of days to rest. He slowly changed his pants and put on a fresh pair of joggers. He needed a shower but he’d tried three times to read the instructions on how to protect his cast in the shower and his brain refused to absorb the information. Darcy brought him a cup of tea and arranged a stack of pillows on the sofa so he could rest his elbow without so much strain in his shoulder. He nodded off again, waking with a start when someone knocked on the door.
“Charlie!” he shouted, jumping to his feet. But it was his mother; Tara had called her and she’d driven up that morning. She hugged him and fussed over him and filled their sad student fridge with groceries and started the oven heating for a casserole she’d brought for them. The girls chatted with her in the kitchen as he tried to stay conscious in the living room.
Charlie: I can’t talk to you right now
Only Tara saw him throw the phone across the room, but Darcy and his mom both saw him burst into tears. Tara grabbed her girlfriend and they both disappeared from the flat. His mother sat next to him and held his right hand. “Oh baby, what’s wrong honey? This doesn’t seem like it’s about your arm.”
“You remember Charlie?”
“The lovely boy who stayed with us during the holidays? Of course I remember him, a very charming young man.”
“Yeah,” Nick sobbed. And then he told her everything.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Last Fall (Charlie’s first year, Nick’s second)
He hadn’t known what to expect really, except that everyone had told him that university was generally a lot more open and accepting than his stodgy secondary school had been. He had been reassured by the size of the LGBTQ+ booth at the student activities fair. But being at one of the events and seeing dozens of people in colorful pins milling around, chatting, dancing – it seemed like a dream come true. One of the older students, George, introduced himself and walked Charlie around a bit, giving him the opportunity to meet several other students. A couple of guys flirted with him a bit, which blew his mind a little. His prior experiences with flirting had been careful, furtive – not guys just straight up telling him he was cute and asking for his number after ten minutes of conversation. It was rather thrilling.
A blond ball of energy that he recognized from one of his courses bounced over to him and announced herself as Darcy, and then introduced him to her girlfriend Tara. The two of them were eager for him to meet an old friend of theirs from school, a stand-up bloke who’d always looked after them in secondary school and baked cakes, if you could believe it. A tall man with a broad back and arms that Charlie instinctively wanted to bite. That was not normal, right, wanting to sink your teeth into someone? But the thought was there. A man who turned around and smiled like the sun coming up when he saw them approaching. A man with soft hazel eyes and an abundance of freckles and a physique like —
A man who was wearing an ‘ally’ pin.
Charlie felt himself deflate, but he still smiled gamely and learned that the unattainable hottie was named Nick, he played rugby, and he was studying to be a teacher. After a few minutes, Darcy carted him off to introduce him to another group of first years and he chided himself for looking for Nick in the crowd for the next hour or so as he met more and more people. He even let himself be talked onto the dance floor for a while, which was fun until some guy he had just met two minutes before – Jack maybe? – started to get a little handsy. It was a bit of a blur and he was beginning to feel overwhelmed.
He grabbed a beer and headed out the back and found a bench where he could relax in the relative quiet. There were people out and about, stumbling home from other parties or heading out to start their evenings, distant laughter, a glass bottle breaking somewhere, a group of giggly girls singing, but for the most part he was alone with his thoughts and his drink and the cool evening air.
“Is it okay if I join you?” Unattainable Hottie asked as he sat at the other end of the bench.
“Sure,” Charlie allowed.
For a few minutes, they just silently people watched together. “The socials are great, but they get overwhelming after a while. So much noise, so many people.”
Charlie laughed. “Thank you! I feel so much less ridiculous about it now. Don’t get me wrong, I was having a blast, but it’s so busy. I won’t even remember the names of half the people I met in there by tomorrow.”
Nick gave him a look. “They’ll remember you,” he said quietly.
What was that? Was Nick flirting with him? “Excuse me?”
“You… you have a distinctive look. You’re just…” He waved a hand at Charlie in a sweeping motion. “You know what, ignore me. I’ve had too much of Darcy’s punch to say anything coherent.”
“Well, that’s your first mistake. Never drink the mystery punch. I learned that lesson the hard way.”
“I mean, I think that’s a rite of passage.”
“Yes, but you’re supposed to learn from experience, Nick.”
“So, I’m in the half whose names you do remember, then?”
“You have a distinctive look,” Charlie teased and Nick blushed. Actually blushed. This man is straight , Charlie forcefully reminded himself. “Not a lot of sporty guys in there,” he said, to cover himself. “A few runners probably or, like, rowers, but not a lot of rugby lads.”
“I think there’s still a lot of pressure on guys to keep it quiet in the locker room,” Nick agreed quietly.
“That’s too bad. Do you like playing rugby?” he asked, deciding to change the subject. That got Nick going, talking about his experience playing as a kid and the scholarship he got to play at uni, but that he didn’t plan on pursuing it past that. It was fun, but it wasn’t going to be his career or anything. From there they talked about career plans and life plans and traded stories about school and where they’d grown up – just a few towns over from each other. Before Charlie knew it, an hour had passed and Darcy showed up to cajole both of them back inside.
He had another drink, danced a little more, got two more numbers, and then decided it was time to go home. On his way out, he passed Nick near the doors, helping organize escorts home for students who had overindulged. The two of them ended up escorting a trio of extremely inebriated lesbians back to their flat, which was only a few minutes walk from his own shared flat.
“I should get back,” Nick said shyly. “I have my own little pod of lesbians to escort home. I share a flat with Tara and Darcy.”
“I have three flatmates,” Charlie told him. “You know, we do a movie night every Wednesday, if you ever wanted to join us. It’s social but not nearly so overwhelming.” He didn’t know where that boldness had come from. Maybe just knowing that Nick was straight and that it couldn’t go anywhere made it easier to just… get to know him as a person, instead of a potential partner.
“That sounds great, actually,” Nick told him and handed his phone over to add his contact info.
“Charlie Spring,” he read when he took his phone back. “That is an excellent name.”
“Don’t forget to text me your info,” Charlie reminded him and bid him a reluctant goodnight. When he got to the corner and turned right he saw that Nick was still standing there watching him. He waved and Nick waved back.
“Oh my god, you met someone!” Isaac crowed the second he got in the door.
“10 quid says he’s straight,” James called out from the kitchen.
“Shut up, James.”
“That means I’m right .” James emerged in glittering mesh glory. “Charlie, the night is young. Come out with me and meet someone who is one thousand percent interested in backing that ass up.”
“Oh my god, James, no thank you. I am all peopled out for the night. You go have fun.”
“I intend to, babes.” He blew them both kisses and traipsed out of the flat.
Unknown number: Hi Charlie, this is Nick. Nick Nelson from tonight.
Unknown number: Movie night sounds really cool. Thanks for inviting me. Send me the details?
Charlie: 7pm. I’ll send my address. Bring a snack to share and an open mind. My friend Tao has very particular taste in movies.
Nick: See you then!
Isaac brought him a cup of tea and Charlie settled in with his own book and the two of them read in silence for several minutes, but eventually the weight of Isaac’s glances got to be too much. Charlie sighed and lowered his book.
“His name is Nick Nelson, like he has a comic book superhero cover name and he looks like one too, and he’s marvelous and he just has this one, you know, minor flaw. Which is that he’s straight.” Charlie sipped his tea and avoided making eye contact. “I mean, we can still be friends, right?”
“Sure babe, that’s going to go great for you,” Isaac replied.
Charlie groaned and stared at his tea. As much as he hated to admit it, Isaac had a point. So he picked up his phone and scrolled through the new contacts he had collected. Sam… Sam had been nice – cute, flirty but not gross.
Charlie: Hey Sam, this is Charlie. We met at the social tonight. Would you like to get coffee sometime?
“There, see, I am not obsessing over another straight guy,” he argued, showing Isaac the text.
Isaac nodded as he hummed and turned back to his book. Charlie slumped into the couch, drank his tea, and tried to concentrate on his own reading. But mostly he kept thinking about how ‘Nick Nelson’ was just an incredible name.