Chapter Text
Broadcast
8 months later – Nelson and Spring Support Squad Watch Party
The broadcast of the first-round match happens at the start of the Christmas holidays. Nick has invited his friends Tara and Darcy round to his place, and has asked Charlie if he wants to bring his friends too. Elle, Tao and Isaac pile into Nick’s living room with the rest of the crowd. Charlie’s relieved that it’s not being shown in the college bar, though it would have been nice to be with his team mates.
“I can’t believe you won’t tell us who wins, you know I don’t handle tension well!” Tara whines.
Nick gazes at Charlie with the most saccharine, dopey expression on his face.
“We both won,” he says, sincerely.
Tao makes a retching sound and grumps “Can we please not have that level of barf before it’s even started?”
“Oh my god it’s happening! Here we go!” squeals Elle, as the opening music and title sequence plays, the camera showing both teams before zooming in on Jeremy Paxman.
Elle: Charlie it’s you!!
Tao: Babe, are you going to be like this the whole time?
Elle: I mean, yeah probably. Our boy is on TV!!
Darcy: Nick! Oh look at you with your glasses, hot nerd alert.
Tara: I can’t wait to see if there’s on-screen chemistry!
Charlie: I can’t imagine you’ll be able to tell, most of the time there’s only one team in shot.
The match starts and the gang watches, playing along - except for Nick and Charlie who are obviously not allowed to join in.
Elle: Charlie, did you just glare at Nick?
Nick squints at the screen.
Nick: It does kind of look that way, Char.
Charlie: I told you I was pissed off that you got the Nintendo question…
Nick: I thought you were joking!
Elle: You’re doing it again! You’re fully glaring at him.
Charlie: Mmmm. I was pissed off about the Tom Daley questions too…
Nick: You’re looking at me like you hate me!
Then Charlie wins the mythology starter.
Darcy: And now Nick is looking at you!
Nick cringes, watching through his fingers.
Nick: Oh my god it’s so obvious, how did they not edit this out, that’s so embarrassing.
Charlie: It’s only obvious to us though, right? I don’t think other people will have clocked it.
Darcy: Yeah, uh, guys they’ve definitely spotted it.
Tara: Darcy, get off Twitter
Darcy: You are joking, I’m not missing this gold! Yep…they’ve noticed the staring, and your mascot Nick - well done by the way - oh this is delicious…
Darcy cracks up.
Darcy: Oh shit guys, they are on to you - apparently someone’s aunty Linda does makeup and she totally ratted you out.
Charlie: What does Linda from makeup know?
Nick goes really, really red.
Nick: I may or may not have needed a retouch before a later match.
Darcy: Because…
Tara: Darcy stop! Nick, we don’t want to know.
Darcy squeals and looks up from her phone.
Darcy: Apparently Linda said, and I quote, ‘they be fucking’
Charlie: Oh my god I am going to die. The internet people know.
Darcy: They think you’re hot though, so there’s that. It’s trending #hotnerds
Charlie: Uhh, somehow that feels weirdly intrusive.
Tao: If you wanted discretion you probably shouldn’t have spent the match openly staring at each other.
Nick: Or announced the fact you were coming to anyone who happened to be passing by.
Charlie: Fucking hell Nick!
Nick: What? I’m just saying, you could have been more discreet.
Charlie: Nicholas! For fuck’s sake.
Charlie flounces off to the kitchen. Well, maybe he doesn’t flounce, but it’s at least a mild strop. Nick goes after him.
Nick: Ugh, pause it will you Darce?
Darcy: Hard pass. I’m not falling behind with the watch party.
She doesn’t even look up from her phone, let alone consider pausing the show.
“Char,” Nick starts, trying to take Charlie’s hand.
“Nope, I’m officially not speaking to you.”
“Okay sure,” Nick stands with his arms folded for a moment, before softening a little, “Oh right, you’re actually annoyed,” Nick puts his hands on Charlie’s shoulders, “Hey, I’m sorry, are you okay?”
“Yeah, but…do all of your friends know we had sex?” asks Charlie, cringing.
“Umm, I mean I’m pretty open about it, so…yeah. Not details or anything, but I might have talked about you – like quite a lot – over the summer. Have you not told your friends?”
“I mean, yeah, I guess I have. Probably more about feelings than other stuff though. I did tell them about the bathroom though. God that was mortifying. But…with hindsight,” Charlie softens too, “okay, I guess it was objectively pretty funny.”
“You’ll have to tell me more about those feelings later on,” Nick kisses Charlie gently on the cheek, before adding, “Come back through? Darcy wouldn’t pause it and it’s almost the music round. I want you to see your moment of glory.”
Charlie returns the kiss on the cheek and lets Nick him lead him by the hand back to the lounge. They enter just as the buzzer goes for the music starter.
Elle: Oooh full name and everything, go Charlie!
Charlie: Honestly that was pure good luck, I love Rachmaninoff and I played that prelude when I was at school.
Nick: Really? You play the piano?
Charlie: You’re not the only one with hidden talents Nicholas.
Elle: Oh, what’s yours?
Nick: You’ll see…
It gets to the literature question and Nick’s fluency in French is audible from the conferring.
Elle: Oh my god Charlie look at you blushing!!
Charlie buries his face in his hands.
Charlie: That’s through layers of makeup too. This is so mortifying.
Tara: Please tell me you get better at dealing with this for the later rounds!
Darcy: You guys, people are going mad for you online. You need to give the masses what they want. Let me take a picture pleeeease…
Charlie: Absolutely not!
Nick: We could though…put something on Insta?
Charlie: Do you think?
Nick: Well…maybe now we’re officially boyfriends…
Tao makes an exaggerated retching sound again. They ask Elle to take a picture of them on Charlie’s phone. She gets a lovely snap of Nick kissing Charlie’s cheek while Charlie laughs. He sends it to Nick and they both post it to their Instagram accounts. The caption says ‘Winning at University Challenge’. Darcy links it to the Twitter thread.
Darcy: Oh my god you’re trending again.
Charlie: What?
Darcy: Yep, with #busted and #hotnerdsinlove
They watch the rest of the match with the friends becoming increasingly tense as it goes on. At the gong, Tara and Darcy cheer for Nick while Elle, Tao and Isaac congratulate Charlie on his great efforts.
Nick tentatively checks out the comments on his Insta post.
Nick: Oh fuck, Temi is pissed. I guess I forgot to tell her…she says she sees why I was so distracted at the quarters now…
3 months later – Corpus Christi watch party
The broadcast of the quarter-final happens during February half term, so Nick is able to be in Cambridge with Charlie for the screening in the college bar. Charlie sits with his teammates; Abi Taylor is still at Corpus, having stayed on for a PhD, while Vikram has come back especially to see the team. It’s never been totally clear if he knows what he walked in on the day of the quarter-final taping, but he greets Charlie and Nick warmly with a “Good to see you guys!” and a couple of fist bumps.
Beth has a crushing hug for Nick, delighted to have watched his and Charlie’s relationship develop over the year since they met.
“So good to see you!” she squeals as she lets go of him.
“How’s it going, Beth?”
“Yeah, good – can’t believe you’re braving the lion’s den for this.”
“Worth it to see you guys again,” Nick replies, it sounds cheesy but she knows he’s completely genuine.
“Smooth, Nick. But we all know you’re just here for our boy…”
Nick smiles and slides back onto the sofa next to Charlie, tucking an arm around his waist.
They don’t buy a drink all evening, the Corpus Christi student body keeps them topped up as they enjoy the match. It’s tense and the people in the know don’t give anything away. There are pantomime hisses in Nick’s direction when Leeds get something right, and over-the-top cheers whenever one of the Corpus contestants gives a correct answer.
As the gong sounds, the bar erupts into cheers and Abi and the team stand to take the applause, Nick joining in with loud whistles. Abi makes a show of congratulating Nick and his Leeds colleagues on another close match, and there’s a generous round of applause and whooping for Nick, who takes a bow. He goes to sit down again and Charlie pulls him onto his lap and kisses him like there’s no-one else there. Nick looks adoringly into Charlie’s eyes.
“I love you, Corpus Christi Spring.”
“Love you too, Leeds Nelson.”
The End.