A Collection of Heartstopper Oneshots

'Cause You're Not Here - Radclyffe

Summary:

Written for the 7th October 2023 prompt. Sorry/Autumn

Nick is in Leeds, Charlie is in Kent, Nick shouldn't take everything he finds on google literally.
Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:
The summer sun is fading as the year grows old,
And darker days are drawing near,
The winter winds will be much colder,
Now you're not here.

******

It is the bed that gets him. He is mostly okay during the day, too busy to be otherwise.

The weekend he moves in, after his Mum has given him one last hug and left for the Travelodge, there was unpacking his things and slotting them into his new life to keep him occupied. Hanging his clothes in the wardrobe, putting his books on the shelves, and setting up his laptop on the desk, checking the connection to the Wi-Fi is up and running, making up the bed.

Then there are the personal touches, his half of the most recent photo booth pictures, taken on the afternoon of the reconciliation, after their stupid misunderstanding over him coming here to Leeds in the first place. He sticks them on the wall with blu-tack even though the regulations state that it is forbidden. On his bedside table he places the framed photos, one of Charlie in the snow, and another of his Mum, Nellie, and Henry. He plugs in his clock radio and his phone charger, grateful for his Mum's thoughtfulness to add a four-socket extension lead to his essential shopping list.

On the notice board above the desk, he pins more photographs, mostly of the Paris squad taken in the summer, but also a selection of the photos of Charlie he took with his disposable camera especially for this purpose. He adds the print out of his first term's timetable the university sent him when they confirmed his place, and some information about Freshers' Week that he found in the room when he arrived.

Gradually over the weekend the flat along with the whole hall of residence fills up. Nick is sharing with four other first years. He meets Kallie and Louise first and helps Lou with a box of books, she is an English student, and then discovers with delight that Kallie will be studying French. He only mentions Charlie around fifty times in their first conversation, so the girls are left with no doubt that Nick has a boyfriend. Josh is next to arrive, and then Tom, both seem pretty decent guys, Tom is also studying sports science, but without the psychology minor, he and Nick arrange to check out the walk to the university department together to see how long it will take to get to lectures.

Freshers' Week passes in a blur of student union socials and society events and 2-4-1 offers on everything from burgers to bowling. Nick is introduced to at least a hundred people and can remember the names of about three of them. He signs up for a try-out with the Rugby team and tracks down the members that he met on his visit to the open day. He goes along to the LGBTQ Soc social with Josh, and survives the challenge of the Otley Run, though the morning after he thinks it might be touch and go.

He facetimes Charlie every evening, careful not to be too exuberant about his new experiences and to listen to everything that his boyfriend has to say about his life back in Kent, at home, and at Truham. Of course, Charlie knows exactly what Nick is up to and says at one point.

"Nick, you are allowed to enjoy it."

Nick smiles and wishes desperately that Charlie was there, enjoying it all with him.

In the second week, term begin in earnest, Nick only ends up in the wrong place twice, sitting in the library when he should have been in the lecture hall, and in the wrong lecture when he should have been in the science lab, although listening to his housemates he thinks he got away quite lightly. He joins in a general rugby practice and feels the eyes of the Team coach on him, but he doesn't know if he has done well enough to earn a place in the first fifteen.