Chapter Text
The creator’s note had thrown them off a bit; it somewhat felt like a less-than-ideal combination of mild criticism and sudden loneliness. Not the best feelings when your insides are engaged in trying to figure out life, the universe and everything.
And yet, somehow, they were rallying. As we know, they didn’t have a great way to measure the passage of time, but it felt almost as though they’d had a long, restful break. As though someone reading this story might have set it down on the coffee table for a year or so and it got shoved under paperwork and minute shreds of leftover christmas wrapping and old records that never get played, and then one day during frantic cleaning before family came over for the holidays, it was unearthed, and when the someone remembered how much they loved it and wanted to find out what happened, they plopped down on the couch and neglected all their chores to dive back in.
That’s a bit more detail than is needed in an intro analogy, but you get the idea. Nick and Charlie easily felt energetic enough to tackle a visit to a new reality, and their minds were focused on the thought that even though the Creator might have needed to make some adjustments to the plan to make sure their adventure went off without a hitch, they were still quite hopeful and determined for Nick and Charlie to continue forward. So forward they would go.
Well. If not forward, then around the circle, at least. Which trees were left to discover?
The next one they headed towards after they stood up and dusted themselves off (as you would a book that you pulled out from the bottom of a pile of crap in the living room while tidying–oh jesus, don’t start that again!) had an old, antique-y look to it. Charlie was a bit wary; after all, he was trying to find a new start to his life, and being a fossil doesn’t generally help with that, but Nick felt totally different. After all, he was obviously a giant fan of Antiques Roadshow–who isn’t? They raised their hands and stepped inside together.
And it turned out the antique-y look was highly appropriate. This appeared to be a historical fiction setup, and it didn’t take them long to spot their counterparts, who luckily have the same identifiable features (dimples and curls for Charlie, arms and puppy dog eyes for Nick) no matter what garb they are clothed in. Always easy to spot themselves, no matter how hard to believe the situation was.
This time? They were in a frigging castle, coincidentally peeping around the corner at Prince (presumably) Charlie, and his gentleman-in-waiting, medieval Nick. Our present-day Nick and Charlie stood as still as they possibly could, trying to blend into the towering stone walls, while their mouths hung open in shock.
They felt a bit exposed, so cast about looking for a better hiding place which would still allow them to spy on the scene for a bit, because this was wild. Fortunately it turned out that they both fit quite well in the shadow of a suit of armor stood near the edge of a hanging tapestry, and they faded back behind it just in time as a servant of some kind hustled past them with a tray of goblets.
Nick tapped Charlie gently on the shoulder and without even turning around, Charlie whispered back at him, “Yes, they had a form of tea in the middle ages, but that is more likely ale of some type.” Charlie knew, still without looking, that Nick was making a grossed-out face, but at least he managed not to make the retching noise which commonly accompanied it. They both strained to hear any of the conversation.
“Sire, your afternoon refreshment.”
“Thank you, Thomas, you may retire.”
The servant bowed and left, once again passing our friends in the hallway without so much as a second glance. Phew. Medieval Nick and Charlie were still the main attraction here.
“Prince Charlie,” (called it!) “Have you seen the colours of the sunset today?”
Even from this distance our secret spies-out-of-time could see the affectionate smile on the royal face as he turned his head towards the window, and then approached with his entire body. Approached the window, obviously. Well. He also approached medieval Nick. It’s not the Prince’s fault his companion was standing next to such a magnificent sight. Or was one. Or both.
Our heroes’ eyes widened as they watched their thousand-year-old parallels press ever closer as they stood looking out over the countryside. There was what modern readers would consider “way too freaking much clothing” separating the two of them, but they were clearly getting as close as physically possible under these circumstances. At this rate their pinkies were going to touch at any moment. Oh my god–did you see that? I think it happened!
Our Nick and Charlie watched with racing heartbeats, but almost too soon, their stomachs dropped out. How could they not, when Prince Charlie turned to face his gentleman Nicholas, backed away, and pronounced those truly evil words (in any timeline): “I’ve been thinking, and we need to talk.”
In fact these words sounded so ominous that our Nick and Charlie didn’t really want to stick around to hear more. Their imaginations had already filled in “I’m a royal and you are a commoner and also we’re two gentlemen and I’m being married off to a princess of Germany next week so we must contain any feelings we might be having…” and it didn’t even occur to them what a good sign it was for the two of them that neither one of them wanted to hear that conversation happen. Without a word they turned and snuck as far away as possible down the hall and around several corners.
Of course there was a part of Nick that did recognize that it was simply a cool adventure to be lost in a giant castle, and our Charlie couldn’t help but smile at him with a very familiar affection; nor could he resist Nick’s plea to run up and down the hall opening random doors before they got pulled out of this reality.
“Just be on your guard, though! If anyone sees us we have to be ready to run and hide until we get sucked back home!” Nick was only momentarily thrown off by listening to (and watching) Charlie’s mouth pronounce the word ‘suck,’ but he regained composure as quickly as he could and nodded.
“Ready? Ready!”
They each stood at different doors, opened them cautiously at first, and then both quickly jumped back, slamming the doors shut.
Nick looked at Charlie with a wild face. “Did you see….like a D-day scene? Normandy storming and shit like that??”
Charlie’s eyes gaped. “I definitely did not! I saw what looked like…well, I think it was maybe Pompeii!? After the ash started to fall and people were freaking out.”
“Oh my god!”
“I know!”
They both still had their hands on their respective doorknobs, and it took Charlie a second to work out why. He then spoke slowly.
“Do you think…do you think there really were Nicks and Charlies in there? In both of those extremely dangerous places?” He could see Nick’s face warring with this idea. But.
“Well, yeah. But.”
“But?”
“But maybe they had good lives even with the difficult parts, or the scary parts, or even painful parts.” The big softy was actually welling up as he spoke. “I bet they had each other for support in the worst times, though.” Their eyes met, and it truly, honestly felt like something passed unspoken between them. Can you wrap someone in your arms as the heavens rain down fire, or storm a beach to protect them, without realizing your heart is totally and utterly theirs? Seems unlikely.
As the answer to this danced slightly closer to them, they both realized they had crossed the hall and had their hands on two new doorknobs.
“Are we insane? Is this just going to be scarier?” Or more affirming, Charlie thought to himself, which was weird.
Seems like they had learned whatever they were supposed to, though, as the Reality Timer went off somewhere in the woods (no one was there to prove it made a sound, sadly) and they were pulled back to the clearing just as Nick set his eyes on the 1980’s gay club behind his door and Charlie caught of glimpse of an alleyway in 1930’s Chicago behind his. But that was that, and they landed back onto the mossy floor with an abrupt thump.
“Well that was insane!” exclaimed Nick. He was definitely still riding some adrenaline high from escaping the Germans. It made him giggle as he realized that Charlie had done the same by not marrying Princess Hedwig or Matilda or whatever. Poor, almost certainly gay, medieval Charlie.
At least this Charlie wasn’t stuck hiding anything about himself. Rather, he was chasing possibility around the globe and throughout the space-time continuum, ready to be whoever the hell he wanted to. That was quite refreshing.
Nick suddenly looked up and realized Charlie had resolutely approached a new tree door as he pondered all of this. He ran up behind him, grabbed his hand without thinking of it, and they melted through together.
They stepped through into a timeless setting, one that transcended millennia and country borders and cultural norms and international conflicts. That’s right, dear reader: they had arrived at Chili’s.
For a minute they were mildly confused, since the poor Brits really never have had a good chance to experience the magic that is Chili’s (or Chili’s-To-Go!). But then memories of commercials and weird fanfics and baby back ribs jingles filled their minds. (Charlie was thinking of the N’Sync original while Nick had visions of the more recent Boyz II Men version–which frankly isn’t surprising. More analysis on this divide to follow.)
They were near an entrance and an un-staffed host station, so they wandered past into the restaurant. It was a medium-sized franchise and looked mildly busy; many tables were full and servers swished back and forth. Nick spent a few moments craning his neck to see or hear if any sizzling fajitas were going by, before Charlie suddenly grabbed his elbow and his attention.
“There we are!” he hissed. “Hide!”
Nick nodded and dove for cover–after which they realized they were in wildly different places. Charlie had stuffed himself under a table top as hot Manager Nick walked by, but our Nick had snuck behind a coat rack when he saw Insurance Inspector Charlie come in the front door. Though apart, they were able to lock eyes, and gave each other simultaneously crazy glances that communicate, essentially: What are you doing? What do you mean, what I am doing, what are YOU doing? Oh wait. There’s more than one of us? Oh wait–there’s more than TWO of us??
That’s right, the historical realness of the previous reality had seemed crazy enough, but was now being surpassed by a reality of multiple dopplegangers.
When they reconvened behind the bar moments later, crouching down to avoid the gaze of the Nick and Charlie running to the bathroom to be sick after eating too many mozzarella sticks, and hopefully out of the way of the Charlie omegaverse EMT-type person who needed to provide potentially sexy but definitely emergency services, they had wild eyes.
“This is clearly not an actual reality.”
“Clearly not!”
“Does it look to you like that one Charlie over in the corner booth is…well, hot and bothered?”
“Nick, pay attention! We need to figure out what the hell is going on!” Charlie couldn’t resist taking a look, though, and his brain almost shouted out ‘I’ll have what he’s having!’ when the sexy shenanigans table ordered the 3 for Me, but his words were drowned out when a random parachuter dropped through the roof.
“Holy shit! This place is disintegrating around us!”
Nick grabbed Charlie’s hand and no one complained. “We gotta get out of here! Do you think there’s any way we can speed up that timer from here?”
Either a great and omniscient timer heard them and acquiesced, or this particular reality was just so wildly off-axis that nothing was working right, anyway. Before Charlie could even respond, they found themselves booted out of this universe and sprawled on their faces in the wooded glen.
They sat up, breathing hard, and each leaned back against a different tree, speechless. What now? There were more trees. There were more realities for Nick and Charlie to learn from. But, where was the Creator? Was their plan still in motion? Were Nick and Charlie still going to learn useful lessons if logic and coherence were fracturing into bits? Was this actually becoming dangerous in any way? And, would they eventually find their way home?
Nick was passionately meditating on this question. Charlie, on the other hand, was pulling a U2. He still wasn’t sure if he had found what he was looking for.
Nick was and is in love with Charlie. He had fun examining all the options, and imagining all the possibilities. But he’d focused less on the uniqueness of each reality and more on the similarity–in every one, they loved each other. In every one, they found each other. In every one, they made their connection happen (presumably more than once in Chili’s World!). This truth shone out above all else for him that day, and gave him peace, assurance and energy.
It happened to be enough energy to want his love to find what he was looking for, too. So, on they went.
The next door had its issues as well. The home they tumbled into was lovely and well taken care of, but it didn’t take long to realize they were essentially in a lesbian porno, and apparently their cries of oh my god, no, not Darcy and Tara, it’s like seeing your sister have sex were strong enough to shake that reality’s foundations, because after a shudder and a few aftershocks, they blinked and realized the setting had changed. Was the Magical Ring of Trees going to do something to make up for the mishap of accidentally sending them into someone else’s fantasy reality? Sure, if you are the kind of guy who becomes extremely intrigued when you realize you’re in “your” bedroom looking at the wall calendar on which your boyfriend and yourself have planned out daily activities for Kinktober…
Their extreme reactions to reading this calendar (BLUSHING, we’re obviously talking about blushing!) seem to have closed that reality early, and they were once again back in the clearing. Quickly approaching the next door, they crossed their fingers that it might not have the bugs of the previous few, but oh my, were they surprised.
This one had the correct main stars (Nick and Charlie) and the correct quantity (one of each), but the setup made very little sense. It started off with Nick apparently working at a soft play, which was adorable and got him started thinking about primary education again. But before Charlie could appear at the soft play, the walls melted around them (almost exposing our pair, who had been hiding behind a giant tube in one corner of the room) and the room re-formed.
Now it was a large, airy open space, with great lighting. And thank goodness, because here was Charlie–posing as a nude model for a painting class. This reality ended up changing quickly again, but visiting Charlie had enough time to notice both the Nick at his side and one in the audience were gaping in transparent awe, and a little smirk appeared on his face as the walls once more moved around them.
Quite a radical change, this one. Was this the United States Congress? And if so, why? They both looked mildly older and more mature, but for some reason there seemed to be some kind of animosity whizzing back and forth between their gazes on opposite sides of the aisle. Of course, sometimes it’s hard to tell rage from passion…
The setting changes started to accelerate. The pair no longer made the effort to hide as there was rarely time for anyone to spot them. They concentrated on their safety, of course. Which meant holding hands. Tightly. And standing super close.
Clutching each other in this way, they saw multiple scenes flash before their eyes. Here Charlie was a bookstore owner, there it was plants. Here Nick was an architect, there an Airbnb owner. Here they were both camp counselors, next they worked side by side at a magazine. One seemed like it might be a porn studio, but that didn’t make much sense once they spotted Harry Green there, so they figured they must have been mistaken. Musician, dancer, fisherman, therapist. Physical therapist, veterinarian, baker, lawyer. The voice of the London underground.
The transformations had become such a multitude that they seemed to spin around them, contrasted against the way time between them seemed to slow as they faced each other. They were still holding hands, and had somehow added ‘romantic stare into each other’s eyes’ and ‘no heed paid to anything swirling around even if it implies the universe is coming apart at the seams.’ Likely there was only one thing that would have broken through their spell and gotten their attention…and to their great distress, that thing happened now.
An end was threatened.
Without their having noticed, they themselves had transitioned into another reality, another identity in the swirling maelstrom, and this one stuck as time seemed to stand still. They were…well, they were apparently Marvel characters. And admittedly, this is extremely cool. Maybe Charlie will even get to hang out with Patti Lupone. For example. Overall, I wouldn’t complain about this reality, maybe even grab onto it and say this is the one. But there’s a twist. You remember one of the most devastating moments that ever happened in the Marvel Universe?
Charlie gasped and reached his hand out into nothing, as Nick seemed to float away in little dissipating pieces…
And suddenly, whoosh, there they both are, back in the wood. Feet firmly on the ground. Bodies entirely intact. Bodies pressed together actually, as Charlie instantly throws his arms around Nick and grabs the back of his jumper as though he’s never going to let go. Nick can just hear Charlie’s low murmur in his ear: ‘Not ok, can’t lose you, don’t go, don’t get blipped, it’s you Nick, I get it now, my heart, please don’t go…’ and on and on, like fucking music to his ears. He grips Charlie back tighter than he ever thought he’d be allowed.
They would have stayed like that forever, until they heard a throat clear and realized the Creator was back with them there again. Still holding hands, the two parted somewhat in order to face Them. This must be it, right? The final lesson has clearly been learned?
The Creator took their eyes off of Nick and Charlie to swing around the circle of trees. For the first time, Nick and Charlie realized that the names were now visible on each bark door. The Creator read them out loud, their voice gaining more of a tone of humour as it neared the end.
This is a love story plus dog.
Growing up together.
Breaking up as a part of the process.
Online crush.
Poly and happy
Historical fiction melange
In every Chili’s
Mistaken lesbian sex–quick, change to kink!
Identity potpourri
This is also a love story. This is ALL a love story.
Nick’s heart was still pounding too hard to do much thinking, but Charlie was listening and watching with an eagle eye. What was that last one?
He’d forgotten that the Creator could hear his thoughts.
“That’s this one, Charlie. That’s your actual life. You learned lots of good things, including that there are always other possible avenues out there, and got reaffirmed and inspired in many ways today. But it looks like your love story was back here, at home, without having to change country or time period or major characters at all.” Their smirk grew and Charlie’s eyes narrowed.
“Did you know this was going to happen? Was all of this a set-up for us to come right back here at the end and have a cheesy revelation?” Charlie was lucky Nick was so besotted–he got a cheeky kiss right on the neck at that comment, and his answering blush told the world that was basically fine with him.
“Honestly, no. I wasn’t sure if your ennui here was so strong that you’d actually choose to try out a different life. I think you would have had fun in the poly timeline, and the online meet cute could have been so interesting. But, I didn’t realize the system was going to overheat the way it did and start melting everything together.”
Now that the Creator mentioned it, Nick and Charlie did in fact notice some steam escaping from some of the trees.
“So that’s it? All the magic worlds are ruined and gone forever?”
The Creator sighed as they looked pointedly at Nick and Charlie’s intertwined hands, surely implying their hearts were already intertwined and other body parts would be soon as well.
“Don’t make me say it, Charlie? That this world is going to be just as magical, now that you get it?”
Even magical creation has its limits. Of cheesiness, that is. That last comment made everything poof go up in smoke, and Nick and Charlie found themselves sitting back at their original table in the library. Everything was the same, but also, everything was different.
As soon as Charlie’s arse was back in that seat, he leapt out of it, rounded the table, and plonked himself down directly in Nick’s lap. There was no protest whatsoever.
“This is it, Nelson. We’re it. Now promise me you’ll save your deep, ecstatic philosophical thoughts on us for later?”
Nick grinned. “Just as long as you realize later is in fact going to happen?”
Charlie’s eye roll was gone in a flash, as the two leaned together and lost themselves in a kiss –- the first of so, so many.