A Collection of Heartstopper Oneshots

Touch Tank - matherine

Summary:

Charlie thinks that maybe – just maybe – he could spend an eternity kissing Nick Nelson. He tastes like toothpaste and sleepytime tea and home, like nights curled up together on the cheap couch in Tao's shitty uni flat, sneaking glances at each other in the glow of old Bosnian films. Like catching snowflakes on his tongue in a backyard in Kent while meeting Sarah Nelson for the first time, like covert touches in lecture halls, ankles hooked together while they learn about the War of the Roses. Like safety and warmth, cinnamon and pine cologne, slow Sunday mornings and full summer moons. He likes it when they do more than kiss, too.
Notes:

this is inspired by 'touch tank' by quinnie because it always felt very nick & charlie to me!! they are just soft, careful boys who love each other very much.
Work Text:
Charlie thinks that maybe – just maybe – he could spend an eternity kissing Nick Nelson. He tastes like toothpaste and sleepytime tea and home, like nights curled up together on the cheap couch in Tao's shitty uni flat, sneaking glances at each other in the glow of old Bosnian films. Like catching snowflakes on his tongue in a backyard in Kent while meeting Sarah Nelson for the first time, like covert touches in lecture halls, ankles hooked together while they learn about the War of the Roses. Like safety and warmth, cinnamon and pine cologne, slow Sunday mornings and full summer moons.

He hadn't thought he would fall in love like this. It seems too easy, almost – years of distant affection dangled in front of his face have taught him that love is something he needs to work for, to earn. Nick gives his so freely it makes Charlie ache. It confused him, at the beginning. Felt like a trick, something that would be taken away if he made the slightest mistake. But Nick insists on loving him still, even when Charlie talks too much, when he forgets to eat breakfast, when bad days make him want to hide from the world.

Often, his love comes in the form of a cup of tea amidst hours buried in books, kisses brushed across Charlie's forehead when the world gets to be too much. Sometimes, it's teasing, playful grins – calling Charlie names when he thrashes Nick at Mario Kart before pressing his body into the mattress and kissing him until he feels weightless, consumed and intangible in the best way possible.

Everything with Nick feels deceptively simple, natural and easy.

Sex is no exception.

They take their time with each other. Slow and exploratory, learning the soft curves and sharp angles of each other's bodies; the way Nick shivers when Charlie's lips brush the shell of his ear, the way Charlie gasps when Nick's fingertips trail behind his knee to hitch his leg up higher. He fits together puzzle pieces, slots what he's learned about Nick's life in beside the silvery lines that stretch across his stomach, the acne scars that freckle the small of his back. Nick kisses the sharp lines on Charlie's shoulders, his knobby knees, the jut of his ribs now pillowed under soft skin and burgeoning muscle. Every press of his lips is recognition; far from an apology or absolution — a wordless acknowledgement of all that he is, all that he has been.

He knows Nick's strength intimately. Has seen it visceral and violent, skin slicked with rain and mud, lips broken and bloodied but still spitting orders on the pitch. He's felt the weight of him pressed heavy on his chest, back flat against the grass during a scrimmage, breathless for more reasons than one. He knows that under soft, freckled skin lies the taut sinew of muscle, strength that could push and pull and demand.

Nick demands nothing from him tonight.

Broad, callused palms are almost painfully gentle against the soft skin of Charlie's thighs, supporting him as if he's weightless, as if he was meant to fit perfectly into place in Nick's hands. As if he'd never been anywhere else, as if nobody else had ever touched him hard enough to bruise, to hurt, to linger.

Nick's touch is gentle, reverent, a soft support barely noticeable against a backdrop of compliments murmured in awe.

Beautiful, perfect, gorgeous, wonderful. Is this okay? Do you want more?

It's so careful Charlie could cry.

Before, he might have, and nobody would have noticed. His face was always pressed into the pillows then, personality tucked away between the bedlinens as if it could be folded and forgotten in favor of an expanse of skin and tight warmth. He'd had little more than fumbles with the light off because his scars were the opposite of sexy – sure to scare away faceless men looking for a quick fuck.

Now, when his breath hitches and shudders in his chest, when tears pool at the corners of his eyes, Nick's movement stills instantly. One broad palm cups Charlie's cheek, and he's quick to cover it with his own, to give whatever meager reassurance he can offer.

"I'm okay," he promises, nodding as if his words aren't enough, as if they'd be lost on deaf ears almost too attuned to his body language.

"Did I – is it too much, I can –"

"I just didn't know it could feel like this," Charlie admits on the tail end of a breath, barely more than a whisper. Humiliatingly honest.

Nick's expression is soft – so soft – beneath him. Charlie is straddling his hips, and he leans down to press his bare chest against Nick's even as it shifts his fingers inside of him, desperate for skin-to-skin contact in the open expanse of his unbuttoned shirt. They're both still half-clothed, though his boxers have ended up in a corner somewhere, and he has the sudden urge to cover himself, to hide.

"Like what?" Nick asks, blonde brows furrowed with something akin to worry.

Charlie aches with want to smooth out the crease. "Like... like you love me. Gentle. Like you want to take care of me."

He hates the flicker of pity that crosses Nick's expression – he knows what Charlie's relationship history has been like; has been there for most of it. But still, every time it comes up, it's like a fresh wound, open and raw, a bruise just on the wrong side of painful, even for Nick, who hadn't actually gone through it. But. Well. He had, in a way, even if it was murmuring small kindnesses into Charlie's curls, wrapping him in freckled arms and holding him close on the floor of Charlie's bedroom where the shag carpet bit into the skin of their knees if they knelt for too long. Maybe it's not pity, then. Maybe an echo of past hurt, a lingering ache. Charlie can understand that.

"Well," Nick says simply, "now you know. 'Cause I do love you, and I do want to take care of you, so that's exactly what it should feel like." He presses a kiss to the underside of Charlie's jaw from where he's sat, propped against pillows and navy bedsheets, and he has to stretch and strain to do it, but Charlie can tell he thinks the touch is important. That Charlie is important. And maybe it's that easy.

"Get on with it, then," Charlie teases, and they both pretend that his voice doesn't shake slightly when he says it. He answers each one of Nick's questioning touches and searching gazes with reassurance, every soft, embarrassing noise a promise that everything he's doing is perfect.

And Christ, is it. He learns that he can roll his hips and Nick will shudder beneath him, blue eyes blown wide in surprise at Charlie taking charge for just a moment. He learns that there's a spot behind Nick's ear that makes his breath hitch when he presses his lips to it, nips gently with his teeth. He learns that Nick's hands are made for so many things other than rugby, and that really, anything that isn't the deft, nimble movement of his fingers taking Charlie apart and piecing him back together is just a waste of talent.

"Darling – please, can you ah – keep doing that?"

He learns very quickly that being called things like darling and love and sweetheart makes the heat low in his stomach curl tighter than anything else, and that's what finally shakes him apart, panting and trembling in the security of Nick's embrace. And that that fact doesn't scare him at all, because it's Nick , and there is perhaps nobody Charlie trusts more in the world. That he believes him when he murmurs I love you against the shell of his ear and drifts off to sleep, warm chest bare against Charlie's back.