Chapter Text
Jimmy leant back in his chair balancing on two legs. He should really get this homework done while Nick took rugby practice, but he couldn’t find the motivation. Charlie had one of his London work days, and technically he wasn’t meant to be home alone without one of them, at least not without having one of them on call. He didn’t really mind. The clouds were threatening a downpour and waiting for Nick was better than taking the bus and getting soaked on the walk from his stop.
He tapped out a rhythm on the desk with a couple of pencils. If he was home he would have Charlie’s drums to play on, but in a pinch, pencils would do. Charlie had started teaching him saying that he had drummed to cope with anxiety and frustration when he had been Jimmy’s age. They’d also had the piano, left behind when Nick’s grandparents moved out and practically untouched since, tuned so Jimmy could play it. That was fine, but drumming was better for his frustrations. The fact that it didn’t have any connection to his family was good too.
Jimmy fell forward with a clunk as Nick returned to the classroom padding down the corridor in socks and dropping his muddy boots on the newspaper he had left by the door for that purpose. He was still covered in mud. Charlie swore he came home muddier as coach than he ever had in his playing days.
“Get any of that essay done?”
“Not really. I couldn’t get into it.”
“Ah well. Give me a minute to grab my stuff and we can go home. Any word from Charlie?”
“Nope.”
They were halfway home when their phones chimed simultaneously
NELSPRING NATTER
(1647)
Charlie
I should get in at 1826
Jimmy
Nick says do you have an umbrella or do you need pick up
Charlie
I can get an Uber if it’s wet.
Daisy wiggled madly around their feet as they entered the house. Jimmy hung his bag, blazer, and his school tie on the newel post to take up later and took her straight outside to throw some balls before the rain arrived. Daisy’s exercise had quickly become one of his designated household jobs. He was still wary of taking her for a walk, his parents had yet to say or do anything in the six weeks he had been living with Nick and Charlie and he didn’t trust the silence.
“Dinner’s in the oven.” Nick appeared at the conservatory door. “I’m going to go pick Charlie up from the station. I should be back in time, but it needs to come out in 20 minutes if I’m longer than expected. I set the timer.”
Jimmy nodded, then followed Nick to the front door locking it behind Nick as he left before heading upstairs to change out of his uniform, throwing his blazer over the spare bed, and dropping his shirt into the ever present dirty laundry pile behind the door. He emptied his bag on the bed, moving his laptop to the desk, plucking one piece of paper out of the pile and stuffing it in his pocket for later.
Dunc
Boo!
Jimmy
Boo?
Dunc
Did you do the maths homework yet? I’m stuck.
Jimmy
I tried. I was going to ask Charlie for help after dinner. Wanna come over?
Dunc
I’ll have to check with Mum.
Mum says as long as I wait till Dad’s home ‘cause she’s going to bookclub and she needs me to be here with Isla if he’s late.
And if it’s OK with Nick and Charlie on a school night.
Jimmy
Nick’s gone to pick Charlie up from the station. I’ll check when they’re back.
Duncan had been devastated when he came back from holiday and found out what had happened to Jimmy. He felt responsible. The first time Jimmy had invited him around to Nick and Charlie’s house, his new home, Duncan had been full of self-recrimination.
“It’s my fault. You wouldn’t have got caught if you hadn’t kissed me. You wouldn’t have been beaten up if I hadn’t wanted to walk you home. I should have just stayed on the train.”Jimmy laughed sadly at him. “I chose to kiss you. Joe decided to be an arsehole and tell our parents. My parents decided to be shit people. It’s not your fault.” Jimmy was parroting what Nick and Charlie had been telling him, trying hard to believe it himself.
“But you could have stayed with your parents if I hadn’t pushed the issue.”
“Do you think that would have been better? At least now I know for sure that their homophobia is stronger than their parental instincts.” Jimmy's voice was getting morose. “I know for sure that they wouldn’t accept me.” Duncan pulled him into a hug. “At least now I’m not living under the Sword of Damocles. It’s already fallen.”
“Sword of Damocles? Since when do you use classical references in your normal conversations?” Duncan shoved him playfully.
“Since I started living with Charlie I guess. That PhD in Classics must have rubbed off on me.” Jimmy reached for Duncan’s shoulders and shoved him back, the situation quickly devolving into a friendly wrestling match.
“You know what else though? Now that I live here I can do this.” Jimmy leaned in to peck a kiss on Duncan. He pulled back, watching Duncan carefully to see his reaction.
Duncan’s eyes glowed as the sides of his mouth curled up. “No worrying about repercussions?”
“Nope.” Jimmy grinned back.
“So there’s nothing stopping you from doing it again?” Duncan said hopefully.
Charlie had interrupted them from a full on snog fest minutes later, their first proper snog. Their first proper kiss really. The first time they had ever been somewhere that was safe enough for them to kiss without having to maintain an awareness of their surroundings. Duncan had become a regular fixture at the Nelspring house in the weeks since. The weirdness for Duncan at being at a teachers' house, and seeing Nick in a non-school environment being outweighed by the absence of nosy and annoying little sisters. Charlie was always home, but he was generally working in his office and not in their face.
Jimmy was pulling the traybake out of the oven when he heard Nick and Charlie come in. Over dinner he fished the paper out of his pocket, and handed it across the table.
“Will I be able to do this?” Nick glanced at it and passed it to Charlie. “My parents still have my passport. And, um, the cost.”
Charlie skimread the newsletter talking about the traditional end-of-year French Trip, taking in the dates and the price tag, then looked at Nick. “It’s not going to clash with Cirencester?”
“I made sure of it. It’s my turn to chaperone, and I wasn’t missing your book launch.” Nick explained before addressing Jimmy. “Permission should be easy to get, we can call Dina later. Cost isn’t an issue, thanks to Harry’s grab and run your stipend has hardly been touched. Your passport will be the tricky bit.
“Oh.” Jimmy deflated slightly.
“I’m sure we can figure it out, it might just…take a bit longer.” Nick assured him. “Do you know how long was left on your passport? Might it have expired?”
“Ummm. I got it after I started at Truham. They’re good for five years aren’t they?”
“The kids ones are, yeah.” Nick affirmed.
“We’ll talk to Dina. First step will be to see if your parents will surrender it. If they do, problem solved. If they don’t… well you’re sixteen soon, maybe you can apply for an adult one instead. I’m sure Dina and Storm will know the ins and outs of applying while under a care order.” Charlie reassured him. “It’s months away yet. We have time to figure it out. How was the rest of school?”
“Fine. But I need help with Maths.” he said looking at Charlie. “and Duncan was going to come over after dinner. If that’s ok.” Jimmy tacked on. Charlie’s eyebrows rose, his eyes twinkling with mirth as he glanced at Nick.
“Is Duncan coming to help you with maths, Or…” Charlie trailed off expectantly.
“Uh, I kinda offered your help.” Jimmy admitted. ”He’s having trouble with Maths too.”
“Is there a single person in your life who hasn’t needed your help with Maths?” Nick chortled.
“Yes. Tori” Charlie said defensively. “And Tao. I don’t mind though. And you certainly didn’t mind when it was your turn.”
“And here I thought it was a sign of your love and affection.”
“Who said it wasn’t?” Charlie raised an eyebrow at Nick.
“So, is it OK if Duncan comes over?” Charlie nodded his acquiescence with a grin and Jimmy dashed upstairs to send Duncan a message.
Jimmy was putting away the dishes when the doorbell rang. Nick grabbed the tea towel off him and pushed him in the direction of the door. “Go. I’ll finish up here.”
Jimmy opened the door to find Duncan shifting from foot to foot in the cold. “Hey” he smiled..
“Hey” Jimmy replied, smiling back as he shifted out of the way to let him inside. “If we want Charlie’s help we should probably stay downstairs.” Nick and Charlie had explicitly said that his room was for him, he could do what he liked with it, within reason, as long as it stayed hygienic. They wanted him to have a space that was all his own and part of that was staying out of it themselves. Daisy on the other hand had adopted the foot of his bed as hers.
“Hi Duncan” Nick called as they walked past the kitchen door.
“Hi Mr Nelson, Uh, Nick.”
“Tea?”
“Sure.” Duncan returned uncertainly. Duncan and Jimmy had pulled out their homework and were comparing where they got stuck by the time Nick appeared with a couple of mugs a few minutes later.
“Charlie. Help! Get in here before they ask me to explain”
“Fat lot of good that will do them. You were my first tutee for GCSE Maths. You can kick a good parabola, but not describe one.” Charlie said coming through the living room door,
Jimmy looked up, something having just occurred to him. “But…You’re younger than Nick, aren’t you?. Why would you be tutoring him if you were Year 10 when he did GSCE’s?”
“Because Charlie was one of the best students in his year and did advanced maths, so as a Year 10 he was better than I was at Year 11.”
“He would have been fine if he’d actually put some time into it. When we first met he would do his homework on the way to class.” Charlie divulged.
“And it was an excuse to spend time with you.” Nick smiled at Charlie. “I didn’t know you were pining for me too and I didn’t need maths as an excuse.”
Charlie laughed. “I’d believe that if you hadn’t kept needing help after Harry’s party.”
“Harry?” James’ interest was piqued. “My cousin Harry? What’s he got to do with maths?”
“Yes. That Harry.” Nick confirmed. “Harry facilitated our first kiss. Kinda. In a very roundabout kind of way.”
Jimmy looked sceptical. “I know he says he’s not a homophobe and all, but really?
“That’s the ‘kinda’ part.” Charlie said. “He had his sixteenth birthday party at the St Georges Hotel.”
“That fancy place over near the London Road?” Duncan asked.
“That’s the one.” Nick said, “Anyway, he kept trying to set me up with Tara, not knowing that she had a girlfriend and was very much not interested in me, or any other boy for that matter. I just wanted to spend time with Charlie.”
“He thought what he felt was just good mateship.” Charlie put in, laughing.
“Hey. That’s not entirely true. I’d already started my gay crisis by then, thank you very much. We ditched Harry…”
“Multiple times” Charlie added
“…and found a quiet room where we didn’t think he would find us.” Nick continued ignoring Charlie’s interruption.
“Which he did, eventually. But not before we kissed. Nick freaked out after that.”
“Stop making me look bad.” Nick admonished his husband playfully. “I was freaking out a bit. Until Charlie I had never considered I wasn’t straight.” He explained to the teenagers listening with rapt attention. “But the bigger freak out was because seconds after we kissed Harry nearly found us. I hadn’t figured myself out yet. At All. I wasn’t anything like ready to let the world know I was kissing boys. Especially not Harry.”
“Harry at that point had pretty much swallowed the family line.” Charlie said gently. That was enough explanation for Jimmy. He wouldn’t have wanted a friend who acted like Joe to find him seconds after he had kissed Duncan for the first time. Though he supposed that is pretty much what had happened to him.
“The point is after Harry’s party we both admitted our crushes to each other, and I didn’t need Maths help as an excuse to be close to Charlie.”
“You still took my help though.”
“Because then my boyfriend kept distracting me from my homework and I couldn’t concentrate.” Nick said pointedly, but the sting was taken out by him simultaneously wrapping his arms around Charlie’s waist from behind, and sneaking a kiss on Charlie’s cheek.
“Give off.” Charlie said grinning. “Go plan your lessons or something.”
“Wait.” Jimmy had his eyes screwed up in concentration like he was trying to make sense of something. “Back when… when I first talked to you at school, about how you knew you liked men. That was Charlie you were talking about? The friend you wanted to be around all the time?”
Nick nodded. “You knew that though didn’t you?” His brow furrowed. “I’m sure we told you Charlie was my first boy crush? First that I recognised as a crush anyway.”
“You two have been together since school?” Duncan asked. “Really?”
“Mm-Hmm. It’s nearly half my life.” Charlie said, looking at Nick with soft eyes before turning back to the boys. “Maths?”
“Oh right.” Jimmy pushed the worksheet in front of Charlie. “I can’t believe I never put two and two together.” He said, almost to himself.
“Well, we know Maths’ isn’t your strong suit.” Duncan quipped, then ducked as Jimmy swung a cushion at him.