A Collection of Heartstopper Oneshots

You Used to be My Boyfriend - Hey_Nonino

Summary:

Charlie wasn't sure what he expected to find when he rounded the corner. It certainly wasn't Nick Nelson, rugby king, gazing at him with wide, startled eyes beneath his perfect swoop of auburn hair.

"Oh!" Charlie said, suddenly tongue tied. Why was Nick Nelson in Charlie and Ben's make-out corner and why did he look so guilty? "Um," Charlie said intelligently.

"Charlie?"

"Um. You know who I am?"

Nick frowned. "I've been sitting next to you in form for a week now, don't you think I've learned your name?"

"Oh."

"Not that I learned it from you," Nick added. "I don't think you've said a single word to me."

How many people know about the make-out corner in the library? Charlie has an unexpected encounter when he goes to meet Ben one afternoon.
Notes:

I'm excited to post my first fiction in the Heartstopper fandom! I have gotten so much joy from these boys as well as from the many talented writers on AO3 bringing their own corners of the Heartstopper universe to life. I'm working on some longer pieces, but I had this idea and decided to sit down and pound it out. Shoutout to my dear sister for the beta read and general fangirling over Heartstopper with me.
Work Text:
There was someone in the library corner. Charlie felt a spurt of annoyance. He had waited a good fifteen minutes since the final bell ended classes for the day, and he had been sure that everyone else was out of the building. Ben insisted on it. He wasn't ready to be out; he got too much anxiety thinking about what people would say if they saw him anywhere near Charlie. Charlie got it, he really did. God knew he had been through enough crap for several lifetimes since he was outed the year before, and he would spare literally anyone from going through that particular hell, especially his kind-of boyfriend of five months.

He had hidden in one of the bathrooms as the school emptied, trying to fix his unruly black curls and smooth out the wrinkles in his uniform as he waited. It was hard for him to see what Ben saw in him, but he was trying to get better at it. Ben said he liked Charlie's face and that Charlie had kissable lips. He stared at his mouth in the mirror for a while, wondering what that meant. Ben's lips were smooth and soft and nice to kiss. Charlie was probably overthinking it. He overthought most things. He needed to relax into it, let whatever this was keep happening, so he didn't make Ben more anxious.

But it was hard to relax when someone was in their make-out spot.

Who was lurking in the corner, in the dark? Charlie could just see an arm, well-muscled, with a uniform sleeve rolled up to the elbow. It was definitely not Ben's arm. This arm's owner was taller and broader than Ben. It looked like Buff Boy was perched on the edge of the desk that was tucked into the corner. The desk where, last time, Ben had pushed Charlie to sit, and stood between his legs while they kissed, and it was nice. Very nice.

Charlie wasn't sure what to do. Ben would be here any minute. He could wait outside the library door, only there were two entrances, and what if Ben came to the other one? But what would Ben think if he saw some other boy lurking in their corner? Would he–oh, no–would he think that Charlie was meeting up with this other boy? That would be awful. Ben, despite his surface confidence, was deeply insecure. He worried all the time about whether Charlie really liked him. Charlie couldn't bear for another misunderstanding to happen when he could prevent it.

He squared his shoulders and walked into the library. The lights were already off, the weak winter sunlight dimly illuminating the neat rows of books. The office and computers were locked up, but the outer room with the long rows of bookshelves was usually left open overnight so that students could exchange books after school. No one ever seemed to do so, though, so it made a good make-out spot. Charlie liked to think that generations of queer students had found this out and utilized this particular dark corner for a few moments of joyful lust before going out into the corridors and hiding themselves away again. Statistically there must have been a good number of queer students at Truham in its hundred years, after all. Still, it was unexpected to encounter someone trying to use his spot at the same time.