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“Mum!” Nick shouts down the stairs, “Have you seen my green Leeds hoodie?
“No, darling, I haven’t,” Sarah says, poking her head over the stairs to look at him, “Have you checked your washing?”
“Yeah, I’ve checked everywhere! I swear there’s a little gremlin stealing all my clothes lately.” Nick huffs, tossing his arms in the air. Sarah shakes her head and laughs at his dramatics.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. It’s like Nick’s closet is evaporating right in front of him. He has to be missing at least twelve hoodies and a few pairs of sweatpants. Hell, he’s even missing his Carhartt jacket. They have to be around here somewhere; maybe David’s stolen all of them, maybe they are tucked away in his car somewhere, or maybe he left them in his locker when he left Truham. Surely he couldn’t have left that many hoodies in his locker. Nonetheless, he’s meeting everyone in the park in twenty minutes, and he needs something to wear.
He pulls open his nearly empty closet, sorts through some T-shirts, and settles on a red Adidas sweatshirt. It’s the only decent option, a crewneck from year eleven. It won’t fit, but he’ll have to make do. He pulls it over his head; the thick fabric clings to his now larger body. One look in the mirror and he sighs loudly. The sleeves are too short and unbelievably tight against his biceps. The torso is fitted in a way sweatshirts never should be, tightly wrapped around his stomach and clinging to his hips. Just small enough to look stupid, but just big enough to work.
“Fuck my life.” He mumbles, grabbing his phone, keys and wallet before heading down the stairs and out the door.
“Nick! Over here!” His head turns as he shuts his car door, and Tara’s arms are waving him down from where they sit at a picnic table.
Tara and Darcy are curled up on one side, Tao and Elle on the other, with Uno cards between them. Charlie and Aled said that they would be here, but he supposes they are just running late. As Nick approaches, everyone’s eyes shift from him to his chest.
“Jesus, Nick, you look like a sausage,” Darcy says, causing Tara to smack them lightly on the arm.
“Be nice! Gosh, Darcy!”
“No, they are kind of right,” Tao says, “What is happening here?” waving his hand in the air, gesturing to the elephant in the room.
“All of my hoodies have gone missing, and I cannot figure out where they’ve gone. This was all I had!”
“You’ve lost all of your clothes?” Elle laughs
Nick slumps onto the bench beside Darcy, tugging at the tight sweater, squeezing his stomach and scowling.
“I don’t know what’s going on. I think I’m losing my mind.” He says dramatically, laying his head on their shoulder.
“I think I know where they might be,” Tao says, nodding to the parking lot.
Nick’s head shoots up when he sees Charlie and Aled being dropped off. As Charlie circles the car, Nick’s jaw drops. How did he not realise? There’s no hoodie-stealing gremlin, just his extremely sneaky, klepto boyfriend.
“You!” Nick shouts, standing from the table as Charlie walks over, Nick’s green Leeds hoodie hanging halfway down his thighs.
“Hello to you, too, Nicholas.” Charlie rolls his eyes, and then they fall onto Nick’s torso “Oh, what’s going on here?”
“What’s going on here? What’s going on here is you’ve stolen all my clothes, and now I’m walking ‘round town dressed like a sausage!” Nick shouts, his arms flailing.
“Hey, that’s my joke,” Darcy mutters, crossing their arms.
“We are trading!” Nick exclaims, “Now!”
Charlie laughs and lifts the hoodie over his head, chucking it at Nick. The wadded-up ball hit his chest before falling to the ground. Nick bends down and picks it up, the sweater around his body straining so much he worries it might rip. He struggles to peel it off, tossing it dramatically onto the ground, and pulls on the Leeds hoodie.
“Gosh, I can breathe again,” He sighs, walking towards Charlie to finally greet him and give him the smaller sweater, but when his eyes fall, he stops in his tracks.
“Char, you have to be kidding me, that’s my t-shirt!”
Charlie looks down, his cheeks blushing red. Charlie is, in fact, wearing Nick’s t-shirt, a rugby shirt to be exact. There is no mistaking that it’s Nick as the back has “Nelson” written in big, bold letters. Nick walks up to him and wraps his arms around Charlie’s waist, hoisting him over his shoulder, turning back to the group.
“Sorry, guys,” Nick begins, “It’s been a pleasure, but I have a wardrobe to collect.”
And with that, Nick takes off towards his car, Charlie handing over his shoulder. The laughs of their friends fade as they get further away.
“Nicholas! Put me down!” Charlie shouts, playfully hitting Nick’s back, “Where are you taking me!”
“Where am I taking you?” Nick laughs mockingly, “We are going to your house so I can get all of my clothes back!”
When they walk in the front door, Charlie slips past Nick and sprints up the stairs.
“Hey!”
Nick bounds up the stairs just as Charlie slams the bedroom door in his face. Nick snorts and shoves the door open without slowing.
“That was very, very rude-” He starts before freezing in the doorway.
Charlie stands in the middle of the room, shoulders stiff, eyes darting as he clutches something behind his back. Nick scans the room with narrowed eyes, advancing cautiously toward Charlie until he towers over him.
“Char,” He begins softly “, Care to show me what you’re hiding?”
Charlie shakes his head, looking dead into Nick’s eyes.
“Finders keepers.” He says, a mischievous glint in his eye.
Then Nick strikes. Strong arms wrap around Charlie and push him towards the bed. Nick lifts him and tosses him onto the mattress, Charlie’s limbs flailing through the air alongside the hoodie he’d been hiding behind his back. Nick’s hoodie, his blue Adidas hoodie to be exact.
“You are a thief!” He shouts, waving the hoodie in the air.
Nick spins to the closet, but Charlie dives ahead of him, planting his back to the door and stretching his arms wide across it.
“You can’t look in here!”
“I’m most definitely looking in here.”
“You can’t! It’s uh- there’s secret things in here! Birthday gifts!”
“Char, my birthday is months away.”
“Christmas?”
Nick shakes his head, trying not to smile and puts a hand on each side of Charlie’s waist.
“You’re going to move, or I’m going to move you.”
“Hot.” Char smirks, placing a hand on Nick’s chest, trailing up to wrap it around the back of his neck, sending goosebumps down Nick’s arms.
Charlie leans in close, pressing a soft kiss to Nick’s neck. His other hand drifts down Nick’s side, fingers dipping into the waistband of his jeans. Nick’s cheeks flush red, and he can feel his jeans growing a bit tighter, but he cannot let his incredibly fit boyfriend distract him from the mission at hand. Though the mission could take a slight detour? Charlie’s family is out after all…
Nick’s hands slide back, landing firmly on Charlie’s ass, and he connects their hips, pushing him against the closet door. The lips grazing Nick’s neck finally meet his, and they fall into a wet, hot kiss. Nick puts everything he has into it, even biting Charlie’s lower lip, which he knows drives him absolutely crazy. Just as Charlie lets out a breathy moan, Nick jumps into action. He pulls Charlie off the door, spins them around and quickly grabs the door handle, pulling open the closet door. Charlie stood dazed behind him.
Charlie’s closet was not just full, no, it was overflowing. The wooden rod was unseen, hangers covering every inch of it. On those hangers, all of Nick’s missing clothes. Some he hasn’t seen in months. The floor of the closet wasn’t any better, a pile of fabric stacked high. In the mix, he could see multiple pairs of his sweatpants and even the arm of his Carhartt jacket poking out from the bottom of the pile.
“Holy shit, Char, you have quite literally stolen all of my clothes.”
“I told you! Finders keepers!”
“It’s not finders keepers if you are finding them in my closet, Charlie!”
Nick bends down, collecting all his clothes from the floor and then from the hangers. By the end, he emerges from the closet with an arm full of clothes. Charlie, who gave up the fight, sat on the bed, pouting. Nick walked right in front of him and dropped the pile on the floor at his feet.
“You can’t take them with you; I need them.” He crosses his arms, looking up at Nick.
Nick shakes his head, grasps Charlie’s hands, and drops onto him, knees straddling Charlie’s thighs to pin him to the bed. Charlie’s face turns red as Nick locks eyes with him from above.
“You can keep one,” Nick says sternly.
“Five.”
“One.”
“Four”
“One”
“How about we meet in the middle, and you let me keep three?”
“How about you stop stealing my clothes before I have to walk around town naked.”
“In that case, I’m keeping all of them.”
Nick laughs and leans down, grazing his lips along Charlie’s neck and up to his ear.
“Would you rather I be naked out there, or right here?”
Charlie’s cheeks flush red, and Nick presses his hips down, a gasp falling from Charlie’s lips.
“Don’t ask dumb questions, Nicholas.” He says, before flipping them over.
“So I can keep three?” Charlie asks, circling his finger over Nick’s bare chest. Cuddled up to his side under the bedsheets.
“I think I said one.” Nick laughs, squeezing Charlie closer.
“Even after I-” Charlie pauses, sliding his hand down Nick’s chest and under the blanket.
“Okay, that is fair, you can keep two,” Nick smirks before a gasp leaves his lips.
“I’ll do it again if you let me keep three.”
“Your greed sickens me,” Nick sighs, his head falling back.
As Charlie disappears under the covers, Nick realises that there is a good chance he’s going home empty-handed. He could pretend he doesn’t want Charlie to wear his clothes all he wants, but they both know it’s his favourite thing. Though he might have to start asking for them back more often. Nick doesn’t mind being the “losers weepers” in this game of finders keepers.