#also nick and jesse are absolutely unstoppable as a pair

[kwockwoc]

What would Nicholas have an alarming (or perhaps unnerving) depth of knowledge of? (e.g. the history of guavas, welsh folklore, how to break into a locked building, etc).

depth of knowledge? uh… um 😓

breadth of knowledge? now you’re talking 😉💪

trivia night (1.2k, sfw, below the cut)

The Trivia Night Fundraiser was always going to be a high-stakes affair.

The amateur choral society Jesse had joined a year ago needed money to pay for the hall they were renting, so Jesse – being Jesse – had suggested a trivia night as a fundraiser, and the rest of the society members had apparently enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon, not realising that they were in the presence of the second-greatest trivia mind in the entirety of New England.

The greatest trivia mind was, of course, Nicholas Coste.

As Seiji and Nicholas settled at their table – table number 1, of course, because naturally Jesse had been the first to register his team of four, even before he’d checked with Seiji and Nicholas that they were actually available – Seiji could see most of Nicholas’s characteristic stress tells, a catalogue of little tics that summed up to moderate stress.

The nervous giggle, the picking at the hem of the sleeve of his sweater, the fidgety clicking of his phone case on and off the device.

At least he hadn’t started clicking his tongue and tapping the back of Seiji’s hand yet.

“Nicholas, this will be fine,” Seiji said, quietly.

Jesse and his latest boyfriend – Alan? Alfred? something like that – were doing the rounds of the other tables. Jesse was the treasurer, and he was hoping to make a bid for the presidency the next year, so it was only sensible for him to do a goodwill tour. There were a few dozen people here, but Nicholas and Seiji didn’t know anybody else here, apart from Jesse, and just a handful of Jesse’s friends seated at other tables who were acquaintances solidly in the smile and nod at category.

“Yeah but, what if there are questions about like, Tennessee,” Nicholas muttered. “I don’t know anything about Tennessee.”

“I don’t think Tennessee will be a hot topic,” Seiji said.

“Or beetles,” Nicholas said, turning in his chair to face Seiji. “You know I was gonna read that book about beetles last weekend and I forgot to pick it up from the library.”

“I’m sure it will all be fine, sweetheart.”

“I just wish I could’ve prepared more,” Nicholas said, turning away again, clicking his phone out of its case, then back in.

Seiji knew that Nicholas had not literally read an encyclopedia, although – at times – it felt like he had.

In high school he’d been prone to coming out with factoids at the most inappropriate times (ranging from their fourth date, when they’d been making out behind Rosie’s Café, and Nicholas had, mid-kiss, suddenly asked whether Seiji ever thought much about moths) and the habit had continued into adulthood (their engagement party, when Nicholas had bailed up Seiji’s mother’s cousin for nearly fifteen minutes telling her about the diversity of begonias – but Seiji, she said to me that she liked flowers!).

Nicholas was also one of those people who actually gave money to Wikipedia during their donation drives. For a long while Seiji had wondered who those mysterious people were, only to discover post factum that he’d married one. At first Seiji had been mystified and a little peeved that Nicholas would pay for something which was, by its very nature, free. When Seiji had finally mentioned it – being, of course, very careful, and circumspective – Nicholas explained that from his perspective, I get way more than twenty bucks’ worth of reading from it each year honey, so handing over twenty dollars and sending a nice message wasn’t, for Nicholas, doing anything more than making a token contribution.

And Nicholas did get a lot of value from it. He liked to hit Random article and then – well, he’d just read. He could spend an hour on it easily. If he struck an article that was full of jargon, he’d google the words he didn’t know.

Hey, Transgender Day of Visibility is on March 31! We should put a flag up! Solidarity!

Honey, have you ever heard of the Geirangerfjord? It’s in Norway. Oh, hey – we should go with dad on his next trip!

You should read this article about a Ukrainian woman weightlifter. It’s really interesting!

This was how Seiji would regularly find himself reading about topics such as banana production in Ivory Coast on a Thursday evening on Nicholas’s iPad, while Nicholas cooked and nattered about… well, anything, really. About the school he was teaching at, about some student who’d said something funny, or about Silvia and whatever brainwave she’d had regarding the coaching of the embryonic épée team Nicholas had kickstarted at Greenwich High, where he remained everybody’s favourite gym teacher. Alternatively, Nicholas’s topic of the night could be Cicero, or the aurora borealis, or the politics of Sudan in the 1970s.

Anything.

Everything.

Sometimes – well, sometimes both anything and everything at the same time, which Seiji would find totally bewildering, but he still loved it. Nicholas’s brain could, and did, switch gears instantly. He’d be talking about some minor point in the history of the St. Louis Cardinals – some pitcher who’d retired in the ’90s – and then Jesse would call, and the brothers would be talking about fencing and arguing about the various dramas of the extended Coste family for an hour (Jesse’s calls usually also delayed their evening meal, but Seiji didn’t really mind). And after the call, Nicholas would be straight back on to the Cardinals, as if he hadn’t just spent an hour interrogating Jesse about whatever cousin had got into the latest trouble –

When Jesse came over, the brothers could and probably would talk ceaselessly if it wasn’t for Seiji’s pointed coughs and meaningful looks at the clock on the wall. Jesse didn’t quite have Nicholas’s abundant interest in everything, but he ran a close second. When Nicholas and Jesse saw one another, sometimes they’d both speak at the same time, neither seemingly listening but both chattering away joyously.

Verbal diarrhoea, Dmytro would call it.

A pair of parakeets, Robert called them once. Jesse had overheard the comment.

Parakeets! Jesse had said, grinning. They’re so interesting! Nick, did you know that parakeets have great vocab?

Nicholas, nodding: Yeah, of course I do!

The general hubbub of conversation continued around them, as Nicholas started tugging at his sleeve again. The trivia would be underway in a few minutes, and then Nicholas would have something to focus on, and all the nerves would melt away, but in the meantime –

Seiji smiled, and reached for Nicholas’s arm, laying his hand there, letting his fingers find the familiar form of Nicholas’s muscle, squeezing gently. He felt Nicholas relax under his touch.

“This will be fine, Nicholas,” Seiji said again, and he leaned forward and planted a kiss on Nicholas’s cheek for good measure. “We’re just here to have fun and raise money for Jesse’s choir, remember. It doesn’t matter if we win.”

“Jesse wants to win,” Nicholas said softly.

“Of course he does,” Seiji replied.

Jesse and – Albert? Edgar? – were back at the table again, suddenly, having completed the rounds. Jesse was wearing a figure-hugging t-shirt Nicholas had bought him for his birthday with the words TRIVIA QUEEN marked out in sequins.

“All right, boys,” Jesse said, and planted his hands on the table, looking for all the world like an evil genius hellbent on world domination. “Are you ready to win?”