Chapter Text
I know my love should be celebrated,
But you tolerate it.
Nick Nelson had been a bundle of nerves all morning. All week, actually. New jobs would do that to you, he supposed.
Between moving back to Kent from Paris, he’d also never had time to visit his Mum once somehow. To be fair, they’d spent most of the week trying to move their furniture into their new house. Their new house in Herne Bay that felt exactly as unlike home as it could be. It was right on the coast, with the most incredible sea views – a purchase from his lovely wife’s side of the family, one that Nick was far too grateful to ever properly feel at home in.
He’d wanted a very simple starter home that was close to work and they had ended up with a very pricey four bedroom, three bathroom house right on the seafront that definitely cost more money than Nick could ever hope to make as a primary teacher from now until retirement, combined. But as always, he’d learned to accept things from Amber’s family with gratitude and a tight lipped smile so he didn’t cause any issues.
Amber Nelson (née Clifford), Nick’s new wife, came from money. That much was obvious within four seconds of meeting her. She was incredibly spoiled and often got whatever she wanted from her parents, even as an adult woman. Two of those things she had wanted however had been their full wedding in Paris paid for, and a brand new house in the most expensive street on Herne Bay on their return to Kent, so… She was also, for lack of a better word, an arsehole.
Nick had already successfully acquired his new job all the way from his tiny apartment in Paris thanks to a couple of Zoom interviews (they wanted to make sure he was guaranteed a job before they went through with the move) and yet somehow, this Friday morning had come so quickly and now he was heading into a brand new school for his first day. It felt very much like his first day at school in Paris, and that wasn’t a good sign at all. His first day was supposed to be Monday, but after consulting with his brand new boss it was decided that Nick would start on the Friday so he had the whole weekend to sort out his classroom as he wished.
This was so out of his comfort zone even as a teacher. He'd only ever taught French children English, and now he’d not only be teaching English children French, but every other subject too thanks to the way primary schools worked in the UK. The class would only have one teacher each, meaning Nick would be teaching these kids everything from science, to art, to maths.. Thank god he was only teaching at the primary school level, right? He could probably handle maths for seven year olds. Probably.
He managed to find his way to the head teachers office to introduce himself to her, and she was lovely. She insisted Nick called her Jenna and not Mrs Hargreaves, gave him a warm welcome and took him to his classroom after a short tour of the building that the Nelson was sure he’d forget immediately upon being left alone.
She also introduced him to his class, the only class he’d be teaching every day — one of two Year 2 classes, so they were all six or seven years old. There was another classroom right next to him, and she told him he could definitely drop in to a very helpful ‘Mr Spring’ if he needed any help... but then she left him to it, in a room full of children who simply stared at him like he was an alien. Awesome.
He couldn’t help but feel he was an alien, and also incredibly out of his depth here. His old job had been such a different experience, and now he was right in the thick of whatever this was - thirty-ish pairs of eyes staring at him like the man had two heads.
Nick was absolutely going to just go with his usual tricks and mostly hope that English children fell for them as well as French children did.
He'd given them all a piece of paper and shown them how to fold it up until it looked like a 3D name plaque then had them write what they’d like to be called on it in big letters to display proudly on their desks. This way, he had a chance to learn and remember their names and the kids would hopefully feel a little bit at ease with him — smart, right? After all, he had no idea how much they had liked their previous teacher. Maybe he was their absolute favourite person, so they would automatically hate Nick.
After break came their first proper lesson, which was English and that allowed Nick to keep it easy. He just had them write a short story about what they would do this weekend — super simple stuff to assess their writing levels, allowing the kids to chatter amongst themselves as they worked. This also gave him a chance to organise his very strange desk storage, which contained not just one, but two stapler guns. Bizarre.
The Nelson stayed in his classroom as the kids left for lunch, apparently really set on staying out of the way of the other teachers for now, which was possibly for the best. He had never been one for making the best first impression, so the longer he could stay away from these people the better chance he had of pulling this off and actually making some friends at this job. God knows, he’d need them.
With lunch over and done with, they finished up the day with art, Nick allowing them to draw whatever they wanted and chat happily while he tried to get to grips with the computer system. A very nice and relaxing way to end the day, at least for the kids… their teacher? Not so good with the technology, and struggling already. At one point, one of the little ones actually had to guide Nick on how to play a YouTube video on the projector screen because he was clueless, and if that wasn’t a hint about how this entire school year would go for this class, then he didn’t know what was. All in all an okay first day though, and now that the kids had left it was just Nick vs a computer — something that never usually went very well.
Currently, the redhead was busy texting his Mum. She’d messaged to ask how his first day had gone, naturally, in true Good Mum fashion — and Nick was trying to be as non-descriptive as possible, because he truly had no idea how his first day had gone. He hadn't made anyone cry and no one had thrown anything at him yet, so he was counting that as a win, and that’s exactly what he was telling Sarah.
A gentle tap to his door startled him slightly, the Nelson promptly locking his phone like he wasn’t allowed to do something as simple as text his own mother.
“Yeah, come in.”
He really thought he’d managed to make it through the day without having to introduce himself? Foolish. Someone was bound to hunt him down eventually. Honestly, he was just surprised he’d made it this far without having to speak to a human being above the age of seven.
But, when the door opened… Well, this was a surprise. For some reason, he was expecting someone much older to be the teacher of the class next door to him. Maybe because Nick knew that the guy he was replacing was pretty old, he just presumed everyone who worked at this school was close to retirement age too?
“Uhm, hi. I'm Charlie Spring, your next door neighbour?”
But this guy — Charlie — looked young. Maybe even younger than Nick, actually. With curls that looked effortless and sapphire eyes so deep that Nick found himself getting lost in them for a good few seconds. So much so that Charlie was speaking again when his brain returned to him.
“I just wanted to introduce myself, since I know we’ll be working together quite a bit,” the smaller man continued, looking just about as awkward as expected when he had a dumb idiot ogling at him.
Said dumb idiot had now seemed to remember where he was and finally jump up to greet his new co-worker, though. So at least that was something!
“Sorry, hey,” he said, offering the smaller man a well practised polite yet reserved smile, holding out a much larger hand for Charlie to shake. “Nick Nelson.”
God, he really did feel like it was his first time interacting with humans — when did he get so awkward and shy?
Charlie was gawking at him now, with an expression that Nick couldn’t quite seem to read. “I'm sorry, just. Did you say Nick Nelson?”
“. . Yes?”
Charlie seemed to light up, like he’d just experienced a real life bingo. “You went to Truham for a bit in secondary school, didn’t you? And you played rugby?”
That was the expression, unexpected familiarity. The other teacher was gazing at him like he’d seen his face before, or maybe just knew his name? Once the handshake had come to an end Nick popped both hands into his pockets as always, blinking at the onslaught of questions (okay, only two, but it felt like more) that he was getting.
“I did. Do you.. know me? Or are you just like, really good at this game?”
…Wait.
Now that he was taking the time to make proper eye contact, to really look at this guy… Nick did think maybe he looked familiar? He figured Charlie just had one of those faces, but the more he thought about it the more he was sure he’d seen him at Truham a few times.
He was just a lot smaller then, and his hair was shorter.
“Wait, I remember you too. You used to hang around with that Tao guy outside, right?”
More specifically, he remembered Charlie's name now. He remembered that Charlie had been talked about as being apparently the only gay boy in their school (Nick found that hard to believe) but he didn’t think that would be a nice memory to bring up, either way.
Charlie seemed to have a physical reaction to Nick properly remembering him, now - which he presumed was a lot to do with the fact that Charlie was not treated too kindly in school by people that looked a lot like Nick. Straight, mean rugby boys. There were a lot of them, too. But the smaller man seemed to relax as he also recalled Tao’s name.
A fairly easy one to remember, after all. He’d never met another Tao, so the name had stuck in his head and apparently been very attached to Charlie Spring’s name in his mind.
“Yeah, he’s actually still my friend now,” he admitted with a bit of a sheepish smile on his face. “Wow, I came in here to ask you about how your first day was, I didn’t expect a reunion.”
Nick bristled at that, the fact he hadn’t even entertained the thought that he might actually run into someone he had known in school at one point only hitting him now. “Yeah.. I dunno how I expected not to know anyone here considering I was born here, but I guess I hadn't considered it. I'm still glad to see a familiar face, though.”
Charlie seems to have relaxed slightly now, easing into the now at least half familiar presence in front of him with what looked like a smile of slight relief gracing his features. “Can I confess something to you? I sort of expected you to be, like, fifty years old, or something.”
There wasn’t much of a smile on Nick's face, of course. Only the same reserved polite one — he was much different to the very extroverted boy that Charlie had known at one point.
“Fifty years old?”
The younger man’s nose wrinkled up cutely at that, immediately defending his statement. “Yeah, is that weird? Sorry, the last guy who had been in your position was about that age. I just sort of expected you to be the same, I don't know why. I probably just got used to it.”
There was an awkward pause, Charlie folding his arms over his chest and sliding his foot across the floor briefly before he moved on, Nick reaching up to squeeze at the back of his neck in an anxious tic.
Awkward - but Charlie was quick to move on.
“...Anyway, I came in to see how you were doing and to ask if you needed any help with anything before I leave?”
Nick froze at that, his hand dropping to his side in shock at the friendly offer.
“That's — really nice, thank you. But I'm sure you have much better things to do with your Friday night? I don't think I'll start tackling my classroom until after school next week anyways.”
The place didn’t look too bad — outdated, at its worst. Beige brown display boards with very depressing children’s work on it, no colour, no creativity. It just needed a bit of a Nick Nelson touch, that was the issue.
“I mean, actually I am going to go to a bar a bit later with my friends. We do it every Friday.” There was another shorter pause, one that seemed like precious thinking time, before Charlie went ahead and asked. “Do you want to come along?”
No. Absolutely not.
Well, that would be the usual reply, but apparently Charlie Spring brought out a different side to him. “A bar? Sure. I never really got a chance to try any of the bars here since I left when I was so young… Which one are you gonna be heading to?”
Honestly, it was pointless asking. Nick had completely forgotten his way around Kent anyways, so he would need Charlie's full directions — not just the name of the place. Sure, he had Google Maps — but he was not the best at his left and rights. He’d probably end up back in Paris or something, knowing his luck.
Charlie nodded, tugging his bottom lip in between his teeth to contain his smile while he pulled his phone out of his pocket so he could collect the Nelson's phone number. They’d need to be in contact for school stuff anyways, better to just get this out of the way now right? “We like this one called Sundowners. I'll text you the details?”
It was a soft suggestion, spoken while Charlie was gently offering his phone with a new contact page open.
“Sundowners?”
Nick hadn’t heard the name of that one before, not surprisingly — and as he pulled out his phone to do a quick number swap with Charlie he decided to give it a quick Google first. The result popped up immediately, for some reason giving him a dry mouth instantaneously as he switched to his contacts and pressed the little plus icon.
Sundowners. LGBT bar, restaurant and club.
“Isn’t that a gay bar?” Good god, the words were out of his mouth before he even had time to think, to adjust his tone - it sounded like he was upset at the very idea of a gay bar, actually. He didn’t mean to sound so defensive, he really didn’t — sometimes his mouth just moved before his brain had a chance to formulate the sentence properly.
Worst of all, he didn’t even fix it — just continued, swapping phones with Charlie like the fumbling idiot that he was — punching his number into the younger male’s device but leaving the contact name up to Charlie before he swapped the phones back.
Just as he was handing Nick's phone back to him, Charlie seemed to hear what he was being asked. It gave him pause, hand freezing in mid-air for a moment before he slowly completed the action. Very visibly, he tensed up, on the defensive while he shrunk into himself and somehow managed to make himself look smaller than he already was.
“Yeah. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. Just a suggestion.”
God, Charlie definitely thought he was homophobic. It was written all over the other teacher’s face, like he regretted even asking Nick to join in the first place. Jesus. This was how he expected to make friends?
He rushed to explain himself, to justify his strange reaction in any way other than the blatant homophobia way. “No, no that’s— fine, I just. I'm married.”
He held up a hand, trying to be helpful and show Charlie his wedding ring. For fucks sake, Nick. As if married people couldn’t go to gay bars? But, he really hoped Charlie knew what he meant. Of course married people could go to gay bars, or any bar — but Nick had a feeling Amber would be completely unpleased if she found out.
Charlie shifted where he stood, arms crossed in a particularly defensive stance while he regarded the hand that was shown to him with a bit of annoyance, lifting a brow as if to say ‘so?’
“Okay? Just because you go to a gay bar doesn’t mean everyone is going to start hitting on you. You’re wearing a ring.”
Fuck, he’d actually made it worse? How is that even possible! But by the look on Charlie’s face, it seemed like he now thought Nick was a typical straight guy who thinks gay men can’t control themselves around him. And was homophobic.
Fuck.
Nick knew immediately that he’d pressed a button that he shouldn’t have, and he’d done it completely accidentally as he always did. He dropped his hand, shoving both of them back into his pockets again as he struggled to find the words to explain himself.
“No, no— I'm not — I'm not saying that.”
Jesus. He didn’t even sound the slightest bit convincing, he didn’t even believe himself.
Why did his brain always do this to him? He always seemed to say the wrong things in a conversation, no wonder he had no friends other than his wife. And even then, most of the time she seemed to simply tolerate him at best. Was it just him? Was he impossible to talk to?
“I'm sorry. I just was making sure it wasn’t like . . a single’s night thing I guess?”
Charlie's brows were lifted a bit, staying silent while Nick struggled with his words until he blew air out through his nose, apparently deciding to be extremely forgiving here. “It's.. fine,” he breathed out, sighing in the same breath. “No, it’s not a single’s night. My two friends who are coming are actually together, so..”
“Okay, okay good.”
The Nelson breathed out a sigh of relief despite the fact that Charlie was still obviously pissed at him — he could fix that, right?
Unfortunately ‘fixing that’ meant he’d have to go on the night out despite the fact that Charlie clearly didn’t want him there anymore. At the same time if he didn’t go now, Charlie would be absolutely sure that he was homophobic.
And that really, really bothered him for some reason.
Maybe Charlie wasn’t being forgiving here. Maybe, it was simply too awkward to retract the invitation now, and the other male had realised he was stuck with the Nelson’s company tonight.
There was a beat of awkward silence, Charlie fidgeting with his shirt sleeves, pulling them down, before he began to shuffle towards the door.
“Anyways, maybe I’ll see you there. Just text me if you change your mind.”
Nick bristled, settling on the idea that he’d have to go along and fix this now. “Okay, thank you. I'll.. see you there.”
Jesus, hopefully a little night out in a less high pressure setting would fix this — who had given Nick the ability to speak? They really shouldn’t have. A fatal mistake.
The second Charlie left his classroom he slumped at his desk, promptly face planting it.
Once the Nelson had recovered from the conversation, if only slightly, he shot a text off to his wife to tell her he’d not be home until late. Naturally, he told her he’d be staying late at work and not that he was going to a gay bar with the only gay guy from his old school, but that seemed like just a smart decision when it came to Amber.
It wasn’t long until he received a text from his new teacher.. Friend? With the promised meeting time and directions to the Sundowners Bar.
Nick stayed at the school until close to six, not wanting to be too early — but still left himself plenty of time to arrive at their meeting location and park up his car.
With no hesitation he hopped out and headed into the bar before he could talk himself out of it, spotting Charlie’s curls first — and found that he actually did remember both of Charlie's friends, actually, speaking up as he reached the table.
“Uh, hey. I hope I'm not late?”
Charlie’s head shot up at the new voice, oceanic eyes flickering skyward to meet Nick’s brown gaze peering down at them.
“Uh, no. You’re fine.” He shot a look at his friends, which felt like it had some unspoken words in it. “This is Elle and Tao. Should we get some drinks?”
Nick offered his best polite smile, giving the new/old faces a nod each. “..Hi. And, sure? I'll buy them, just tell me what you all want.”
It only seemed fair, right? He’d been invited onto their night out and he really wanted to make a good impression by being nice. He was good at being nice, normally. Apparently he just wasn’t good at being nice to Charlie.. he was good at being accidentally homophobic to him though!
Elle and Tao placed their drink orders with Nick without a problem, all three of them then glancing towards Charlie — Tao seemed to still look judgmental that Nick was here, and Elle was most definitely suspicious. Some words had definitely been spoken before the Nelson’s arrival.
“You don’t have to pay, I invited you out.” Charlie’s reply came as a shock to Nick, who simply stood there lamely as the curly haired man declined his offer, shaking his head as he pushed himself out of the booth with a frown.
“I'll grab the drinks, you sit. What do you like?”
Nick was about to protest, but he couldn’t find the words for ‘let me buy you a drink so you don’t think I'm homophobic’ and instead settled for a quiet nod. Maybe it was easier to just behave himself, here. Not to be his usual stubborn self and make things harder.
“Um, just a diet coke please.”
The older male was fairly sure that him drinking actual alcohol tonight would be nothing but a disaster, so fizzy pop it was. He needed as many of his brain cells as he had left, plus if he came home smelling like alcohol Amber would absolutely lose it. Without a doubt.
He sat down extremely slowly and carefully, offering Tao and Elle a soft smile even as they looked at him with blank expressions. Unreadable fortresses.
Nick shifted slightly under the very disapproving glare of Tao, automatically reaching for his phone to check it in the awkwardness and completely unsurprised to see a string of text messages from his wife freaking out because Nick dared to stay at ‘work’ a little late.
They had no plans tonight and Nick knew that. He wasn’t missing anything, or letting her down, but it still put him on edge as always. He was going to get yelled at when he got home, apparently. Woo.
Carrying all four of their beverages in his cupped arms, Charlie hurried back over to the table, gently lowering his appendages so the bottoms of the glasses were flush with the table. Then, he slid into the booth beside Nick, since Tao and Elle were obviously sitting together on the opposite side.
The Nelson thanked Charlie quietly when he received his drink, picking it up for a sip — that’s when Elle spotted his wedding ring and clearly decided to attempt conversation here. Bless her soul.
“So, you got married, Nick? What's their name?” It seemed like Elle was being as un-assuming as possible here, not wanting to presume Nick was straight like everyone else did.
“Her name is Amber,” Nick shot back, and the ‘her’ was maybe just a little bit too pronounced — and maybe he answered slightly too quickly, so he was fast to continue to try and save this. “She's from around here, too — but we met while she was on holiday, so when we got married we just.. decided to move back to Kent.”
God, he was really messing this up wasn’t he? Frustratingly, he was really trying. It was super important to him that Charlie liked him (who knows why..) and that included his friends, and so far he’d messed up in both areas, judging by the way Elle was now looking at him.
Charlie's nose scrunched up, shifting a bit away from the other teacher and casting a matching look across the table at Elle before he spoke.
“I get it, Nick. She’s your wife, and you’re straight.” Charlie spoke with a little edge to his voice, though he tried not to let it consume his entire tone. “Very heteronormative of you. Sorry Elle and Tao, no offence.”
Tao was simply doing an amazing job of making Nick feel uncomfortable, but to be fair Nick was very uncomfortable either way at the moment. He wasn’t the best in social situations, obviously — the fact that Tao seemed to already hate his guts didn’t really help with that. Actually, none of the trio seemed too fond of him.
The Nelson tensed up at the reaction from Charlie, obviously sensing that once again, he had said something to upset him. Shocker.
“Hetero..normative?”
This was a new word to Nick. When it came to anything LGBTQ+ related, he was very uneducated. And there was most definitely a reason for that, as much as he didn’t want to admit it.
“...Did I say something bad?”
Honestly, Nick had been speaking mostly French for so much of his life now that he was sure the recent shift back to mostly English had done a number on his communication skills. Communication skills that he lacked to begin with, mind you — but it really seemed like he was just pissing everyone off here.
“Hetero as in heterosexual. As in straight. And you know what normative means, I'm assuming?”
Charlie’s dark brows were knitted together high up on his forehead, spinning his glass around on top of the table top with his cold, slim fingertips. His full lips were pursed, tugging the cup close to take a sip. “It’s not really what you said, it was how you said it.”
Charlie dismissed, pointedly avoiding his friends’ stares to just look at Nick. “Let's just move on. Talk about something else.”
Nick did open his mouth to reply, but quickly closed it. Yes, he knew what ‘normative’ meant. But he still didn’t know what the full ‘heteronormative’ word meant. This was like a third language to him, one that he had never scratched the surface on. So, perhaps he best stay quiet considering he had no idea what he was talking about.
“Uh. Okay.”
He took a drink of his coke, very much now wishing it did contain alcohol, trying to avoid Tao or Elle's eyes since they were pretty much set on staring through him, it seemed.
Although, Elle could possibly sense that he was uncomfortable, because she’d moved on to Charlie instead — trying to diffuse the tension, perhaps, a playful smile on her face.
“So, Charlie. Do you have your eye on anyone tonight?”
The dark haired man whipped his head around at his friend’s teasing question, lips parting with a smile of his own. Elle was the living best at diffusing the tension in any given situation. “I'm not doing that tonight. I promised Adonis I'd come home, and you know I have never broken a promise to him in my life.”
Nick was completely lost. Where the hell was he, what did heteronormative mean and what the hell was an Adonis? But he simply tilted his head, sensing an opportunity to try and prove he was not homophobic here.
“Oh, are you looking for a boyfriend, Charlie?” It was spoken with absolute innocence, Nick clearly trying very hard now not to start an argument with his words.
The other male’s gaze drifted over to Nick, maybe trying to assess or understand his intentions with that question, before he provided an answer. “No, I don't really have boyfriends. Just the occasional random hook up.”
The redhead paused at Charlie’s answer, a confused kind of.. unreadable expression taking over his visage.
“..Why would you wanna do that?”
That was the problem, wasn't it? It was that tone, the one that he couldn’t seem to stop doing. What he’d probably meant to ask was a far more innocent question like how come Charlie didn’t want a boyfriend? Why didn’t he like relationships? Now, he just seemed like he was judging the poor guy.
Again.
As expected, his new colleague was not impressed by the tone. “Why do you care?” He countered, growing increasingly more uncomfortable with the larger male to his left. “It's better suited for me. We can’t all find wonderful people who want to marry us.”
Emphasis on the ‘people,’ because it wasn’t always ‘she’ for men, and ‘he’ for women, and he seemed to want to make that clear.
“No, I don't care! It just doesn’t seem.. nice?”
Nick didn’t know how to explain himself, and the fact that Charlie was most definitely heated with him now only added to that. Tao and Elle also did not look pleased to say the least.
By ‘nice’ he meant nice for Charlie. He meant that the idea of the man next to him having drunk hook-up after drunk hook-up made him feel sad, but he obviously didn’t know how to express that.
“Look— I'm really sorry. I'm just going to go, okay? I'm really sorry I messed your evening up so bad.”
As quick as that, he was gone — not before dropping a £5 note on the table (definitely more than the cost of a diet coke, but he felt bad okay?) and leaving before anyone even had a chance to say anything.
He face planted his steering wheel for a good minute or so before he finally headed back home — where he’d absolutely just get yelled at by his loving wife for the rest of the night anyways for daring to have a life outside of her.
Still, it was official. Nick was not allowed to talk to humans at all anymore.