A Collection of Heartstopper Oneshots

starlight, starcrossed - charlienick (Part 3)

Summary:

hi! welcome to the last installment of the main story! there's still an epilogue to be posted, but it's fully written. should be yours quite soon! (and look out for a supplemental piece, coming soon after that. and a sequel is being planned! more jewish little charlie forever)

thank you, as always, to my beloved theo who championed and betaed this fic. jewish little charlie is as much mine as he is yours. shared custody <3 love love love. (and thank you to lina who is a huge support to me when it comes to writing. and many things. and in life. i love u. hand heart emoji)

(also, you're really gonna want to click the translation links for this. i promise you)
Notes:

TRIGGER WARNINGS: descriptive panic attacks, internal self-effacement.
CONTENT WARNINGS: alcohol (no one's drunk), explicit sexual content.
Chapter Text
"Jacob kissed Rachel, and he raised his voice and wept . . . 'Indeed, you are my bone and my flesh.'"

— Genesis 29:11-14

🍃

Charlie cannot see. He cannot hear. He cannot feel. He hardly even knows if he's breathing. All he knows is that his skin is too tight, it hurts; that his heart feels like it's hammering away at his ribcage in the effort to break free and run from him; that his lungs will never not be constricted. All he knows is that he's here and so is Nick.

Nick. Charlie. Nick and Charlie. Nick and Not-Charlie. Charlie is gone. He was; he is no longer.

Charlie can see Nick's whole body angled towards him, keeping him out of view of the door and thus shrouding him from the rest of the world, but only distantly. Charlie can hear Nick's soothing, low voice in his ear saying things Charlie can't discern, but only distantly. It's all white noise, static. Right now, all he knows is that he is rocking back and forth rhythmically, something Bubbe called shoekling when he was young, thinking it was a form of prayer for him. It wasn't. It isn't.

About 18 months into when his anxiety spiralled into panic attacks, he developed what he called at the time his 'superpower' of being able to hold them back until he was alone. He used to schedule time in school to go to the bathroom and have one in his planner. His therapist at the time, Karen—kind of a nutter herself—told him that meant they weren't really panic attacks, that he just had anxiety. He would explain to Karen that, no, he would feel the full effect of what he'd googled on panic disorder, and had most, if not all, of the symptoms involved in having an attack. But to her, because it wasn't always an immediate physical reaction, it wasn't real anxiety.

But it was. It still is. He's just gotten really, really good at hiding it.

Sometimes though, it is an instant, hit-you-like-bricks reaction. But that's usually when he feels he is, quote-un-quote, 'allowed' to have one.

He's tried to work through this idea in therapy, that he isn't allowed to have anxiety unless it is in a palatable moment. Geoff says his natural ability to be able to stave it off until he can have a moment to himself doesn't help that thought process. He's tried to convince Charlie over the years in multiple stages of his development that he doesn't have to be palatable to be lovable. What a load of crap, Charlie thinks nowadays, and likely always will. Everyone deserves to love someone who is unburdened and unencumbered.

Which is why, as he shokeles through his panic attack with Nick by his side, whispering nothings that are too sweet for what Charlie deserves, he turns on Nick and spits, "Go."

Nick has seen him at his worst in all ways now, and he'll leave he'll leave because he should leave Charlie wants him to go go stay please stay please go please I tricked you into liking me you need to see how absolutely wretched I am I will make you see you need to see please see me—