"I wish I'd met you, when I was younger."
They meet when they are 4 and 5 years old, in Reception. Nick is just in Charlie's class for the first term, having just moved from France and needing a a little more basic English for a time. Their desks are next to each other, and from the first day they fall asleep against each other during naptime.
When Nick's parents get divorced and his dad moves back to Paris, they explain to him that they both still love him and each other, they just don't want to spend all their time together anymore.
Nick explains this to Charlie on the swings during break one day. Then he says, "If being married is wanting to spend all your time together, I'd want to be married to you."
Charlie giggles and says, "I'd want to be married to you, too. Hey, I'll race you to the monkey bars!"
Nick tells him mom while waiting to pick up David from rugby practice. "I want to marry Charlie!"
She smiles. "Charlie's a really special friend, isn't he."
"Yeah!" Nick exclaims. "He's my best friend! And we want to spend all our time together, so we're going to get married."
She chuckles. "Aww, I love you Nicky."
They spend so much time at each other's houses that she jokes about it with him. "That's two weekends of double sleepovers in a row! You two must still want to get married!" They laugh and nod and Nick goes back to explaining the rules of rugby to Charlie, again.
It becomes such a part of their rapport that Sarah doesn't realize how it sounds until they make the joke with David in the car.
"You're heading into First Form this fall, Nick. You better stop saying that or you'll get beat up! And I don't want that associated with me!" David sneers.
"David!" Sarah snaps. "We do not talk like that in this family." David rolls his eyes.
Nick and Charlie talk about it in Nick's room later.
"Charlie..." Nick says quietly, "Is it weird that I still want to get married to you? I know we always said it, but, I still feel that way."
Charlie smiles and shakes his head. "I still want to get married to you too. You're amazing. But..." He hesitates. "Married people kiss, too. Would you kiss me?"
There's a beat before Nick nods his head minutely. "Yeah."
Charlie leans forward and pecks Nick on the lips with a kiss. Nick smiles, takes Charlie's hand, and gives him a peck in return.
Nick and Charlie stopped joking about it, but they still agree. They wanted to be married.
Everyone at school has only ever known Nick&Charlie. Despite being in different years and only having rugby as an overlapping extracurricular, Nick&Charlie always came as a unit. So when people realized that Nick&Charlie was actually Nick and Charlie, it made almost no difference to most people, and none to anyone who mattered.
They finally get married when they are 24 and 25. They figure 20 years is a long enough engagement.
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