Chapter Text
Charlie looks at the building in front of him, and then looks down at his phone. This is definitely where he’s supposed to be meeting his date.
Who plans a first date at a bowling alley? What are they, 15? He shakes his head and reminds himself that bad dates make good stories. It’s the motto that keeps him trying again after every disappointment (and fuck, have there been a lot of those).
Walking in, he’s immediately overwhelmed by the smell of grease and feet. Charming.
“Charlie?” He hears a voice call. He looks over and sees… oh. That man’s profile picture does not do him justice.
“Nick?” Charlie asks, walking over to greet his companion.
“It’s so nice to meet you!” Nick says, leaning in for a hug. Charlie stands still and accepts the embrace, not sure whether to be concerned or relaxed by the man’s apparent ease.
“So… bowling?” Charlie asks, trying to get a conversation started. He hates first dates. People are always on their best behaviour, which typically means they're full of shit, and the awkwardness is usually palpable.
Nick doesn’t seem to find the interaction awkward at all though. He smiles widely as he speaks. “You mentioned in your profile that you hate dinner dates because there’s nothing to do except watch each other eat. I figured an activity would ease the tension!”
Charlie insists on paying for the lane and they rent their shoes, chatting lightly about the construction that they both encountered on the way here. Settling in at lane 17, Nick goes over to the screen.
“Do you want to pick fun names for the board?” he asks.
“Fun names?” If it weren’t for Nick’s well built frame and scruffy blonde beard, Charlie would be wondering if he actually was on a date with a 15 year old after all. As it is, he feels like he's out with a golden retriever who has been magically turned into a (very attractive) man.
“Yeah!” Nick says. “Like you could be Charmander, or Charlemagne, or Prince Char ming.”
“My options are Pokemon, Roman Emperors, or Disney?” Charlie responds with a laugh. This guy is ridiculous, but Charlie can’t help but be swept up in his unbridled enthusiasm.
“How about I pick yours, and you pick mine?”
“That sounds like a truly atrocious deal, but alright.”
Nick puts his hand on his chin and looks Charlie up and down as though he’s examining him.
“I’ve got it!” the taller man finally announces, turning around to type the chosen name onto the screen.
Charlie walks over. “Charcoal?” he says incredulously. “Out of all the names you could have picked, you went with a lump of coal? The thing Santa brings to naughty children?”
Nick laughs. “It’s the colour of your hair! Plus I didn’t want to pick something so good that you would feel intimidated by my incredible nicknaming skills. You’re welcome.”
“So thoughtful,” Charlie rolls his eyes with a smile. He’s slightly annoyed to find that the smile is genuine, and that he actually doesn’t think he could stop grinning if he tried.
He shakes his head as he types in his date’s chosen moniker, and the board flashes with the new names and a cheesy animation.
CHARCOAL VS. NICKNAME
Charlie goes first, silently praying for anything but a gutterball. It’s been a long time since he’s done this, and he’d really rather not embarrass himself.
“Three down!” Nick shouts in excitement as Charlie’s ball knocks over the right three skittles. Charlie does a little curtsey before heading back to retrieve another ball. On his second try, he knocks down two more and Nick claps.
On Nick’s turn, he rolls two gutterballs.
“Aren't you supposed to try and impress someone on a first date?” Charlie teases.
“I’m just lulling you into a false sense of security,” Nick replies. “You’ll see.”
Charlie knows Nick is only joking, but the false sense of security comment hits a little too close to home. He can’t count the number of times he’s thought that a relationship has been going well, and come date four or five when Charlie actually starts to open up about himself, he ends up ghosted. He won’t be falling into that trap again. This time, he’s decided to go for radical honesty. If Nick doesn’t like him for who he is, Charlie would rather know sooner rather than later. He’s just not sure when to bring it up…
After his third straight frame of gutterballs, Nick suggests a snack break. “Clearly my strong rugby arms are doing me no favours, so I need to refuel.”
“You just want to apply chips to your wounded ego,” Charlie jokes.
“I’ll apply my chips wherever I see fit, and I’ll thank you not to mention it,” Nick retorts playfully. “You want anything?”
“Diet Coke?” Charlie requests.
“Coming right up.”
Nick returns carrying a tray with two drinks and the largest basket of chips that Charlie has ever seen in his life.
“I figured we could share,” the blonde man shrugs when he sees Charlie’s eyes widen.
“With the whole bowling alley?” Charlie asks, only half joking. The portion is truly obscene.
They sit at the little table attached to their lane. “Cheers,” Nick says, holding out a greasy chip.
Charlie can’t help but laugh. “Cheers,” he replies, knocking his own chip into Nick’s outstretched one.
They eat and drink in comfortable silence for a few minutes.
“It occurs to me that this is precisely what you maybe wanted to avoid when you said no dinner dates,” Nick says after some time.
Charlie smiles. Usually eating in silence with a near-stranger would be torture, but he had been happily munching away without giving it much of a thought.
“Guess you better make some clever conversation, then,” Charlie replies.
Nick clears his throat and wipes his hands on a napkin. “So Charlie, tell me about yourself.”
“Oh god!” Charlie giggles. “Anything but that fucking question!”
Nick joins him in his laughter. “A truly terrible question, on both dates and job interviews,” he chuckles. “I’ll try to do better. What do you do for work?”
Charlie swallows his food, feeling his heart rate immediately increase. If Nick is going to be an ass about this, he’d rather find out sooner than later. Might as well put all his cards on the table.
“I’m a sex worker,” Charlie says simply, making sure to look Nick in the eye as he answers.
“Oh cool,” Nick replies. “I’m a teacher.”
Charlie nods blankly, not sure what to say next. That was… not the response he had been expecting. Usually guys were either overly enthusiastic to the point of being creepy, or they made some gross joke, or they suddenly had to go make an emergency loo trip and simply never returned.
“I’m trying to think of follow-up questions to ask, but I don’t know how much you’re comfortable sharing,” Nick says, apparently interpreting Charlie’s prolonged silence for discomfort. Not an entirely inaccurate assumption, to be honest. “I’m interested in hearing more, but we can also just move on to hobbies and allergies if you’d prefer.”
“Allergies?” Charlie asks, still taken aback.
“You know, normal first date conversations,” Nick says with a grin. He’s joking. Charlie told him about his work and Nick is being… normal. Making jokes. Not weirdly sexual ones, either. Like, regular banter jokes. It feels a bit too good to be true, so Charlie proceeds with caution.
“Well in terms of the work stuff, I guess I’d just want you to know that my work is mostly online, and that it’s legal, and… that just because I do that for a living, doesn’t mean I want to like, jump into bed with you.” He finds it difficult to maintain eye contact now and says this all very quickly, hoping to just rip off the plaster.
Nick reaches across the table and nudges Charlie’s pinky with his own.
“Thank you for telling me,” he replies, and Charlie forces his eyes to return to Nick’s face. The expression he sees on his companion is painfully soft. “Am I right to assume that, er… that dates don’t always take kindly to that information?”
Charlie laughs mirthlessly. “No, they don’t.”
“What you do for work really doesn’t affect me in any way whatsoever,” Nick says gently. “And um… actually, er… since we’re on the topic of things that don’t tend to go over well on dates…” he stumbles, clearly looking for the right words.
Charlie nudges his pinky finger back, and gives the larger man an encouraging nod, not sure of what might come next.
“You read on my profile that I’m demi, right?” Nick finally says.
“Yeah?”
Nick shuffles uncomfortably in his seat. “And like, you know what that means?”
Charlie racks his brain, unsure why this would be a weird thing to talk about on a date. “Demisexual, right?” he responds.
“Yeah,” Nick says, picking at his thumbnail. “So like, when you say you don’t want to jump into bed on the first date, I definitely don’t want to do that either. I sort of can’t predict when or, like, if … I’ll ever want to. With a particular person.”
Charlie nods. Demisexuals don’t experience sexual attraction until they’ve established an emotional connection, he remembers vaguely from the LGBTQ Soc he had been a part of in uni.
“That’s fine,” Charlie responds softly. “Let’s just get to know each other, yeah? No expectations.”
“Yeah.” Nick breathes out a sigh of relief. “I’d really like that.”
“Last I checked, I wasn’t quite done kicking your arse at bowling. Shall we?” Charlie gestures back to the lanes.
“My arse is all yours,” Nick replies with a wink.
Charlie raises his eyebrow and tilts his head questioningly.
“I’m demi, not dead,” Nick says with a shrug. “Flirting is still very much in the cards.”
The larger man saunters past him and Charlie smiles, shaking his head. What has the universe sent him in this Nick Nelson shaped parcel?