A Collection of Heartstopper Oneshots

no regrets when i'm melting into you - bishyreadytocry

Summary:

"When he really thinks about it, his whole life since he was six years old has revolved around Charlie. Everything always comes back to Charlie Spring."

or

Heartstopper Vol 1, but if Nick and Charlie grew up together.
Notes:

Any canon dialogue is taken from the graphic novels. It does diverge from canon to make the childhood friendship work (e.g. Charlie never joins the rugby team because he doesn't need an excuse to get close to Nick) and some things happen at slightly different times.

CW: Ben Hope and his assault of Charlie, again following comic canon. Very, very brief mention of Charlie being outed and bullied. Comic!Nick also swears a lot, sorry. Please let me know if I've missed anything.
(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:
between you and me

suddenly

something, something, something

🍂🍂🍂

Nicholas Luke Nelson was six years old when he met his best friend, Charles Frances Spring. His mum had started taking him to gymnastics classes on Saturday mornings in a desperate attempt to burn off some of his ridiculous amounts of energy and, about three weeks in, another boy had started attending too. He was tiny, Nick remembers thinking. It wasn't that he was much shorter than Nick, he just seemed really small; all skinny and shy and hunched in on himself. Nick had spotted him keeping to himself in the corner of the hall and bounded over to him.

"Hi, I'm Nick! Do you need a friend?"

The boy had blinked back at him, looking confused and slightly startled. Nick remembered his mum telling him that it was important to be nice to everyone he met, so he had just stayed put and smiled widely until the other boy seemed to relax ever so slightly.

"Ok," he'd said in a very timid voice, and Nick had beamed at him and grabbed his hand to pull him over to where the rest of the class were.

Nick and Charlie had been inseparable ever since. They were in different years at school but Nick always made a point of finding Charlie in the playground to make sure he was involved in all the fun games they would play at break. While Charlie was just as loud and silly as Nick when they were hanging out at one of their houses, at school he seemed to shrink into himself and go quiet in a way that made Nick want to just wrap him up in his arms and protect him from the world, even at the age of six. He didn't mind looking after Charlie, because Charlie always looked after him, too.

When Nick is seven years old, he cries and cries when his dad doesn't come home from work one day. And then the next day, and the next day, and the next. Charlie doesn't understand what's going on, not really, but he hugs Nick and tells him it'll be ok. For some reason, Nick believes him.

When Nick is eight years old, Charlie falls over in the playground and cuts his knee. He bursts into tears and a whole bunch of kids start laughing until Nick bunches his little hands into fists and shouts at them all to shut up. He helps Charlie up and marches him to the nurses office with an arm around his shoulders, glaring at everyone around them as they go.

When Nick is nine years old, his mum brings a puppy home and Charlie comes over all the time to help Nick feed her and play with her in the garden. Charlie falls in love with Nellie just as much as Nick does, and they spend hours lying on Nick's living room floor laughing at her antics.

When Nick is ten years old, he breaks his arm and Charlie comes round to his house every day after school to write out his worksheets and help with his jobs around the house so that Nick's mum doesn't have to do everything herself.