Chapter Text
Nick Nelson needed a date.
Nick Nelson needed a date for a wedding.
Nick Nelson needed a date for a wedding that was fast approaching.
Nick Nelson needed a date for a wedding that was fast approaching where one of his exes was the groom.
Nick Nelson needed a date for a wedding that was fast approaching where one of his exes was the groom and an ex Nick had, at one point, thought he might actually end up with.
Why was he going to this wedding?
Good question.
Because he said yes, of course. Because Nick Nelson, consummate people-pleaser, never says no. He RSVPed out of some vague obligation and ticked yes and plus one and sent it back like he had all the time in the world.
Months, he thought. Months! But months turned into weeks, and weeks were now days, and Nick, ever the people-pleaser, had people-pleased himself bisexually into a corner. Still very much without a date.
Sure, he could text Mario. Fess up. Say he doesn’t actually need the plus one anymore. But deep down, there was this petty little twinge of satisfaction that Mario and Louis were now paying for an extra seat and meal on his behalf. It was childish. He wasn’t proud. But he also wasn’t changing it.
His first plan had been to ask Tara or Darcy to accompany him. But that went out the window when they planned a trip to visit Tara’s parents for their anniversary. Next idea: Imogen. Except she was already committed to another wedding with her girlfriend. The Hinge plan followed—he downloaded the app, scrolled, swiped—but everyone either had a weird fish photo or asked him about his height within three messages.
Which left him here, on the living room floor, with a pint of ice cream in his lap as she cycled through a mental Rolodex of queer-adjacent friends who might be single and willing to pretend to be his date for a weekend. It wasn’t going well.
“What about Nancy?” Tara called from the couch.
Nancy. Nancy. Wait a second. “Nancy with the cat?” Tara hummed in confirmation and shoved her phone in his face. “Yeah, that’s a no-go. I dropped her hermit crab that one time we hooked up. She was... deeply concerned. What about Liv?”
“Oh, she came out.”
“She was already out,”
“Okay, well she came out again. As a lesbian,” Tara clarified.
They went down the list, name after name. Each one either someone Nick had mildly offended, someone he didn’t vibe with, or someone very firmly Not Into Men.
“Why do you know so many lesbians?” he asked, staring helplessly into the middle distance.
“Couldn’t possibly be because I am a lesbian, Nick,” Tara deadpanned.
Before Nick could argue, Darcy burst into the room with entirely too much energy to match the current crisis Nick was in. “I have solved all our problems!”
“You got the job?!” Tara called.
“Well, yes,” Darcy said, waving that off. “But that’s not the problem I’m thinking about.”
“You fixed the fridge?” Nick asked, hopefully.
“Also not the one I’m thinking about.”
“Spoke to the landlord?”
“I have figured out a foolproof way to find Nick the perfect date.”
Now, you see, Nick liked Darcy. He liked when Darcy had crazy ideas. Mostly because those ideas rarely involved him and usually ended with Tara mildly traumatised and Darcy oddly triumphant.
But when Darcy’s wild schemes targeted Nick? That’s when the blood-curdling feeling crept up his spine.
Unfortunately, desperate times called for desperate measures. And Nick was, undeniably, desperate.
So, he sat politely and listened as Darcy launched into their grand plan—voice quick, movements faster, thoughts scattered like glitter on linoleum. Apparently, the creative director at the theatre company Darcy was applying to as a set hand had met her soulmate thanks to a viral online artist who drew portraits of people’s soulmates. Someone paid for it as a joke and boom , months later, the sketch matched the woman she married.
“It’s real, Nick,” Darcy swore, eyes wide and deadly serious. “She showed me the wedding photos!” Darcy spoke a thousand miles per minute, barely pausing to breathe, let alone notice the nervous glances that Tara and Nick exchanged on the couch. “And then she offered me the job and sent me the link right away! So obviously, that’s what we should do!”
They were standing directly in front of him now, chest heaving, grinning like this was the most obvious solution in the world. Nick stared up at them, blinked slowly, and took a moment to collect his thoughts.
“Let me get this right,” he said, voice as dry as a Weetabix. “One: you want to pay someone online to draw my soulmate. Two: you then want to hold an open audition for anyone who looks like the drawing to pretend to be my date for the wedding. Three: you then want us to fall in love, and—in your words—‘I dunno, fall in love then have some children and shit.’ Did I get all that right?”
Darcy was already bending down to grab the ice cream pint from his lap, nodding enthusiastically. “Yes.”
“Darcy, no.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Darcy threw their head back in the most dramatic fashion a person could reasonably manage without a fainting couch. “Oh, come on! No offence, but nothing you’ve done has succeeded.”
Nick gestured wildly, scoffing. “Besides the fact that auditioning someone sounds beyond fucking mental, the wedding is in, what? Eight days? And we all have full-time jobs now—which, congrats, by the way—but that doesn’t exactly leave time for a manhunt.”
“We could always just go to public places and start yelling names, like Phoebe from Friends,” Tara suggested, giddy as can be because, for once, she wasn't the target of her partner’s unhinged ideas. “But I think this would be less embarrassing.”
Nick stared at them both. Tara coughed into her fist. Silence.
Then Nick groaned and flopped backwards onto the floor, dragging a throw pillow over his face. “Darcy, that is literally a once-in-a-lifetime story. There is no way that will happen to me.”
Darcy held the spoon triumphantly to the ceiling and yelled, “THAT’S ALL I NEEDED. IT BEGINS.”
“No!” Nick sat up, pointing at them now, borderline hysterical. “Darcy, you look at me right now. ”
Darcy let out a long, theatrical groan before meeting his gaze.
“Repeat after me,” Nick said, switching into what Tara liked to call his teacher voice: firm, reasonable, and only slightly condescending. “Under no circumstances am I to hold auditions to find Nick a date.”
“Nickyno—”
“Under no conditions.”
Darcy sighed in defeat. “Under no conditions.”
“Am I to hold auditions to find Nick a date.”
“Am I to hold auditions to find Nick a date,” they repeated, practically pouting.
Nick squinted at them, his eyes narrowed like he was daring them to twitch. When he felt satisfied that Darcy wouldn’t bolt off to set up casting calls, he turned to Tara. “You, too.”
“What did I do?”
Nick just stared.
Tara groaned and sat up, placing a hand over her heart. “I promise not to help Darcy carry out any unhinged ideas.”
Finally, finally, Nick felt somewhat safe from the horrifying mental image of strangers lining up outside his flat with headshots and fake first dates. He snatched back the pint of ice cream and started digging in again, scooping up a mouthful to eat away his mounting stress.
After a too-long pause, Darcy piped up. “Can I at least order it?”
“Darc—” Tara’s voice shifted into something more resigned, grabbing their phone to look. “Those things are probably scams. Like, pre-drawn sketches they cycle through. There’s no point wasting—wait. £31 pounds?! Fuck, Darc, you were going to spend thirty-one pounds on a sketch!?”
Now this was more like it. Nick leaned back, content to observe the two of them squabble. No longer the subject of the conversation, he could finally relax and watch them argue over the ethics of spending a chunk of a grocery shop on woo-woo soulmate nonsense. They were absolute idiots. He adored them.
As he scooped another spoonful into his mouth, laughing at something Darcy said in their defence— “there is no cost on finding your soulmate, Tara!”—he managed to drop a blob of ice cream down the front of his shirt.
“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered, standing up to change. He wandered toward his room to grab something clean, not thinking twice about leaving them unsupervised.
Which was, of course, a mistake.
Because while Nick was distracted, Darcy, who was nothing if not efficiently chaotic, whipped out their phone, link from the theatre director still loaded on the screen, and placed the order. They’d already filled out the question set. Name. Birthday. A vague description (“tall, sunshiny, secretly broody, golden retriever vibes, loves Pirates of the Caribbean”). The sketch would arrive in two to three business days.
Really, Nick should’ve noticed something was up when he came back into the room.
Tara was sitting stiffly, like she’d just eaten the last cookie and was pretending she hadn’t. Darcy, meanwhile, was trying to look casual… and failing. Their limbs were unnaturally still. Their hands were not moving. Darcy was never still. But before Nick could comment on it, fate stepped in.
His phone buzzed with a call from his brother and, against his better judgment, he answered.
Nick and David still had what he’d call a tense but manageable relationship. It had definitely improved over the past couple of years—mostly thanks to David marrying Lucy. Lucy, who took none of David’s old bullshit and helped shape him into someone who, under heavy squinting and optimal lighting, could pass for a semi-decent human being.
The call was fine. But Nick’s people-pleasing was a disease, and he hung up having somehow agreed to meet them for lunch the next day.
Great.
Absolutely great.
Because tomorrow the countdown would officially be a week until the wedding. And he still didn’t have a date. And now even less time to find one. How the fuck was he supposed to find someone in seven days?
++
The pub David chose was smarmy.
Smarmy by Nick’s standards anyway, which admittedly skewed toward places with sticky tabletops and beer gardens that advertised two pints for a tenner. This place, though? None of the booth leather was cracked. The wood tables had zero pen etchings. Cardboard coasters actually matched the beers on tap. And the glassware? Uniform, unchipped, and all accounted for—which meant no poor student had liberated any for their flat cupboards.
Nick had arrived early. Not that he was about to try out Tara’s suggestion of “find someone anywhere” idea, but… it didn’t hurt to look, right? He wasn’t sure what that said about him. Desperate? Pathetic? Or, maybe,someone testing his limits, figuring out how close to rock bottom he’d actually go?
It was just past midday. The pub had barely opened, the smell of the pine cleaner still clinging faintly to the polished floor. Nick claimed a seat at the bar. David would be at least half an hour late, no shock there, so he ordered himself a pint to take the edge off.
From his vantage point, he could see most of the space. A family sat tucked into a booth in the corner, a few scattered solo patrons reading or checking their phones.
But there was one man, sitting alone across the bar.
He looked up when Nick walked in with this flicker of hope in his eyes that immediately dimmed, like he'd been expecting someone else. His posture slumped slightly as he turned back to his drink. Nick watched him sidelong, nursing his pint slowly. The guy kept checking the door. Tall, sharp-featured. Curly hair that looked annoyingly soft. If Nick were a betting man, he’d say this guy was on a first date. And based on the energy? That date wasn’t showing up.
After another five minutes passed and no one appeared, Nick made a bold move: he nudged the bartender and sent over a fresh order of whatever the guy was drinking. Across the bar, the man blinked in surprise. The bartender gestured discreetly toward Nick.
Nick smiled, quick and sheepish. Just a hello, desperate to not be seen as desperate. The guy gave a small nod of thanks… then slowly stood, pint in hand, and made his way over.
Fuck.
Nick liked what he saw even more up close.
“Thanks for this,” the man said, sliding into a seat with one empty stool left between them. “I don’t suppose I’ve got it really twisted, and your name is Nigel?”
Nick laughed. “Close. But unfortunately, no. I’m Nick.” He offered his hand.
“Charlie,” the man replied, shaking it with a firm, warm grip.
“And Nigel is…?”
Charlie sighed, long and dramatic, giving Nick the perfect excuse to take a good look at him. Charlie didn’t seem to mind. Didn’t call him out for staring. He just took a slow sip from his glass, then flicked his tongue out to catch a bead of ale from the corner of his mouth.
Nick’s stomach did a weird flip.
“Nigel was supposed to be a blind date,” Charlie said finally. “But it turns out Nigel’s a tool.”
Nick raised his pint and clinked it lightly against Charlie’s. “Here’s to dodging tools.”
Charlie smirked. “You always hang out in swanky pubs like this on a Saturday, or is this a rare ‘treat yourself’ moment?”
Nick chuckled. “Would you believe I’m waiting for my brother? He picked the place.”
“Ah, so no chance he’d be a Nigel, too?”
“I mean, one can dream.”
Charlie laughed at that, all breathy and soft, his fingers tracing the rim of his glass. The conversation kept flowing. Nick learned Charlie worked part-time producing and mixing at a local record studio, and also taught drum lessons after school.
“That’s so cool,” Nick had said, and meant it.
Charlie liked to read classics. He’d even thought about publishing something one day. He liked music Nick had never heard of. He was bright, sharp, funny, and made Nick’s cheeks warm every time he smiled.
Nick might already be a little smitten. Maybe .
And—call him crazy—but the fleeting thought passed through his head: he could ask Charlie to the wedding. Charlie seemed fun. He was obviously into men. Nick was into him. It wouldn’t be that weird, would it? He could just casually drop it into conversation, a quick “hey, want a free meal and an overnight stay?”
But, for the second time this week, fate stepped in with a steel-toed boot.
David and Lucy entered the pub, Lucy chatting animatedly with baby Cleo balanced on her hip, and David holding the door open and trailing behind with his usual smirk. Nick caught their eyes and gave a quick wave, holding up two fingers to say I’ll be there in a minute.
Not that David ever took a fucking hint.
Instead of heading for a booth, all three of them made a beeline straight for the bar.
“Nick!” Lucy greeted cheerfully, giving him a quick hug before passing Cleo straight into his arms. He loved his niece, truly but now probably wasn’t the ideal time to be holding a baby. Because Lucy had already turned her attention to Charlie. “Nick didn’t mention he was bringing someone! Hi, I’m Lucy!” She leaned in, giving Charlie a warm kiss on each cheek. “It’s so nice to see him with someone!”
“Oh, Lu—”
“Yeah, it is nice to see him with someone, isn’t it, snookums?” David added with a smirk, head cocked.
“Oh, no, I’m—”
“—new,” Nick cut in, a slight edge of panic in his voice. “It’s new. I just thought it was a good chance to meet you all.”
“Uhm, yeah. Hi,” Charlie sputtered, still catching up. “It’s nice to meet you, Lucy.”
Lucy—god bless her—just carried on like a steam train. “And this little munchkin is Cleo, and I’m sure you’ve heard all about David.”
A nervous laugh slipped from Charlie’s lips as he lowered himself awkwardly back onto the stool. This was a dumb idea. A very dumb idea. Nick wasn’t even sure why he’d said it. He could’ve— should’ve —just gone with the truth. Something like: Oh no, this is someone I just met. Let’s not interrupt his day and expose how desperate I am.
But no. Clearly, he was pretty fucking desperate.
“Should we sit?” Nick offered, weakly gesturing toward the booth behind them.
David and Lucy moved ahead, flagging down a staff member for a highchair. Nick turned to Charlie, whispering with the tempo and energy of someone competing against the speed of light.
“Fuck, I am so sorry. I promise I’m not a psychopath, I’m just—”
“Claiming not to be one makes you sound like one.”
“Fuck, I know. I know. I’m so sorry. I’m sure I can make an excuse for you to—”
“Come on, Cleo!” Lucy called as she buckled the baby into the seat. “Let’s get you settled with some food to smoosh, huh? Then we can learn all about Uncle Nicky’s new friend.”
Fuck.